Die drei Musketiere (The three musketeers)

The Three Musketeers, of whom there are actually four, appear and think about their loneliness. Can their famous slogan «One for all and all for one» be explained mathematically? Who is «the one» here? And who are «all»? They transform themselves into their own servants and horses and reconstruct Dumas’s story – and above all they question it. The musketeers are fighting for their lives and the actors are acting as if their lives depend on it.

In his adventure novel «The Three Musketeers», first published in 1844, Alexandre Dumas confronts us with a series of literary inconsistencies that the Italian director Antonio Latella, Theatre Director of the Venice Biennale since 2017, seizes upon to engage in a duel with the original material. In the tradition of Commedia dell’Arte the actors challenge it to a fight with words, weapons and a healthy dose of Italian anarchy. Hope dies last.

«Friendship has now become a convenience. It is no longer actually a necessity. In the past it was almost more important than the relationship one had with one’s partner. If ‹All for one and one for all› is true, then who is this one? And who are the all who are for that one? Is there one person for whom everyone would be willing to die? Who might that be? At present the situation is that I am one and at the same time all – and at the same time one who does not succeed in being all. We might want to but we cannot all be equal and being equal to each other does not automatically make us a whole. We do not succeed in being a whole.» Antonio Latella

Production transferred from Theater Basel