The Great Prose Festival under the aegis of CeDac Sardegna kicks off tomorrow at the Teatro Verdi in Sassari (beginning at 8:30 pm) with "Iliad / The Game of the Gods." This original version of the Homeric myth is presented by Quadrivio — Roberto Aldorasi , Alessio Boni , Francesco Niccolini , and Marcello Prayer —who, after "The Duellists" and the staging of "Don Quixote," bring Homer's celebrated poem to the stage to engage with a masterpiece of Western culture and the tale of the most famous of all wars.
In the "Iliad" rewritten by Francesco Niccolini, an "aged" Zeus appears, aware of the crisis of "his" kingdom, alongside Hera, his wife, who tries to revive him by recalling the glories of antiquity: humans no longer fear the power of the supernals, no longer obey their whims and instead try to defy fate, but in the epic conflict between the Achaeans and the Trojans, the Olympians still decided the fate of the armies and heroes - like Hector and Achilles - could not escape their destiny.
An opportunity to rediscover the myth and reflect on the dangerous allure of the "game of weapons" which, millennia later, continues to sow death and destruction on the planet and bewitch the powerful of the earth: on the stage alternate the domestic quiet of Olympus, where the gods allow themselves to be overwhelmed by their passions and show their inclinations, and the battles and duels between the Homeric heroes, culminating in the fall of Troy, a perfect synthesis of the ferocity and absurdity of war.
The show is a production of the Nuovo Teatro company directed by Marco Balsamo, in co-production with the Donizetti Theatre Foundation of Bergamo, the Theatre Foundation of Tuscany and the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia.
