also scheduled on
October 4, 2024 18:30

as part of Fabbrica Europa 2024

Lourdes is a scenic sharing conceived for a small audience, that takes place in a dilated and repeated time articulated not only by the performers but by the audience itself. Lourdes asks its audience to inhabit the theatrical and performative space, which is not only stripped from the frontality of the center stage (that in our case does not exist), but has also at its core the will to nullify the centrality of the performer as the center of attention and visual focus, to dislocate eyes and hands in other directions, thus resetting this theatrical hierarchy.

What we want to offer to the audience is the possibility to escape from the role of those who observe, but to actually participate in the scenic state in all its entirety. Apart from being able to place themselves as they like (you could stay seated, exchange seat, lay on the floor, stand and walk around, actively deciding where to lay your eyes and attention), the audience is invited to interact with numerous stage props, which are nothing more than the tools that were used during the research process and creation of Lourdes: pencils and markers, paper sheets, the books on which we studied, and a lot of other things. This potential distraction is, for us, an entry door to a new way of inhabiting and participating in a theatrical space, as the audience establishes itself as a sort of temporary and everchanging community.

Another fundamental element is the transcript (in different languages) of the spoken parts, that is displayed on numerous smartphones scattered all over the stage, and that can be consulted at will by the audience. Apart from being an accessibility tool for hearing impaired people, non-italian speakers or for those who have a difficult time keeping their focus, this performative dissemination removes even more the performers from their theatrical centrality, granting the audience the possibility to be part of this sound immersion without ever looking at the performers.
– Emilia Verginelli –

Emilia Verginelli was born in Rome and graduated in the United States. She is an actress, performer, director, and author. She has worked in cinema since 2004 and was a member of Emma Dante’s Sud Costa Occidentale company from 2011 to 2019. Combining her passion for theater with a strong interest in social issues, she has volunteered as a theater artist at the Opera Don Guanella in Rome since 2001 and founded a permanent theater workshop within the juvenile court structures in 2003, along with the Onlus Gruppo Sorriso. She is currently involved in projects aimed at integrating unaccompanied adolescents into the workforce.
In 2010, she created fivizzano27, an independent cultural space in the Pigneto district of Rome, with the goal of fostering collaboration and sharing among various contemporary theater realities. This space, detached from traditional production logic, generates and facilitates exchanges, relationships, and embryonic stages of performative works.
Since 2019, she has been actively collaborating with L’Angelo Mai in Rome, a reference point for the contemporary scene.
In 2019, she directed and conceived io non sono nessuno, a project that was a finalist at the Premio Scenario 2019, presented in preview at Short Theatre 2020, and later at the Santarcangelo Festival. In 2023, she debuted Lourdes at the Santarcangelo Festival, continuing her artistic exploration of a documentary style that investigates where the self is situated beyond the collective.

by and with Emilia Verginelli
and with Sandra Riletti
literary consultancy by Sara De Simone
sound by Francesca Cuttica
lighting by Camila Chiozza
produced by Bluemotion
LIS interpretation by Edgarda Samaritani
translations by Brianda Carreras, Alexia Sarantopoulou, Elise Blotière, Tomasz Kireńczuk, Naoures Roussi, Neon Loriga, Yan Duyvendak
special thanks to Roberta Luciani, Viola lo Moro, Andrea Pizzalis, Naoures Rouissi, Filomena Fusco, Vincenzo Rilletti, Benedetto Patruno, Ubaldo, Gianni, Alessandro, Andrea Beghetto, Luisa Merloni
project supported by FONDO Network per la creatività emergente
and winner of the call CURA 2022

photo: Claudia Pajewski