OSOPPO THEATRE VALENTINA CORTESE

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28th February 2026 at 15:00* and 19:00

*subject to a minimum number of participants

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A group of fishermen, distressed by yet another unprofitable day of fishing, hunger and heat, decide to tell each other a story to pass the time and relieve their boredom. This expedient soon turns into a full-blown performance, animated by a group of “improvised” actors who are now the internal audience, now the actual characters in the staged story, namely Plautus' Latin comedy Rudens: the star Arturo raises a terrible storm off the coast of Cyrene, Libya, to restore some justice to human affairs. Thus, the ship of an old slave merchant travelling to Sicily is wrecked, carrying with it two young girls, Palestra and Ampelisca. The two shipwrecked women land on the beach, where their master and his Sicilian companion also find refuge shortly afterwards. On that shore, next to the temple of Venus, lives an old Athenian, Demone, from whom a little girl was kidnapped many years earlier...

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The result of an original rewriting, the show is aimed primarily at children and pre-teens between the ages of 10 and 13, with the aim of introducing them to great literary texts in a fun way through theatrical play, as well as suggesting - through certain plot twists - possible constructive solutions to certain types of conflict that commonly occur in everyday life. Beyond Plautus' plot, the focus is also on the power of imagination: that of the fishermen who decide to tell each other a story to pass the time, as well as that of the slave Gripo, a character within the story and, not surprisingly, also a fisherman, who finds a chest in the sea containing who knows what riches. The discovery arouses in the poor fisherman - and not only in him - an endless series of dreams, which are ultimately those that arise in anyone faced with the question “what if...?”.

 

The show is designed to be adapted, depending on demand, to young audiences of different age groups. A fundamental feature for engaging young audiences is the frequent breaking of the fourth wall, as well as the simplification of the language, while respecting the Plautine matrix of the text.

 

DIRECTION, DRAMATURGY AND TRANSLATION Giacomo Lisoni and Arianna Sangiuliano

STARRING the cast of actors under 30