The Frankenstein of diversity arrives: 80 interpreters, citizens-actors of different ages, skills, possibilities, origin and genre on stage

A theater that unites, that unhinges the boundaries between stage and reality, between professionals and citizens, between differences and “normality”. Today (June 12) and tomorrow (June 13), The Elfo Puccini Theater in Milan hosts The Mary Shelley Picture Showgreat experiment of social theater signed by minimal theatralia and the duo Duperdu (Marta M. Marangoni and Fabio Wolf).

Eighty citizens-actors of all ages, origin, gender identity and skills, alongside professional artists – Like Rajae Bezzaz, Elio De Capitani, Cristina Crippa, Loris Fabiani and Ginestra Paladino – They will give life to a choral performance that from June to October will also have the popular neighborhoods of the city, restoring the theater to those who often do not have access to you.

“It is much more than a show: it is a political, poetic and collective gesture,” explains the director Marta M. Marangoni. “It is our way of saying that no voice is too much, that every body – fragile, elderly, queer, child, disabled, professional – has the right to the scene».

Inspired by Mary Shelley’s life and work, in particular to her masterpiece Frankenstein or the modern Prometheusthe show also feeds on cinematographic references such as the 1931 cult, parody Frankenstein Junior and the musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Diversity as a creative language

On stage, a varied humanity: Children, teenagers, adults, elderly people, people with physical, cognitive or relational disabilities, citizens in situations of social fragility or marginalization, users of day centers, migrants, parents and social workers. All co-authors of a shared theatrical experience. “We recognized ourselves in the” monster “, and in her creator Mary Shelley,” says Duperdu. “From there a performance was born in which art does not select, but welcomes”.

The project recovers the philosophical and human heart of the novel: loneliness, the need for recognition, the freedom to exist for what you are. “Who decides what is normal?” Asks the authors. “Who has the right to be on the world scene?” The direction of Marangoni enhances the singularity of each interpreter, transforming the limit into scenic language.

Francesca Sangalli’s participatory dramaturgy was born from the workshops in the neighborhoods of Gorla, Niguarda, Bovisa, Quarto Oggiaro, Comasina, Affori. Real biographies dialogue with the literary myth. Costumes and scenography also tell the inclusion: made with recycled materials and donated objects, They become a symbol of a scar that unites, does not divide. The creation took place in Sunomi social costumery, which distributes clothes and objects to families in difficulty, reinventing them for the scene.

The original music of Fabio Wolf are performed by the incidental orchestra hexagram, formed by professional musicians and people with cognitive and relational disabilities. The result is a sound thread that holds together the pieces of this human patchwork: exciting, powerful, necessary.

To give voice to the project there is also the Hypatia choir, made up of Italian and foreign mothers with boys and girlswhile the Clowry collective, active in the artistic redevelopment of marginal places, brings on stage an irreverent and poetic crew that challenges the stereotypes and the cult of perfection.

After the debut with Elf Puccini, The Mary Shelley Picture Show He will continue his summer and autumn tour in the Milan neighborhoodsbringing the theater where it often does not arrive. In June he will be hosted at the Santa Teresa Oratory, in the Gorla district. In July he will move between the garden of the associations of Niguarda, the evergreen center of Comasina and Villa Scheibler in Quarto Oggiaro. In September it will be the turn of the Auditorium hexagram in Cagnola, the Cam Pecetta in the Prealpi area and the Belloveo square in Niguarda. October will close the route with three stages: the Stefano Cerri Auditorium in the city studies, the ArtePassant Clown space between Dateo and Calvairate, and finally the amphitheater of the Orion school in Affori.

The Mary Shelley Picture Show is, ultimately, a cultural and civil project, not only theatrical. A successful experiment of Social Community Theater, where the stage becomes a mirror of society e The differences stop being barriers to transform into collective force. A theater where, finally, everyone has his own place.