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Menelaus
performed and directed by Teatrino Giullare
text by Davide Carnevali
lights Francesca Ida Zarpellon
thanks to Gianluca Vigone and David Sarnelli
a co-production Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione and Teatrino Giullare
with the support of Regione Emilia-Romagna
director’s notes
An idea is born from one’s mind and tragedy begins. Reason is to be blamed for this.
Menelaus starts puzzling over and pushes the conflict with his own ambitions to such a point that makes him unable to distinguish ideas from actions; he ends up being unable to live and love. Among books, statues and other memories, under the serious gaze of some irreverent gods, Menelaus struggles to find a reason to his life, without finding any.
He was not able to be become what he wanted to be, he is not a hero, he is not the protagonist in any story, he is just a minor character. This is why he writes his own gestures, trying to create his character, another self, an eidolon who is, in turn, incapable of living.
A short-circuit is produced between real and imaginary, a double cross where desperately comic words are used and myth is revealed through concepts like love, dream, conscience and death.
Menelaus has everything, lives in prosperity but still cannot enjoy his life. In his useless quest for a solution to his misery, he oversteps time, he does not live nor die.
A miserable impasse caused by the confused desires of a man who has to cope with his ideal self, a contemporary tragedy, indeed.
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