Les Jours de mon abandon • Elena Ferrante Gaia Saitta • Théâtre National

Italy, the late 1990s. Olga, a 40-year-old woman with two children, is a devoted mother and wife. She does her best to lead a life in perfect harmony with what society imposes on her. One day, her husband leaves her for a young woman. As in the most pathetic soap opera. Her whole world collapses. In the grip of a permanent feeling of danger, Olga sinks into a state of rage. She becomes vulgar, violent, grotesque.

After she has removed her make-up and given up appearances, an unexpected woman emerges. Scandalous and powerful. Almost mythical, she steps forward in all her tragedy: a contemporary Medea, who no longer needs to kill to exist.

In this adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s book, actress and director Gaia Saitta plays this woman, accompanied by her children and her dog. Trading her oppressed body for a resistant one, she lets herself go, finally liberated.

Everything has to be rebuilt, starting with language. The audience, scattered on and off the stage, is both part of and witness to this transformation.

Gaia Saitta is an associate artist at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Création Studio Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles