The Teatro Patologico theatre troupe from Rome will travel to Africa in late September to perform the ancient Greek tragedy 'Medea' by Euripides at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Disabled youths from the Italian theatre company will act on stage alongside professional actors in two performances of 'Medea' on 27 and 28 September, which will be staged in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, the statement said.
"The central element of this production is the profound relationship between body, language and music: the body becomes the main instrument of communication while its language and original music scores revolve around the bodily and spiritual ties that are created with the bodies of the actors," said the statement.
For the Teatro Patologico , the word 'pathological' – from the ancient Greek 'pathos', meaning both 'passion' and 'disease' – takes drama back to its original roots, the statement underlined.
On 29 September, the Teatro Patologico will also give a performance of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus at the Market Theatre, the result of a workshop that the Italian theatre company will conduct with Little Eden, an association that helps people with intellectual and physical disabilities.
The Italian actors will perform together with a restricted group of guests, partially following a script and mixing original texts with improvised lines, according to the statement.
"In the artistic and theatrical conception of the Teatro Patologico, led by art director Dario D'Ambrosi, the theatre not only represents a form of therapy. It also offers an opportunity to express oneself artistically and emotionally - a stimulating meeting place and training place in which to do serious acting while having fun, and where disabled actors can finally feel they are the real protagonists of their scenes," the statement said.
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