The appointment with the Greek tragedies in Syracuse for many fans is a cultural reference point that is renewed, expected and hoped for, even today every year.

The National Institute of ancient drama (also known by the acronym INDA) is a Cultural Foundation since 1998, but its activities come to life already in 1914. The institution is famous for organizing the cycle of classical plays in the Greek theater in Syracuse, which is in the splendid archaeological site of Neapolis.

The Institute was founded by the will of the aristocrat Sakala Mario Tommaso Gargallo, who in 1913 was an organizing Committee with the ambition to revive the ancient drama in Greek theater in Syracuse, judged at full right her “natural area”.

Since then she has joy and glory to the great theatre…until today.

 

But for the series of “as we were”, I like to remember that until about thirty years ago the appointment with the classical plays was expected every two years and fans, including this writer, "conteggiavano" summer time as if awaiting something that does not arrive never for an entire year, when it was the year of stagnation; and as if in the year intended for the staging of the classic shows, early summer you had a party all by foretaste for four to five months, until the joy of fruition in his material.

Here's what the classical could and can in the soul of the spectator careful and passionate to the genre. Now much has changed, but then it was like a ritual visit the Archaeological Park of Neapolis in Syracuse, each year, in mid-May, under the scorching sun often of early Sicilian summer, with the ticket already in hand, ahead of the scheduled start and herding together waiting with other spectators behind the big iron gate that almost has the power to define a world to another , the reality from fantasy.

When opening the gate, the race for unnumbered seats was reserved for more perky while groups the solitary, thoughtful scholar traveled around that stretch of white gravel uphill among the trees of the Park, already flipping through the book Hall or, better yet, the translation of the tragedy as it would be staged; booklet that was regularly sold a few lire, like ice cream and the rent of the cushions, with equal aplomb.

But, even today, it is no coincidence: for one evening in Syracuse we can live in ancient Greece and everywhere, if we like it, and the spectator, already entering the park that encloses the magnificent Greek Theatre, can set aside for a few hours his life and immerse yourself in a timeless atmosphere.

But in the “as we were” There was a privilege, of which the spectator can no longer enjoy.

Then a Flash of cleverness lit up the look of the more passionate experience in identifying the best place in the pit and hope to remain free in order to eventually move: on the right side of the càvea, where the shadow of hot afternoons descend before dal monte and restores even today who waits for hours the start of the show; before they had the foolhardy who had preferred the left side of the audience and that, by taking advantage of an opening, sought the coolness ... and then down the stairs, to find their own place.

Regret if the numbering of the places did not descend down toward the stage; the "ideal", still not at the top, as the acoustics of the theatre would, but in the front rows, down, with his feet dangling, possibly, between the tread of the front row of the audience and the semi-circular part of the stage made in ancient orchestra: it is there to be part of the evening, in a total immersion in the abstraction of the magnificent Greek tragic production where are the immense Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and inducing to catharsis, then as now. Enjoy it is privilege and enjoy them up close is still more exciting and engaging: means "being there".

And behold there the scene that awaited silent, with no curtain, no canopy, that the play gave sense and life; the actors and chorus, trafigurati from human genius and poetic verses declaimed, that roamed and gave the prerogative of place and time; the "here" and "anywhere"; the "always" and "never, in the universality of the immortal Theatre of the Greek tragedians.

A light wind was blowing across his face and did move the branches of the magnificent trees of the Park, behind the stage, which no longer has the scene but who kept the miraculous gift of traformarsi in Trachis, Thebes, Athens, to host the King's Palace or the altar of God, the steep mount or plain of battle ...

At dusk the show was beginning ... The audience, composed of thousands of people, was silent all of a sudden, as one man. They didn't mind being seated on the stone, without backrest, on a seat equipped with only a thin pillow, often uncomfortable and very experienced? Who noticed?

Two hours straight holding his breath and listening to and watching the eternal anguish of life, the unfolding of stories of men and gods, heroes and traitors, of life and death. Everything, that even today, albeit with different methods and times is renewed, is priceless and forever; He lives in the poetry of the theater and not for nothing they call it eternity. "

Natalia Dantas