Title: Elogio della vita a rovescio (In Praise of a Topsy-Turvy Lifestyle)

Of: INDEX

Direction: Daria Deflorian

Dramaturgy: Daria Deflorian

Actors: Giulia Scotti

Genre: Prose

credits: Elogio della vita a rovescio (In Praise of a Topsy-Turvy Lifestyle) is a first production around the work of South Korean writer Han Kang. A two-year project that will lead to the staging of her best-known novel, The Vegetarian, in 2024.

Why this interest in Han Kang? In her books, existential dimension and fantasy, verging on fantastic, are mixed in an extremely unique way. Historical background (particularly in Human Acts) and observation of family ties. A capacity for infinitesimal details and ‘wide shots' that turn the landscape into a real character. And a very interesting tension, from a scenic point of view, between great narrative capacity and silent figures, who resolutely choose not to 'explain' themselves any more, to resist the widespread feeling that one only exists if one tells oneself.

Mainly female figures the most extraordinary of which is the protagonist of Han Kang's most famous and translated novel, The Vegetarian. An absolutely original version of solitary and rebellious responses to the world, first and foremost the “I would prefer not to” of Melville's Bartleby.

Elogio della vita a rovescio (In Praise of a Topsy-Turvy Lifestyle) — a title borrowed from an essay by Karl Kraus — focuses on one of those relationships that are most frequently recounted by Han Kang in her books: the one between sisters. Not only in the best known The Vegetarian but also in Convalescence and White Book, where the power of this bond is revealed, each time through different plots.

On stage we see only the sister who thinks she has got away with it, the one who "since childhood had possessed that innate strength of character necessary to make her way in life. As a daughter, as an older sister, as a business owner, even as an underground passenger on the shortest of journeys, she had always done her best." The osmosis between the two sisters is an endless stream, overturning concepts such as health, awareness, and rightness of choices. The praise of a topsy-turvy lifestyle is the recognition that the other, the sister, the strange one, the cracked one, the one who has left us, is leaving us, is gone, has done what she has done for us too.

In the background the violence of domestic relations. Even the most seemingly harmless ones. And in the background of the background, the violence of the world.

more credits: a project by Daria Deflorian
shared with Giulia Scotti
freely inspired by the work of Han Kang
with Giulia Scotti
collaboration on dramaturgy Andrea Pizzalis
assistant director Chiara Boitani
sound design Emanuele Pontecorvo
technical direction Alessio Troya
director Daria Deflorian
for INDEX Valentina Bertolino, Francesco Di Stefano, Silvia Parlani
thanks to Silvia Rampelli and Attilio Scarpellini

In Elogio della vita a rovescio, Daria Deflorian – tra le protagoniste della prosa in Italia – affronta il rapporto tra sorelle, uno dei temi più raccontati dalla scrittrice sudcoreana Han Kang.
In scena, interpretata dalla giovane e talentuosa Giulia Scotti, vediamo solo la sorella che crede di essersela cavata, quella che “fin da bambina aveva quella forza di carattere necessaria a farsi strada nella vita”. L’osmosi tra le due sorelle è una corrente infinita, e l’elogio della vita a rovescio è il riconoscere che l’altra, la sorella, quella strana, quella crepata, quella che ci ha lasciato, ci sta lasciando, se ne è andata, ha fatto quello che ha fatto anche per noi. Sullo sfondo, incessante, la violenza delle relazioni domestiche. E sullo sfondo dello sfondo, la violenza del mondo.
Lo spettacolo è una prima produzione del progetto biennale che ha portato alla messa in scena del capolavoro della scrittrice Han Kang, La vegetariana. In una mescolanza di dimensione esistenziale e fantasia, nei suoi libri è presente un’interessantissima tensione, da un punto di vista scenico, tra grande capacità narrativa e figure silenziose, soprattutto femminili, che scelgono con determinazione di non “spiegarsi” più, di resistere alla diffusa sensazione che si esiste solo se ci si racconta.

Event organised by