Italian
On Tuesday, April 29th, a reading performance based on Marcella Farioli’s book, which analyzes the “dangerous” women depicted in classical Greek literature, will take place. Theatrical readings by the Tema Academy Company and musical interventions by the Manzato Modern Trio.
TREVISO. The classic theater festival “Mythos“, which has been enlivening the cultural scene of Treviso since 2022 organized by Tema Cultura, on Tuesday, April 29th (at 8pm) for the first time enters the Teatro Goldoni in Venice, thanks to the established collaboration with the Teatro Stabile del Veneto – Teatro Nazionale, which has included in the program “Fuoriserie” the reading show “Eroine. L’anomalie nécessaire“.
An adaptation by director Giovanna Cordova (artistic director of “Mythos”), based on the book by Marcella Farioli “Heroines: The Necessary Anomaly. Dangerous Women, Ideology of the Polis and Gynecophobia in Athens”, in which the author (from Université Paris Créteil) analyzes about sixty female figures represented in classical Athens as dangerous women: warriors, child killers, husbands’ murderers, evil stepmothers, poisoners, seductresses, witches, maidens who reject marriage, Maenads, and monsters with women’s faces pervade the theater, historiography, speeches, and images. Marcella Farioli, author of the book published in 2024 by Ca’ Foscari University Press, will speak on stage about its content, alternating with theatrical readings performed by young actors from Compagnia Tema Academy. The musical performances are curated by MTM, the Manzato Modern Trio, composed of Eleonora Biasin (vocals), Attilio Pisarri (guitar), and Giacomo Berlese (saxophone). The event will start at 7 pm in the Goldoni foyer with a welcome aperitif, featuring music by the Manzato Association from Treviso.
The study conducted by Marcella Farioli, through an extensive corpus of literary, iconographic, and epigraphic sources, examines the physiognomy and evolution of around sixty figures of dangerous women from myth, history, and pseudo-history, in relation to the contemporary political and social context and the changes in marital, hereditary, and dowry forms. Based on this perspective, the reading performance will present to the audience of “Mythos” the theses of Greek literature which, since Homer, describe women as a closed group separated from the neutral male universal and characterized by nature by traits and vices that determine their inferiority and dangerousness. Unreliability, lust, irrationality, and violence are just some of their characteristics.
Starting from the classical age, medicine, biology, and philosophy codify on a rational and “scientific” basis this vision and credit it in the following centuries. In the same centuries, Athenian theater brings on stage unforgettable figures of dangerous heroines, who embody women’s vices and admonish spectators to control their unrestraint: husbands’ and children’s assassins, vindictive mothers, wicked stepmothers, seductresses, enchantresses, bacchantes, and maidens who refuse marriage. Through a gallery of female characters that unfold in Greek sources from the archaic age to the classical age, the production of the “Mythos” festival will search for the causes and mechanisms underlying this vision, which permeates women’s destinies through the centuries up to our days.
The event on April 29th will see the collaboration of Classici Contro and Ca’ Foscari University, partners of the festival conceived and organized by Tema Cultura. For information: email amministrazione@temacultura; tel. 3462201356; www.temacultura.it.
With a request for publication and dissemination
Cristiana Sparvoli press office Festival “Mythos” – Treviso
T +39 3396407633 | email cris58cristiana@gmail.com
