From Dionysus to the contemporary, at the Ara Pacis an exhibition tells the story of theatre

From May 21st to November 3rd the exhibition with over 240 pieces from 25 lenders

In the beginning there was Dionysus. It is to him and to the mysterious rites in his honor that we owe the birth of tragedy and comedy. It is to him that we owe the birth of the theater. This is told by the exhibition set up at the Ara Pacis, promoted by the Capitoline Superintendence and open to visitors from 21 May to 3 November. Over 240 works from 25 different lenders form the ‘Teatro. Authors, actors and audiences in ancient Rome’ who in seven sections reveal the secrets of the scenes from the origins to today.

“This exhibition leads to the discovery of the theater of antiquity as a social, cultural, anthropological and naturally artistic fact along a chronological line that from the beginning through the millennia reaches up to contemporary reality. The basic idea – said the Capitoline Councilor for Culture, Miguel Gotor – is that immersing yourself in classical theater is much more current than you might think, it is an operation that highlights threads that question our society and the relationship with democracy”.

THE WORKS

Thus, through the lives of the protagonists, visitors to the exhibition will become spectators invited to look beyond the scene, to peek inside the actors’ dressing rooms also thanks to multimedia interventions created ad hoc that accompany the journey through the original pieces exhibited in the different sections . Like the Attic cup from the Archaeological Museum of Florence with one of the very rare representations of a procession in honor of Dionysus called Falloforia, or like the ‘Pronomos vase’ lent by the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, for experts the most important find theatrical received. And then the masks, the terracotta ones and the miniature ones, faces that are anything but immobile. “We realized that masks are expressive and have more flexibility than one might think”, said today Orietta Rossini, curator of the exhibition together with Lucia Spagnolo.

ROME CONQUERED BY THE THEATER

“This project saw the participation of many different skills – he said again – We are starting from the observation that the Mediterranean is still a sea of theaters and according to a census, which is always evolving with respect to archaeological discoveries, the Greek theaters There are more than a thousand Romans.” Yes, because the conquering Rome allowed itself to be conquered by the theatre. “The Capital of the Empire Rome assimilated the theater from Greece first and foremost, but also from the Etruscan and Magna Graecia culture. Rome – said Spagnolo – managed to metabolize and transform the theater making it an original product”.

THE SECTIONS

After the first sections ‘Genesis’, ‘Italic and Magna Graecia roots’, ‘Comedy in Rome’, ‘Tragedy in Rome’ and ‘The protagonists and music’, the sixth section, entitled ‘Architecture ‘, tells the story of the monumental legacy left by the ancient theater through its ruins, in many cases majestic and still functioning. The passage of republican Rome towards the imperial regime also saw the construction of the first stable theaters in Rome and the codification of their form and within a few decades the three great Roman brick theaters arose, in order the theater of Pompey with a capacity of 20 thousand seats, that of Cornelio Balbo and the almost contemporary Marcellus theatre, named by Augustus in memory of his beloved nephew.

The last section, however, deals with contemporaneity and, with the title ‘Current issues of the classic’, was created in collaboration and with the contribution of the Department of Modern Letters and Cultures of Sapienza University and the National Institute of Ancient Drama . Here, through a selection of historical posters of shows performed at the Greek theater of Syracuse, video montages of contemporary stagings and other material and photographic evidence, referring in particular to the experience of Pasolini’s ‘Vantone’ , the exhibition ends by offering an overview of the vitality of classical theatre, from the early twentieth century to the present day.