The Odyssey: a story that returns

Timetable

Friday: 10:00

Saturday: 20:00

On stage, a narrator and a musician tell us the story of Odysseus, the man who set out far from home and longs to return, and of Penelope, the woman who waits for him. The narration, woven together with fragments, images, and musical traces, adopts different points of view and allows itself improvisations and detour – just as the oral songs passed down from generation to generation by the ancient bards once did, the very storytellers who first recounted The Odyssey.

This performance was born from the desire to share a timeless classic: an eternal, intricate, and multifaceted story that contains within it the seeds of our modern world and the values we still strive to uphold today, foremost among them the duty to welcome those who arrive from distant lands. The stage setting is minimal yet evocative: a sea of books and a blackboard recall the world of school without ever naming it. The text flows naturally, moving between improvisation, storytelling, and original quotations from the epic poem. Sometimes all theatre needs is a voice, a guitar, and a good story to tell.

The Characters
She, the narrator, is an avid reader with a remarkable tendency to get delightfully lost in literary quotations. He, the musician, knows very little about The Odyssey. They find themselves on stage together, almost by chance, weaving words and music, banter and interruptions, as they recount the adventures of Odysseus – the man who left home twenty years ago and has been trying ever since to return – and Penelope, the woman who waits for him. The result is a narration filled with fragments, images, music, and words.

The Performance
Within the twenty-four books of The Odyssey lie countless themes – far too many to be explored one by one in detail. Choices must therefore be made. But how? By what criterion has the narrator selected certain episodes, highlighted some images, and left others in the background?

The ending is both surprising and reassuring: storytelling is always an act of love, just as learning is. It becomes easier when the pages speak about us and reveal something we are unable to express on our own.

That is why The Odyssey is a story that keeps returning, one that never dies. It changes before our eyes, yet even after three thousand years it still offers adventures that feel modern, contemporary, and deeply familiar. The stage of life remains the same: a hero sets out, encounters obstacles and dangers, and to succeed must make use of whatever lies at hand – fear and courage alike. The Odyssey still has much to tell us. Everything we have not managed to explain is waiting for you there... Read it for yourselves!