The figure of Oedipus lies at the centre of the two plays created by Chiara Guidi – cofounder of Societas Raffaello Sanzio, now known as Societas –, who has always been involved in a form of theatrical research that examines the voice as a dramatical cipher to unlock the sounds and meaning of a text.
In the first play, an example of that form of Chiara Guidi’s “infantile theatre” of which Buchettino is the most famous example, the legend of Oedipus becomes a typical magical fable. It connects to the fertility cults of the ancient river civilisations; old Mother Earth welcomes into her womb the young seed that penetrates her to hide, sleep and bear fruit. “But what happens down below, in that period of maceration and death of the seed within the earth, over the winter? The Sphinx knows and raises the curtain to those who are able to solve her enigmas. Only by finding a solution to the obscure questions can one enter the Earth’s caverns, where a seed becomes a man; Oedipus”.