by Francesco Niccolini
scientific advice (and patience): Marco Giliberti
with Flavio Albanese
direction Marinella Anaclerio
scenes and graphics Francesco Arrivo
video and animation Giuseppe Magrone
costume Simona De Castro
lighting Cristian Allegrini
assistant director Stella Addario
executive production Caterina Wierdis
production Compagnia del Sole | Fondazione Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani Onlus | Accademia Perduta / Romagna Teatri (2022)
in collaboration with the Cultural Department of the Municipality of Gioia del Colle (BA)
Under the patronage of INAF - National Institute of Astrophysics
A mediaeval knight, more: a paladin of Charlemagne, he is the star of the show. He does not arrive on stage like any other character, he literally falls from the sky. He is no ordinary paladin, he is Astolfo of England, the most surprising, strange and bungling of all Charlemagne's paladins. He precipitates from the sky because he has always travelled up and down from the moon: it is his task to bring back to Earth the wisdom of Orlando, who has lost it for love of the beautiful Angelica.
In his eternal journey, something unexpected happened to him, a special encounter. Up there on the Moon, where everything that is lost on Earth is kept, he meets a group of old men dressed in ancient clothes, busy - around a large, richly laid table - discussing. It is they who welcome him and open him up to the mysteries of knowledge, amid reason, madness, doubts and errors: who these elderly gentlemen are, he will discover little by little, through a series of adventures and surprises that will lead him to understand how complicated and fascinating the road to understanding, freedom of thought and science is.
Amid surreal rhymes, a bit of science and a lot of pataphysics, the encounter between one of the magical protagonists of Orlando Furioso and Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton and the other great scientists of the past, turns into a merry-go-round of surprises and discoveries, which will make Astolfo an authentic 'messenger of the stars', at least as much as Galileo Galilei was with his Sidereus Nuncius and his life full of surprises, right up to after his death.
A brilliant show, much of it in rhyme, in which Francesco Niccolini and Flavio Albanese return to the history of science after “L'Universo è un materasso”.
