La casa d’argilla

Country: Italy

Biography

Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli Author, actress and director. Among her many works: La casa d’argilla, Il libro delle domande, Foto di gruppo in un interno, La bella dormente nel bosco (opera), Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Brecht, Jakob von Gunten from Robert Walser. She has curated several special projects as artistic director, including Wake up! Bagliori della primavera araba and IF/Invasioni (dal) Futuro. She has also directed Edward Bond’s Lear as well as his radio drama The Testament of This Day. She has co-authored and performed in Les Adieux! Parole salvate dalle fiamme. In 2019, she was awarded with the UBU Best Direction Prize for When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell, produced by ERT / Teatro Nazionale. In 2021 she directed Heart’s Desire by Caryl Churchil. In 2022 she co-directed with Alessandro Ferroni, The Ministry of Loneliness, an original play and in 2023 Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch: the two creations were awarded with the UBU prize for Best Direction. In 2023 she has co-directed and performed the multimedia creation The Lonely City by Olivia Laing. In 2024 she co-directed with A. Ferroni Uccellini by Rosalinda Conti and in 2026 Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill.

lacasadargilla is a theatre collective founded by Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, Alessandro Ferroni, Alice Palazzi and Maddalena Parise. Drawing on theatre, cinema, visual arts and philosophy, the collective creates productions, multimedia performances and site-specific projects, combining textual, visual, physical and sonic elements.

Their work explores themes such as time, collective memory, myth, and the social and ecological fragility of contemporary life. The collective has received several UBU Awards, including Best Direction, Best Foreign Play, Best Show and Best Acting awards for productions such as When the Rain Stops Falling, Anatomy of a Suicide and The Ministry of Loneliness.

In 2024, Heart’s Desire by Caryl Churchill was presented at London’s Coronet Theatre. In 2026, lacasadargilla was invited to become an Associated Artist of the Coronet Theatre, with two further productions presented in London: Uccellini by Rosalinda Conti and Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill.

L’amore del cuore

A family is waiting for their daughter to come home from Australia. Around a table, a seemingly ordinary conversation unfolds — but the scene keeps stopping, rewinding and starting again. The same moment returns, each time with a different outcome.

Caryl Churchill transforms a simple family reunion into a theatrical laboratory where reality can be endlessly rewritten. Words, gestures and relationships shift with every repetition, revealing the fears, desires and expectations hidden beneath everyday life.

In Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli’s precise and unsettling staging, the domestic space becomes a place where theatre itself is exposed: a fragile construction constantly being dismantled and rebuilt.

Heart’s Desire is a play about waiting, possibility and the gap between what we imagine will happen and what actually happens.