62
By Ghiannis Ritsos
Translation by Nicola Crocetti
Concept and Direction: Alessandro Machìa
Performed by Andrea Tidona and Carolina Vecchia
Set Design: Katia Tolo
Costume Design: Sara Bianchi
Lighting Design: Giuseppe Filippone
Hair and Make-up: Giorgio Bertinelli
Assistant Director: Nicole Mastroianni
Photography and Graphic Design: Manuela Giusto
Presented by Associazione Culturale Aletheia Teatro
Artistic Director: Carla Guido
Free admission, subject to venue capacity
In Yannis Ritsos' reinterpretation of AGAMENNONE, the King of Mycenae is no longer the powerful commander who led the Greek expedition against Troy, but an ageing man who has finally returned home after a long and exhausting war. Confronted with memory, loss and the burden of responsibility, he reflects upon his life with extraordinary honesty and vulnerability.
No longer Homer's triumphant warrior, Agamemnon is portrayed as a man profoundly scarred by conflict, capable of one final act of courage: offering his own account of the past in a deeply personal confession to his wife, Clytemnestra.
As though forewarned by Cassandra of the death awaiting him, Agamemnon retraces the path of a ten-year journey—not in an attempt to escape his fate, but to bear witness to the few genuine victories he has achieved over himself, foremost among them the lucid recognition of his own vanity.
Rather than resisting destiny, he confronts his mistakes, arriving at a profound awareness of the fragility and futility of human ambition. His dialogue with Clytemnestra becomes an intimate confession shaped by remorse and memory, while other women who marked his life gradually emerge within the narrative: Iphigenia, the daughter sacrificed to secure favourable winds for the voyage to Troy, and Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, brought to Mycenae as a captive after the war. Their presence merges into a single symbolic figure embodying memory, guilt and destiny.
Where Aeschylus never reveals what takes place inside the royal palace, Ritsos leads the audience beyond its walls, into the private space where Agamemnon recounts the story of a man permanently transformed by war—a sensitive and profoundly vulnerable human being whose experiences have altered him forever.
Through this quiet awareness of his own failings and of the absurdity of human existence, Agamemnon acquires an almost sacred dignity. Even the smallest movement of an ant becomes a reflection of his own struggles, revealing a humanity capable of recognising the suffering that unites all living beings.
AGAMENNONE forms part of MITIKA – Teatro e Mito nella contemporaneità, the Festival's theatre programme within Harmonies on Stage, presented by Associazione Culturale Aletheia Teatro under the artistic direction of Carla Guido.
The programme also features DEDALO E ICARO, OLTRE IL VOLO and CIRCE: LE ORIGINI—three productions that restore the enduring relevance of classical myth, transforming it into a living language through which to interpret the contemporary world. Icarus and Daedalus, Agamemnon and Circe transcend time to engage once again with the present, embodying enduring tensions between the individual and society, destiny and free will, vulnerability and redemption.
This performance forms part of Armonie del Mediterraneo – Viaggi, Miti e Ritorni, conceived and presented by the Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Heritage Agency in collaboration with the Municipality of Lecce, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Tourism under the National Tourism Fund (FUNT) – 2025 Current Expenditure Programme (CUP F89I25002020001).
