The Trial for the Donkey’s Shadow

Music Theatre
2017 ︎

Written by
Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Directed by
Alan Alpenfelt

Dramaturg
Simona Gonella

Swiss cast:
Nello Provenzano
Adele Raes
Ulisse Romanò
Massimiliano Zampetti
Adalgisa Vavassori

Moroccan cast:
Chaouqi Abdlaif
Mohamed Courdadi
Oumaima Hadaf
Sardi Younes
Hayat Haddat

Live Music
Gabriele Marangoni
Radouan Makchich (Musician)

Sound
Enrico Mangione
Tommaso Giacopini

Lights
Andrea Borzatta
Aswab Abdelghani

Co-production
LAC Lugano

Using binaural sound techniques, performers and noisemakers, Alan Alpenfelt and his team revisit the Swiss author's apocalyptic text, staging a captivating, psychedelic and stimulating performance.

Dürrenmatt re-tells in a tragicomic key the story of the real trial of a donkey's shadow that took place in the ancient - and now destroyed - Greek city of Abdera. The spark that ignites the unstoppable sequence of events starts when a dentist, Strutione, rents a donkey for an urgent operation outside the city but the blazing heat of the plain forces him to sit in the donkey's shadow. An argument ensues between him and the donkey’s owner Anthrax, who accuses him of having paid for the donkey but not for its shadow: the conflict degenerates into a struggle for supreme ideals involving the whole population, political and religious institutions and concluding in an apocalyptic finale.

The show was shortlisted for the Swiss Theatre Encounter 2018 and selected for VIAVAI+ - contrabbando culturale as one of the best shows in Lombardy, Ticino and Wallis. 

It has a double cast, Swiss for Italian speaking audience and Moroccan for the Arab speaking audience. 

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Funded by
Republic and Canton of Ticino
Fondazione Dürrenmatt-Kerr
Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Ambassade Suisse au Maroc

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Upcoming events

15 October 2023
Maison de la Culture, Beni Mellal (Ma)

17 October 2023
Maison de la Culture, Casablanca (Ma)

19 Octobre 2023
Maison de la Culture, Azila (Ma)

21 Octobre 2023
Maison de la Culture Dawdiyate, Marrakech (Ma)

25 Octobre 2023
Rabat (Ma)

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Past events

Marrakech (Ma)
11.12.2022

Azilal (Ma)
09.12.2022

Teatro Litta
Milan, I
13.10.2018
Site

Teatro Foce
Lugano, CH
23-24.1.2018
Site

Teatro Foce
Lugano, CH
12-14.1.2017