Castel Trosino, Where Myths Walk Again

When evening falls over Castel Trosino and its ancient stones begin to hold the light, the village ceases to be merely a place and becomes a story. This is what happened with “Between Myth and Poetry”, the performance created as part of the Marche Storie project, which transformed the village into a widespread, living, walk-through stage, where myth, words, body, and contemporary art intertwined in a single immersive experience.

The Compagnia dei Folli, under the direction of Paola Lucidi, guided the audience along an itinerant route made up of scenic tableaux scattered among alleyways, small squares, and unexpected viewpoints. Not a performance to be watched while seated, but a journey to be experienced at a slow pace, following voices, music, figures on stilts, and nocturnal apparitions.

From the very beginning, with the sudden appearance of Tiresias, prophet and creature of metamorphosis, the boundary between past and present became thin. Projected words, recorded voices, and the bodies of the actors brought to life a story that did not explain the myth, but made it happen. Tiresias, Psyche, Pan, Perseus, Andromeda, and finally Hecate: archaic figures that seemed to emerge directly from the stones, as if Castel Trosino had silently preserved them for centuries.

Alongside theatre and contemporary circus, the contemporary art interventions by Frida Art Academy played a fundamental role, engaging in dialogue with the spaces of the village without overpowering them. Installations, visual actions, and above all the projection of the artistic video “The Metamorphosis” added a further layer of interpretation, transforming walls, façades, and uneven surfaces into places of vision and transformation.

One of the most powerful moments of the performance was undoubtedly the video mapping on the Church of San Lorenzo, created by Giacomo Orsini. Here, visual language met performance in a striking way: Orsini, in the role of Perseus on stilts, interacted live with the images projected onto the façade of the church, fighting the dragon not only as a mythological character, but as a symbolic figure in dialogue with the sacred architecture. The church was no longer merely a backdrop, but a scenic body, a narrative surface, an integral part of the action.

And it was precisely in this continuous dialogue between myth and place that the deepest meaning of the entire project was revealed. Beyond the gods, heroes, and visions, the true protagonist of “Between Myth and Poetry” was Castel Trosino itself. The village spoke through its empty spaces and heights, through its stairways, thresholds, illuminated façades, and those left in shadow. Every scene seemed to emerge from a specific place, as if it were impossible to imagine it anywhere else.

At the end of the journey, when darkness had enveloped everything and the final voices had faded away, what remained was the feeling of having experienced not only a performance, but a collective memory. A story that brought together myth and poetry, certainly, but also community, landscape, and identity. A story in which Castel Trosino was not merely a setting, but a living soul, a witness, and a silent narrator.