a show by Tolja Djocovic
theme: social codification of female bodies
age: 16-18 years
Lucia C., 25 years old, orphaned and alone, is arrested and convicted of infanticide for killing her newborn son. No investigation, no defense: only the judgment of the Torrione court and, ultimately, execution. Her body, as was customary in 18th-century Bologna, is displayed in what was then Piazza San Petronio. Lucia’s fragile and marginal voice emerges little from the documents.
This true story from the 18th century is told by playwright Tolja Djokovic, who offers an investigation that is part historical account and part autobiography, bringing together two lonely figures and two eras that are only apparently distant. The text—winner of the 2023 Riccione Prize—is a journey through museums, anatomical wax models, and judicial archives; the author reconstructs the last year of Lucia’s life, chasing the signs of a female body that was erased and put on display. A work about the obsession with the gaze and the right to be seen, about the memory of bodies and the mystery of narration itself.
Tolja Djokovic graduated in Italian Philology with a thesis on reading poetry aloud. In 2019, she completed the International Dramaturgy Specialization Course at the Iolanda Gazzerro Theater School of ERT. Since 2018, she has been the director and playwright of the tostacarusa theater company, currently engaged in the two-year project Con la lingua sulla lama (With the Tongue on the Blade), a study of the relationship between the contemporary world and fairy tales. In 2021, she won the Under 40 Authors Award at the 49th International Theater Festival of the Venice Biennale with the text En abyme, which debuts at the 2023 Theater Biennale, directed by Fabiana Iacozzilli.
She is artist-in-residence for the three-year period 2023-25 at the Festival Periferico in Modena, directed by Serena Terranova and Federica Rocchi, for which she is creating A più voci (quaderno proibito), a co-creation project with a group of women from Modena that gives rise to a series of five performative episodes on the relationship between domestic work and creativity. In 2023, with the text Lucia camminava sola (Lucia walked alone), she wins the 57th edition of the Riccione Theater Award.
CREDITS
text and direction Tolja Djokovic
with Aura Ghezzi, Jacopo Giacomoni, Martina Tinnirello
live music Federica Furlani, Jacopo Giacomoni, Aura Ghezzi, Martina Tinnirello
part of Teatro Arcobaleno #12