The Open Page

Ermanna Montanari Hardness of Stone

Milestones are commemorative slabs. They are planted in our mental cemetery, ghosts that visit us; like roses in the garden.

Saint Catherine of Siena only private matters interest me because history was never made of them Angela of Foligno although sadness and joy from without may seep into me a little there is nevertheless in my soul a small chamber where neither happiness nor sadness nor any delight in virtue nor satisfaction about anything that has a name can enter Simone Weil Aldo Capitini the heresy of the persuaded Ivan Illich Hroswitha of Gandersheim sick with religion Saint Augustine I torment myself I seek the measure of myself I have become for myself a bitter land 47 that makes me sweat abundantly Friedrich Nietzsche notes on madness Dionysus and Christ

Ermanna Montanari behind a wall of gilded stones in the performance L'isola di Alcina. Photo: Enrico Fedrigoli Theatre Women Milestones - Ermanna Montanari

Sappho Antonin Artaud William Shakespeare my eyes Alfred Jarry on what horrible spectacle 1.61 metres, ubuniversal you will open upon dying Fyodor Dostoyevsky Jerzy Grotowski who taught me Charles Baudelaire the beauty of being tone deaf The Authors of the Bible Maria Callas Lucretius Giordano Bruno who is still burning Eleonora Duse Georg Büchner Hippolyte Clairon you move along the path how much study to stop being ourselves from the idea to the work Carmelo Bene on your knees Love me! It's a lot, you know, Ernst Bloch it's a lot if we've saved our eyes. spirit of utopia Totò Gustav Mahler Sergei Eisenstein the little red rose Vsevolod Meyerhold who taught Georges Bataille theatre to peasants and workers the joints that get disconnected

48 The Open Page

Pier Paolo Pasolini Omar Khayyam still a rebel today when they want Alas, the essence of Life to make a saint of him has slipped from my hands Federico Fellini Frida Kahlo incredibly local I Dream Dream Dream Dream Dream Elsa Morante Dream Dream I am dying of Dream who sings of the Happy Few Gandhi and the Many Unhappy Father Lorenzo Milani Colette Renzo Montanari the 158 centimetres of her cut-off plait my patriarchal grandfather Carl Theodor Dreyer Nora Minotti without whom there would have been no my witch grandmother Joan of Arc by Falconetti Beatrice Cenci Renée Falconetti Marina Cvetaeva without whom there would have been no Hannah Arendt Joan of Arc by Dreyer bold common sense Saint Francis of William Blake Jacques Maritain and Raissa Umanshoff if there were no fools the alchemical couple we should have to be them ourselves Antoine Saint-Exupery Dante Alighieri the little prince Alberto Giacometti Søren Kierkegaard the difficulty of making a head masks and pseudonyms Vincent van Gogh Janis Joplin people who do not believe in the Sun Jimi Hendrix are like atheists Isadora Duncan Artemisia Gentileschi Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin Sandro Botticelli their jealousy John Donne Tina Modotti the body as a book of love Pavel Florenskij Friedrich Hölderlin Buster Keaton there where danger lies the apocalypse of what is very common that which saves us grows Jean Vigo Hildegard of Bingen archetype of the non-school with his bones Luis Buñuel man shares the hardness of stone Orson Welles Emily Brontë Heathcliff is more me than me ERMANNA MONTANARI () founded Teatro delle Albe with Marco Martinelli, Luigi Dadina and Marcella Nonni, in 1983, and since then she has worked in the company as writer, actress and set designer. Since 1991, Ermanna Montanari has published in magazines such Donkey head in stone from the performance Sogno as Lapis, Riga, Il Semplice, The Open Page, di una notte di mezza estate. Photo: Enrico Fedrigoli Teatro e Storia and Lo Straniero.

49