Seven elderly women weave the threads of their memories into a tapestry coloured by the warm hues of a sunset over the Aegean Sea. Rather than frightening them, the proximity of the natural end of life lightens their material burden, making them almost as diaphanous as the translucent atmosphere that surrounds them, ready to dissolve into nature, to return as docile fibres of the universe.

Their past is relived in dialogues that often break down into whispered monologues to themselves. In the background, the Greek sea, calm in its colours and evening scents, silently dominates the scene and the memories. The sea, which in Greek is feminine (η θάλασσα), has been their lifelong companion but also their invincible rival, the “woman” who took their children and husbands, sometimes never to return them. A cruel lover, impossible to resist, who marked the lives of our protagonists.

 

Ritsos was able to paint the atmospheres and memories of a Greek community during the years of his youth, spent in his native Monemvasia, preserving the emotions in the delicate veils of lyricism and elegy.

 

Translation: Massimo Cazzulo

Stage direction: Eri Çakalli

Props and costumes: Chiara Barlassina

Starring: Marta Banfi, Eleonora Fedeli, Giulia Quercioli, Federica Scazzariello