written by: Pier Franco Brandimarte
direction: Monica Ciarcelluti

with: Irida Gjergji, Marco Massarotti
scenography: Saverio Todaro
costumes and equipment: Miriam Di Domenico
stage photos Mazen Jannoun
production: ARTERIE/ Le Funambole

SYNOPSIS

… “The teenage hero” is given the choice of whether to follow Athena’s mirages of strength alone or the complexity of a soul inclined to culture and understanding of the world of Maga Regina. Many suggestions between myth and modernity, combined with music and physical expression…
Mario Bianchi on the online review of Teatro Ragazzi, “Eolo”- Palla al centro, July 2013 / Perugia

THE STORY

The classic myth of Perseus and Medusa tells of a mission accomplished without any problems: a strong boy kills the monster and becomes a hero, fulfilling his destiny. As any boy can be, he is somewhat uncertain, a kind of Pinocchio puppet, characterless, naive and defenceless. The original story thus undergoes important deviations, enriched by the chiaroscuro and deceptive appearances with which a destiny can be inculcated; a contemporary update in which Athena becomes an entity that easily loses its aspirations and desires under the pressure of dominant models. “To be Perseus”, through a jazz of mythology (with direct references, others hidden and to be discovered) and twists and turns, reflects on the manipulative potential of any education and the development of critical consciousness. Once again, the classic myth, with the fascination of its symbols and the fun of its stories, comes out and starts addressing us again.

The show participated in the Premio Scenario Infanzia with the provisional title of Maga Regina.

DIRECTION NOTES

Let’s suppose we play the game of “wrong” fairy tales, as Gianni Rodari would say, let’s put a stage with the features of a big screen, a big installation, an object-complement through which we can browse the whole story, let’s put a myth to be told, the myth of Perseus, but what if this time we have a completely wrong Hero, he himself is to be reinvented. The myth of Perseus, which has been revised and written since the beginning, here he is contaminated by web-culture, he comes alive on the virtual pages of an e-book or an I-pad to propose the old question: What does it mean to be a hero?

Perseus becomes a video game, a computer app, a virtual character that through the thousands of filters of the media world, recurring in childhood education, will seek his own path and identity. We thus witness a succession of images, it is a show in the show, a theatrical mise en abîme in which the actors “play” the game of heroes.