OTHELLO ACCORDING TO LELLA COSTA

“Othello – di precise parole si vive”, with Lella Costa and directed by Gabriele Vacis, returns to the stage after 24 years, from Tuesday 11 to Sunday 16 March 2025 at the Teatro Vittoria.

One of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies is reinterpreted in a contemporary key, prompting the spectator to reflect on the world around us. A beacon of emotions and relationships through a sharp and current gaze. Confirming the fact that today more than ever we need to investigate the human soul to understand its shadows and, hopefully, illuminate them.

“One lives on precise words, and on great theater”

-Ivano Fossati, Discanto-

“It happens with great authors, perhaps especially with Shakespeare: their texts, their stories, their characters are, literally, immortal. They continue to speak to us, to amaze us, to enchant us; sometimes they even help us understand who we are, what is happening to us now.

And when you come across one of these perfect stories, you generally fall in love with it, and above all you realize that it would make no sense to try to invent another one to say the same things, but that it is legitimate, perhaps even a duty, to continue telling that one. Precisely that one.

That’s what happened to Gabriele Vacis and me, and not just once.

This is what excited us to the point of thinking of bringing our Othello back on stage, after 24 years, preserving the narrative substance (Shakespeare) intact but intervening and modifying those parts in which current events, or rather contemporaneity, required an update. Those parts in which the Bard himself enjoyed inserting allusions and quotes that are incomprehensible to us (who on earth is that “Signor Angelo” who influences even the Doge?), but which were certainly very clear to the spectators of the time, and probably very funny.
If we then add a dazzling plot, the summary of which could seem like a news story today (a highly qualified foreign worker, a mixed marriage, a mean and very skilled manipulation, a malicious and unscrupulous use of language, a femicide with subsequent suicide of the guilty party), then we realize how much we need to continue telling and listening to this story. Precisely this one. ” (Lella Costa)

On stage, the concept of time as treated by Shakespeare is explored. All the difference in the world emerges between an evil action, but timely and therefore effective, and a praiseworthy action, but acted late and therefore sterile. In short, “Othello” is a work not to be missed, it is 400 years old, but it wears them really well.

with Lella Costa
dramaturgy by Lella Costa and Gabriele Vacis
directed by Gabriele Vacis
set design by Roberto Tarasco
scenes by Lucio Diana
production by Teatro Carcano
distribution by Mismaonda

For further information the Teatro Vittoria website

Elena Cattaneo

Elena Cattaneo was born in Cremona and lives in Rome. As a teacher, editor and web reporter she looks at this city, even also many years, like a curious turist.
After a Foreign Language University Degree she specialized in Communication Science. She fully dedicated to Business Communication, her most relevant interest.
She cultivated several cultural hobbies, fond of art and human being expression.