Teti pellegrina e salvatrice: note sull'Andromaca di Luca De Fusco

This year in Syracuse on the occasion of the XLVII Ciclo di Spettacoli Classici stage-manager Luca De Fusco with his Andromaca has brilliantly won a dramaturgic challenge, the performance of a play often taxed with being disjointed and broken, which is still very much loved and widely-circulated among the public. The stage-manager creates a unitary interpretation of the drama by the characterization of its essence: the story of Peleus' family and the survival of Achilles' issue. This essence is scenically represented by the immanence of Thetis. The goddess becomes, from Euripides' dea e machina, who appears as an epiphany at the end of the drama, a constant presence on the scene, a silent observer and at the same time a coryphaeus. She observes and comments on the situation, and is sympathetic with Andromache's pains. She wears poor clothes, like a "tramp", and is a strange and enigmatic figure for the audience. Around this scenic centre we find the lines of the conflict: on the one hand Andromache's physical awkwardness, which represents her impotence in action; on the other hand Hermione and Menelaus' violent, impious and arrogant movements, with their homicidal purposes. The conflict (two beds, two women for one man) is solved by the entrance of the vigorous Peleus, whose role Mariano Regillo performs in a masterly manner: he dominates the scene and the enemies with his voice and his body, and is a safe refuge for Andromache. The action evolves swiftly and frantically; after escapes and plots, it converges on Neoptolemus' dead body, into Peleus' arms. The solution is entrusted to Thetis, who makes a marvellous appearance, at last in her divine look, in long, blue clothes: she promises Peleus immortality, the continuation of his stock and the final enjoyment of the goddess' love. The drama ends in this transcendental embrace: the god always finds an unexpected solution, ἀδοκήτων πόρον, as Euripides reminds us.