Penelope’s song – Opening of the Primorska Summer festival

FESTIVAL OPENING Saturday, 1 July 2023, SNG Drama Ljubljana, The St. Francis of Assisi Ceremonial and Entertainment Hall, Martinčev trg, Koper

Homer’s Penelope, who for centuries has been presented as the stereotype of the faithful and patient wife, as an instructive example of the subjugation of women, undergoes an ingenious turn in Margaret Atwood’s play, as Penelope’s confession is answered by the hanged handmaids, who pose two key questions: why did Odysseus kill them so cruelly, and what role did Penelope play in all this? The concept of staging follows the posthumous reflection of events and the intimate unfolding of Penelope’s story, which, now that she is dead and ‘the others have run out of breath’, can be told without fear and without censure, without thinking of the happy ending, which ‘is reached first by leaving the right door closed and sleeping while the carnage takes place’. The true protagonists of the play are the handmaids, who, like an ancient chorus, are finally able to sing and testify, to comment and recite their own story, and to constantly refute, above all, Penelope’s testimony, and it is precisely this that reveals the hitherto hidden mechanisms of the ‘official version’ of the Odyssey.