I love theatre and I am a painter. I believe that theatre and painting are a love marriage.
Marc Chagall
Although the relationship between Dady Orsi’s theatre and art is not exactly a marriage, it could be compared to one of those youthful loves, whose experience and intensity leave significant traces throughout life. If the encounter with the world of theatre (in particular with Grassi, Parenti, Treccani and Testori) took place at the end of the 1930s, the works of which sketches are still preserved date back to the 1940s. Set designs are an area of Orsi’s artistic craftsmanship about which little is known. Although no photographic documentation has yet been found of the outcome of their realisation on the stage, the sketches show how the scenes were conceived in a very spartan manner, given the historical moment of general scarcity, as simple panels and wings, with a hint of simple furnishing elements easily available from the cloakroom. To convey the expressive content and overcoming the poverty of the structures, the author uses strong, contrasting colour fields or large striped motifs.
