L’ANGELO DEL FOCOLARE

Theater / Movie? Suitable for audiences 15 and older? Runtime: 1 hour 15 minutes

In his desperation to beat her, a man ends up killing his wife.
She lies on the floor, dead, but her death is not enough: no one believes her.
So, like an angel trapped in her own home, she gets back up and resumes her routine: cleaning the house, running errands, preparing meals for her son and husband, and taking care of her mother-in-law.
Every day, the beatings repeat themselves relentlessly. In the morning, her loved ones find her motionless on the floor.
She gets back on her feet, endures the abuse once again amid indifference, before fading away again when evening comes.

In 2022, Sicilian director Emma Dante, a leading figure in contemporary Italian theater, presented *Misericordia*, a play centered on motherhood. With this production, she tackles male violence without sugarcoating or pulling any punches. On stage, a few pieces of furniture— a folding bed, a nightstand, an ironing set, an armchair? are enough for the quartet of actors to sketch, in a few scenes, the power dynamics that govern everyday life. Subtly blending humor and gravity, the actors constantly oscillate between farce and tragedy, holding humanity up to ridicule in an endless cycle.
A hellish cycle that highlights society’s powerlessness in the face of femicide.