So is this how a world ends? Motus makes its debut in Rome with Tutto Brucia, a rewrite of Euripides’ The Trojan Women – through the words of J. P. Sartre, Judith Butler, Ernesto De Martino, Edoardo Viveiros de Castro, NoViolet Bulawayo, Donna Haraway – which adds a piece to the excavation, conducted by the company, of the tragic figures.
The Trojan Women is a tragedy that begins with an ending. The conflict has already passed, Troy has already been destroyed. What remains, among the ruins, are the ghosts of the past that still stir the present. The future is uncertain, and dangerous – yet, still to be imagined. The pandemic, the climate disaster, migrations: this time of the Anthropocene takes the form of a camp of tents where prisoners wait to be enslaved. Hecuba’s broken body, Cassandra’s prophetic word, that sees beyond the end, Polyxena’s ghostly cry, Andromache’s invocation to the dead, the violence suffered by Helen and finally the most fragile and defenceless body, the one of the child, Astyanax – all give voice to the most exposed and vulnerable subjects.
Which lives matter? What makes a life worthy of mourning?
In an empty space, covered by ash and the corpses of sea monsters, questions of radical vulnerability emerge. Natural elements make up the emotional landscape: in a post-human horizon it is the river, the forest, the dust that cry. It is through pain that the characters in the tragic scene are materially transformed – they become other than themselves. A metamorphosis that, only if it faces grief and pain, opens up to other possible forms. And writes the world to come.
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Tutto Brucia is a co-production of the Teatro di Roma – Teatro Nazionale, presented as part of the 2021-2022 season of the Teatro India in collaboration with Short Theatre, whose repeat performances will continue until 23 September.
