MATR - The gestural play

The mother is the one who forms, who measures, who prepares. Everything starts from the mother; she is the measure of all things. To return to her is like returning to the deepest origin, which may prove necessary to understand the adversities of our lives.

Sometimes to resolve a generational score is essential to heal a wound. Other times, however, it is better to immerse ourselves in it.

The show, which blends gestural theater and speech, irony and drama, has as its main idea to question pain and its denial. Human beings often react to suffering with denial, rejection or even oblivion, but the wounds never really leave our bodies. Placing the figure of the mother at the center, “MATR.” traces a miscarriage to address the generational succession of unresolved trauma and unspoken words.

The performance takes shape in a set of photographs punctuated by omnipresent loneliness and consists of a regressus ad uterum as an indispensable rite; a kind of journey to accept and confront the difficulty of feeling alone and lost in the world, as well as to give voice to an inexplicable, innate sense of guilt.

In a dialogue with the mother - statuesque and unattainable - the play's character confronts his most visceral fears within the place where, presumably, we feel most protected during our existence; that same place that is also, after all, the loneliest place we know: the womb.

Credits:

Concept, direction, and performance: Isabella Giampaolo

Outside eye: Ylenia Santo

Artistic collaborator: William Caruso

Lighting designer: Christoph Siegenthaler

Lighting designer and operator: Andrea Verdaglia

Set designer: Isabella Giampaolo

Set designer: Antonio Giampaolo

Voice over: Lorenzo Frediani

With the support of: Pars Stiftung, Claudia Lombardi Foundation for Theatre

From 14 years old | 50 min. without break | In Italian