Romeo Castellucci and Societas Raffaello Sanzio: Hey Girl

This is a rare opportunity to see Italian director Romeo Castellucci and Socîetas Raffaello Sanzio perform stateside. The Italian visual theater star has challenged audiences in Europe for years, and now he visits Midwestern America, bringing a work that explores aspects of the female experience, inspired by his observations of a group of girls waiting for a bus. The piece begins with a solitary woman embedded in slime, a birth event from which she emerges fully grown, ready to take on literary archetypes, cultural stereotypes, and a violent society. There are no easy moments here, instead we witness beauty and horror occurring within an ingenious set in which mind-searing imagery unfolds. The modern woman has to contend with centuries of intrusions, but she's also found strength, if not peace, as a result. In Castellucci's theater there is room for angry and empathic responses, the personal and the political in a tight space, the rank darkness of the human capacity to harm, and the bright light of individual transformation. You may find yourself reveling in the work or fiercely rejecting it, but if nothing else, this is the theater of provocation, as unique an experience as a Castelluci visit to these parts.
Feb. 14-16, 8 p.m.; Sun., Feb. 17, 7 p.m., 2008