Anfitrione - Regia Teresa Ludovico

Who am I if I am not myself? When I look at my equal, I see my appearance, identical, there is nothing more similar to me! Am I the one I have always been? Where did I die? Where did I lose my person? Could it be that I left my true self? Could I have forgotten? Who is more unfortunate than me? No one recognizes me anymore and everyone mocks me as they please. I no longer know who I am! These are some of the questions that torment both the protagonists of Amphitryon, written by Plautus over 2000 years ago, and many of us today. The duality, the construction of a fictitious identity, the theft of the self, the loss of being guaranteed by a social role, are the themes that Plautus hands down to us in a new form, defined by him as tragicomedy, because the events concern gods, masters, and slaves. In it, the supreme Jupiter, after transforming himself into various animal, plant, and natural forms, decides, for the first time, to disguise himself as a man. He takes on the appearance of Amphitryon, far from home, in order to mate with his wife, the beautiful Alcmena, and conceive with her the demigod Hercules. Jupiter-Amphitryon during the night of love, as long as three nights, tells Alcmena, as if he had experienced them personally, episodes of Amphitryon's journey. During the story, the god felt, for the first time, a hilarity that he then made sure to leave as a gift to men. "Having abandoned the realm of metamorphoses, one entered that of counterfeiting" Incipit Comoedia (R. Calasso). "Open your eyes, spectators, it's worth it: Jupiter and Mercury are performing here" (Plautus). From that moment on, in theatrical performances, the comic and the dreadful would coexist and would mirror our mortal and imperfect lives. After Plautus, many have rewritten Amphitryon, each trying to listen to the stimuli and anxieties of their own time. I have tried to do it too. Teresa Ludovico
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