Il ramo secco. Sul mito della madre barbara e de-genere tra scena, storia e società

On the vast horizon of the tradition and the betrayal of the classics, this paper intends to confront, by means of significant examples, how the legacy of the character of Medea, «autre» par excellence (as a foreigner, woman, degenerate mother, exterminator of ghenos), took shape on the 19th/20th-century stage and on the contemporary one. Medea’s legacy is a complex and fascinating subject, very topical, which has deep roots, and whose model has changed shape and relocated over time as an instrument of socio-political and identity-making reflection, an ideal starting point for a debate on inter-generational passages (mother/father and son/daughter relationships) and the inequality of gender and status (citizens versus “foreigners”, in the broadest sense of the word “otherness”). If in the course of the 19th century Medea became a symbol with a double significance, social liberation and the crediting of interpretive qualities, in the contemporary theatre the model took on other meanings, tied to new semantic spheres, in particular that which concerns the borders of a territory, the rights of citizens, legality, barriers and divisions. For the actress, on the other hand, the role transcends the act of performance to take on an existential significance, around the “constant” problem of teleonomic responsibility: the legacy, i.e. what you have to leave and the weight of what isn’t there, of a failed generation, an absent body. The weight of a dry branch.