ANDREA PENNACCHI A Little Odyssey

I came into possession of a copy of the Odyssey quite early: when I was in middle school, my father ran the book stand at the Unity party in my neighborhood, while my mother reigned unchallenged in the smoking kitchens. The rain had damaged a prose version of Garzanti, and my dad gave it to me. There was no difference, for me, between Tolkien and Homer, it was a great story, indeed a story of stories, in which I had no difficulty recognizing the people I loved: my father returning from the concentration camp, my mother waiting, defending herself from invaders, mourning, joy. And I have always wished to tell it. The Odyssey has been defined: “a tale of tales”, a majestic cathedral of tales and storytellers, crossed by references to other stories, myths, in a dense network designed to capture the reader. Just its wonderfully constructed for reading, however, makes it difficult to tell on stage, rich as it is. We thought of giving it back the flavor of oral storytelling by proposing a multi-voice version, which also gives the right weight to the rich female component and the actual return. Few remember, in fact, that much of the story takes place over a few days, between Odysseus’ departure from Ogygia and his triumph over the suitors and reunion with his wife, son, and father. The rest of the story, the most well-known part, is told by bards, by his old companions, by Telemachus and Penelope, and by Odysseus himself. We will start from the hut of stories, that hut of the clear Eumaeus, prince and guardian of pigs, in which the real reconquest of Ithaca by Odysseus begins. So close to my childhood, a burning core from which my love for storytelling was born.