Franco Branciaroli re-stages a play which is a cornerstone of Italian theatre: the Medea directed by Luca Ronconi, in which he performed in 1996.
A continuation of the work of the great director who died in 2015, brought back to the stage by one of the artists with whom he worked the closest and for the longest period.
“Medea - as we can read in Ronconi’s director's notes - the the prototype of a heroine torn between resentment against her companion and love for her children, while sociological analysis tends to transform the Princess of Colchis into a kind of forerunner of the feminist movement. Athens prepares to become the stage for Medea’s devastating passion, once she has completed her plot for revenge in Corinth. The main character thus tends to be presented not as a woman torn apart by love or a feminist ahead of her time, but rather as a ‘threat’, and moreover as a threat which looms over the audience”.
“I do not play a woman - explains Branciaroli - I play the role of a man who is playing a female part, there is a great difference. Medea is a legend: she represents the ferocity of destructive force. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of the Greek audiences: seeing the tragedy, knowing that Athens will be struck by a force which will strike the new generations, her children”: ‘Medea with the eyes of a bull’, as she is defined in the beginning. She is boundless, with a sinister power. She uses her femininity as a mask, in order to commit a terrible series of crimes: it is no coincidence that the first to fall is a woman, the queen, the new bride of Jason”.