The Italian collective Malmadur invites the audience to take part in a game about “humanity’s greatest tragedy”. In a knock-out process, the audience votes for which of two tragedies is the “greater” one and in this way brings it into the next round. The competition of catastrophes leads from small to big tragedies, from the banal to world events. This repeatedly raises the question of what constitutes tragedy, what it describes, what pain, what misfortune it presents to the world. As a category of theatre, tragedy describes a catastrophe that has been caused by human action, but cannot be averted by human action. In the media age, the idea of what is tragic seems to have become an important currency. Tragedies go viral, are exploited, politicised and sold, just like pain, pity, fear and anger. Is it perhaps spectacles like these that prevent us from thinking?
Jacopo Giacomoni, *1987, has a degree in philosophy and is a playwright and performer. In 2025, he won the Venice Biennale Teatro’s call for authors with his play TACET. He has been a member of the theatre collective Malmadur since 2013, which in north Italian dialect means something like “unripe” or “immature”. With Malmadur, Giacomoni is working on new experimental methods for a theatre that involves both performers and audience members equally. HUMANITY'S GREATEST TRAGEDY is his first production as a director.
With David Angeli, Theresa Maria Schlichtherle
Directing Jacopo Giacomoni
Dramaturgy Jacopo Giacomoni External Eye Gaia Bautista Organisation Marco Tonino Communications David Angeli Assistant Chiara Uliana Costume in collaboration with Angie Power Production Malmadur & Evoe! Teatro Photos Elisa Vettori, Matteo de Mayda (Portrait Jacopo Giacomoni) In collaboration with Teatro Stabile di Bolzano, Centro Servizi Culturali S. Chiara di Trento With support from Fondazione CARITRO
Finalist text of the Network Dramaturgie Nuova 2020. Selected project in 2022 as part of the call for proposals „Piattaforma per la circuitazione dello spettacolo professionale in Trentino-Alto Adige”. Sponsored by TSB, CSCSC, CTT. Winning project of the call for proposals „HUMUS 2024” des / by IAC – Centro Arti Integrate di Matera for the section „Politica e terreno comune”.
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