Some 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 sometimes the audience, sometimes the actual characters in the story being staged, 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 shipwrecked, carrying with it two young girls, Palestra and Ampelisca. The two women, shipwrecked, 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 had been kidnapped many years earlier...

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main themes: play, collaboration, creativity, storytelling, friendship, justice, theatre within theatre, theatre in life

 

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 in 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 basically those that arise in anyone who is faced with the question “what if...?”

 

The show is designed to be adaptable, 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.

 

Stage direction, dramaturgy and translation: Giacomo Lisoni and Arianna Sangiuliano