M. wakes up one morning from restless dreams and finds herself transformed, in her bed, into a woman who has been raped. It is August, the summer heat is scorching the Apulian countryside, and in a lonely provincial village, yet another act of gender-based violence takes place, overshadowed by the ecstatic celebrations for the patron saint, Saint Magdalene. The victim bears the saint’s name, but quickly becomes the perpetrator: as in the best distortions born of rape culture, victim blaming engulfs all reality, swelling like a suffocating social bubble and leaving M. alone to pay the price for everything. Cursed by a double trauma that will never allow her to return to who she was, M. immerses herself and drowns in her own pain, brutally, until she undergoes a rebirth, until she becomes someone else – a new, dark being, eager to know herself. With the promiscuous voices of the village and her parents crowding behind her closed door, she faces the change with laborious determination, until she reaches the ecstatic awareness of her new, powerful self. Between techno-electronic environments and folkloric sounds, biblical inspirations and mythological reinterpretations, Capelli wants to overturn the condition of victimhood reserved for women by patriarchal culture. It is a polyphonic, political, angry and frightening, feminine and feminist, ironic and cruel story. Difficult, like the lives of women.
a performance by Sante di Lana
written, directed and performed by Luisa Casasanta
with Arianna Battilana
music by Mark Meccoli
technical support by Daniele Tagliaferri
production Sante di Lana
co-production Tieffe Teatro / Teatro Menotti
With the production support of Valdrada Teatro – Fivizzano27 – S.D.I. Srls
duration 60′
Collettivo Sante di Lana was founded in 2024 by Luisa Casasanta and Arianna Battilana as a multidisciplinary female artistic group. From the very beginning, it focused its research on the encounter between rhythmic evolutions, vocal experimentation, contemporary dramaturgy, poetic imagery and political perspective. Its debut work Capelli (Hair) won the 2024 Scintille Award, two awards at the 2024 InDivenire Festival, was a finalist in Direction Under30 and was selected for the Turin Fringe Festival, the Asti Teatro Festival and the Under35 Un disperato entusiasmo (Desperate Enthusiasm) festival. Since 2025, the collective has been artist-in-residence at Mare Culturale Urbano Milano; its new production Pelle(Skin) won the Olobionte residency with mentorship from Rezza/Mastrella. In its two years of existence, the collective has entered into synergy and artistic collaboration with Fondazione Piemonte dal Vivo, Valdrada Teatro, Teatro Menotti, Spazio Fivizzano27, Superficie Live Show and the travelling format Bei Ricordi (Nice Memories).