A woman sits at her workbench in a watch factory in Switzerland. Her name is Ágota Kristóf. The factory is an ideal place for writing poetry, allowing her mind to wander: the regular rhythm of the machinery sets the pace of the verses. In the woman’s drawer is a sheet of paper and a pencil. When her thoughts take shape, she writes them down. Ágota does not speak the local language, but she writes and thinks in this unknown and hostile dialect. It is hard to speak at all in the factory, with the noise of the machinery. The woman tells her story; one of exile, of displacement, of atrocity. She wants to express herself, but in order to do so, she has to create masks. We thus suddenly find ourselves in her novels.
Ágota shifts, becoming Lucas, Claus, Sandor, Line… but just for a moment. Are we in a dream, or in the midst of her childhood memories?
Following Trilogia della città di K. – produced by the Piccolo for the 2023/24 season and winner of five UBU awards, including best director and best show, and by the National Theatrical Critics’ Award – Fanny & Alexander and Federica Fracassi return to the terse and cutting prose of the Hungarian writer, forced by events to speak an unknown language:  «It is a challenge. The challenge of an illiterate».

The show is subtitled in English and simplified Italian and audio described as part of the Piccolo Aperto project organised with the contribution of the Fondazione di Comunità Milano.
Subtitles can be accessed on mobile devices your own headphones via the Lyri app, available for free from the App Store and Google Play.