One hour and forty-five minutes, the exact time of a football match. That’s how long “Ladies Football Club” lasts, the show directed by Giorgio Sangati based on the novel of the same name by Stefano Massini: in short, the story of the first English women’s football team (and much more) told through the point of view of the eleven protagonists on the pitch , all masterfully interpreted by that one great interpreter who is Maria Paiato. The director says that he never tires of looking at her, “because there is always something to learn from her.” Sangati, born in Abano Terme in 1981, a student of the Piccolo in Milan and a degree in Communication Sciences in Padua, was Ronconi’s assistant and then never stopped, also experimenting with theatrical writing with the very successful “Malabrenta”. And now he tells us about this setup, which will stop from 23 to 28 April at the Gobetti Theatre, guest of the Teatro Stabile in Turin.
What was the genesis of the show?
«The idea developed with the Piccolo, then the theaters closed and then we decided to re-stage it with the Bresciano Theater Center and the Biondo in Palermo and this year we gave it new life. The text is a fairly faithful adaptation to Massini’s pages and recounts the vicissitudes, the genesis of the first women’s football team in history. Everything is taken from real facts, because during the great war not one, but several football teams were formed in the factories due to the absence of the men who were at the front.”
The story goes much further. And it’s all entrusted to Paiato.
«Yes, it goes much beyond the sporting field. The matches resemble battles to gain dignity, recognition. And Maria is incredible. Every now and then they ask me: “but how many characters does it have?” and I don’t know the answer. Because she not only makes the eleven women who make up this team, each different from the other, with a wealth of personality nuances that are built on stage, but also a whole forest of other individuals who revolve around them, especially antagonists. Because these women didn’t have an easy life, so much so that at the end of the war, when the men returned, they were no longer able to play. To do so, they had to wait until the 1970s.”
Do you laugh, too?
«As in life. Maria uses all her technique, but I never stop remembering her humanity, because she gives these women back their reality: the difficulties, the dramatic moments and the lighter ones. Playing was real fun for them, a liberation. On stage it is as if a direct witness of what happened returned after many years to the munitions factory where she had worked and brought this to life for the public.
buried history. And suddenly the factory is no longer the factory, but is transformed into that very playground.”
For her it is not the first time with Paiato, but not even with Massini.
«I was Ronconi’s assistant at the time of Lehman Brothers, the show that launched Massini. Stefano has the ability to focus on themes that turn out to be increasingly complex. I recognize his ability to always bring a civil, political aspect, which seems precious to me for today. A theater that is open to everyone, that excludes no one. I’m on that side. I did his “Heart of a Dog” for Bulgakov and also “Lo disgust” for Ilaria Alpi».
The future?
«I have just signed an adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata for the Stabile del Veneto, it is a project called Compagnia Giovani and allows recently graduated actors to debut on an important stage. Soon I will deal with a text by Emilio Isgrò, the visual artist who is also a prolific playwright. We will debut at the Naples Theater Festival in Pompeii.”
Tags: fatal encounter women football
