LidOdissea

Written and directed by Gianfranco Berardi, Gabriella Casolari

in collaboration with César Brie

starring Gianfranco Berardi, Gabriella Casolari, Ludovico D’Agostino, Silvia Zaru

elaborazioni musicali e collaborazione drammaturgica Ludovico D’Agostino

Light design and technical direction by Mattia Bagnoli

costume design by Giada Fornaciari

scene decoration by Sara Paltrinieri

company organizer Benedetta Pratelli

Produced by IGS APS, Fondazione Luzzati Teatro della Tosse, Teatro Stabile Friuli Venezia Giulia, Manifatture Teatrali Milanesi – MTM Teatro, Accademia Perduta – Romagna Teatri SCRL, Comune di Bassano del Grappa.

Backed by MiC – DIREZIONE GENERALE SPETTACOLO and Centro di Residenza della Toscana (Armunia – CapoTrave/Kilowatt), Comune di Sansepolcro

Special thanks to Teatro dei Venti

LidOdissea is an original dramaturgy, which continues and deepens the reflection on contemporary society already implemented in the company's previous works. The work responds to the desire to investigate the sense of restlessness that, like a ghost, hovers over the contemporary man, immersed in the society that surrounds him, and on the inadequacy that the comparison with it produces in him. 

Starting from the personal experiences of the artists, LidOdissea is the result of a comparison and encounter with the Homeric poem: the Odyssey was progressively transformed into a subtext, giving life to a play in which distant mythological echoes fuse with stories of the present. Ulysses, Penelope and Telemachus: a family on holiday in a seaside resort, which between flashbacks and flashforwards relives and recounts the adventures of the mythological journey, transforming it into an internal journey to discover the limits, difficulties and paradoxes of contemporary society. 

A journey that the three characters, accompanied by the figure of a blind bard, undertake outside and inside themselves, grappling with a space and a time in which they cannot find themselves, immersed in a society that would like us everywhere at the same time, more and more fast, but with less and less time available. 

In this world where human error is always a fault and numbers speak louder than words; where every action must be effective, aimed at achieving an objective and the other side of the coin is always and only failure, the protagonists recall encounters with extravagant characters, hilarious and tragic episodes, paradoxical and grotesque situations, grappling with all the their inadequacy towards the contemporary world. 

The four characters reflect on the concept of identity, on the way of being in the world, on the evolution of relationships between human beings.