“Faust, fait, non dit”: Castellucci’s Vertigo Before THE Pact

“I do not live in the name, but in the mark”

It all begins with a vision recurring in the Italian master’s work: an opaque curtain, reminiscent of his Tragedia Endogonidia. Then comes a sound—gaffer tape being pulled—and a visual: a strip of red gaffer tape being applied to the surface by a hand. Next, a mechanical fist strikes the fabric, which seems to ripple like water. There you have it: the play has been underway for 20 seconds, and the festival of signifiers is already out in full force. No time to catch your breath before a neon light snaps in two, and the now-open curtain confronts us with a deeply eerie image. An old man, resembling the ghost of the incontinent father from On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God, lingers in bed, drained of blood. He is nearly corpse-like, having lost all control. His living space is a field of ruins where stems and lights hang, creating substitute crosses emptied of their Christ. Even his shoes are unwearable because they catch fire—and besides, having a gas cylinder at home right next to the bed is dangerous. Everything is going wrong here; the gloom is absolute.