Italian
With a series of basic stage props (a soccer ball, shirts from Roma and Lazio, a wig stand, a mask, a doctor’s mask, and some wigs still with the price tag) they portrayed the most significant characters from this section of the Divine Comedy: Paolo and Francesca, Count Ugolino, Brunetto Latini, Charon, and the various devils and monsters.
In this way, the Underdogs bring a different Dante to the stage: closer, more alive, more entertaining. A journey through circles, characters, and situations captivates the audience and brings more than one smile.
The first show of 34 songs (or almost) for 3 actors by the young theater company The Underdogs, a modern and ironic reinterpretation of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, was first performed in Sarmede in December 2025 and was followed by 14 replicas in various locations in Veneto, some even for free because, as the actors of the company stated in a Facebook post, they believe in quality work and know they have an excellent product, and their goal is simply to get known.
They are brilliant and engaging, even mentioning recognizable characters like Berlusconi or Voldemort. In reality, they are three young men, Stefano Zanchettin, Mattia Vettori, and Kejdi Haska, who, despite coming from three more scientific than humanistic educational backgrounds, attended the theater courses at the Da Ponte Academy in Vittorio Veneto and together thought that people needed to laugh in the theater but with the classics.
From there they chose Dante, the supreme poet, but they thought of modifying it not in content but in language to make it more accessible to the public. Their future projects instead involve the staging of a children’s show inspired by a fairy tale by Stefan Zavrel, the famous illustrator who inspired Sarmede’s International Exhibition of Illustration for Children, and the preparation of a Landlady that aims to both entertain and educate, dedicated to primary and secondary schools.
Three guys, who as their name suggests (underdogs), in their declared low profile, know how to stand out for originality, professionalism, and determination, and therefore will undoubtedly emerge in a world like that of entertainment, and in particular theater, which is so complex and demanding, because they have what it takes to do so.
at the Knights’ Lodge an original performance
As part of the two hundred events planned by the municipal administration to brighten the summer for the people of Treviso, one has stood out so far for its originality. In the beautiful setting of the Loggia dei Cavalieri, last night the theater company The Underdogs performed Dante’s Inferno, an irreverent yet very thought-provoking comedy.
Can Dante’s hell be condensed into a one-and-a-half-hour comedy? Three “unfortunate” members of the Company try, in an adaptation that ranges from prose to poetry, from romanticism to the pop culture of the last century.
With a black cloth behind them and everyone dressed in black, they first tried to divide the main roles (Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice) and then took turns, in fact, they interpreted all of them.
With a series of basic stage props (a soccer ball, shirts from Roma and Lazio, a wig stand, a mask, a doctor’s mask, and some wigs still with the price tag) they portrayed the most significant characters from this section of the Divine Comedy: Paolo and Francesca, Count Ugolino, Brunetto Latini, Charon, and the various devils and monsters.
In this way, the Underdogs bring a different Dante to the stage: closer, more alive, more entertaining. A journey through circles, characters, and situations captivates the audience and brings more than one smile.
The first show of 34 songs (or almost) for 3 actors by the young theater company The Underdogs, a modern and ironic reinterpretation of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, was first performed in Sarmede in December 2025 and was followed by 14 replicas in various locations in Veneto, some even for free because, as the actors of the company stated in a Facebook post, they believe in quality work and know they have an excellent product, and their goal is simply to get known.
They are brilliant and engaging, even mentioning recognizable characters like Berlusconi or Voldemort. In reality, they are three young men, Stefano Zanchettin, Mattia Vettori, and Kejdi Haska, who, despite coming from three more scientific than humanistic educational backgrounds, attended the theater courses at the Da Ponte Academy in Vittorio Veneto and together thought that people needed to laugh in the theater but with the classics.
From there they chose Dante, the supreme poet, but they thought of modifying it not in content but in language to make it more accessible to the public. Their future projects instead involve the staging of a children’s show inspired by a fairy tale by Stefan Zavrel, the famous illustrator who inspired Sarmede’s International Exhibition of Illustration for Children, and the preparation of a Landlady that aims to both entertain and educate, dedicated to primary and secondary schools.
Three guys, who as their name suggests (underdogs), in their declared low profile, know how to stand out for originality, professionalism, and determination, and therefore will undoubtedly emerge in a world like that of entertainment, and in particular theater, which is so complex and demanding, because they have what it takes to do so.
