Marcel Toto, in questa sua opera teatrale, riscrive le tragedie di Didone (Marlowe) e Cleopatra (Shakespeare) inserendo le due regine in un vortice di voci e sentimenti che porterà a nuove consapevolezze, nell’ottica del corso di Letterature comparate, Formazione e funzione del personaggio femminile nel teatro europeo: Shakespeare e Marlowe  (Prof.ssa Chiara Lombardi).

This play reimagines Dido and Cleopatra reclaiming the narratives of their love, revealing how history transforms intimacy into spectacle, women into sacrifice, and queens into legend.
One act, five scenes: the dramatic voices of women who suffered and ultimately died because of forces they could not control. Was it Fate? Political power? Or men?
In the Underworld, Dido and Cleopatra encounter one another and form an unexpected bond, sharing their life experiences and traumas, learning how they are not alone in their doomed endings, how they’ve been misunderstood and badly narrated after their tragic deaths.
Because they are no longer merely dead women or fallen queens: they are human beings, souls who have suffered because of their lovers and have been turned into words and plays, stories on a page.
They’ve been dehumanised, humiliated, sacrificed… but now they reclaim the right to speak.
To narrate their own stories.
To live, if only once more, a life that is theirs and theirs alone.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Dido
Anna
Cleopatra
Octavia

SCENE I – We Loved Empires

[A shore outside time, ethereal and infinite: the Underworld. The sound of distant water, but no sea is visible. DIDO sits on a rock, her white drape surrounding her, her long curly hair falling over her shoulders. She sighs.]

DIDO
I’ve been foolish, haven’t I?
Falling for a man… and my kingdom falling with me.
Why did I give my all to him? Why?
What was it that made me fall for him…
I cannot remember.
I’ve been gone for so long now.
I wonder where he’s been all this time.
Yes, I wonder where he is, even now.
Is he happy? Is he married to a woman he loves? Does he dream… of me?
I keep wondering: are all of my sufferings worth his happiness?
He could have been happy, even without me, but I… could I?
I could have been happy without him… yes, yes, yes!
[She rises and begins to wander around, circling the rock.] Happier, even!
All he needed was Rome. Rome and his destiny to fulfil.
Not me. Not my love. What about my devotion? My tears?
No, no. None of that mattered to him.
Only Rome. He loved empires.
And I didn’t love mine enough.
My people, my sister…
Anna… oh, Anna.
[She sheds a tear. Her sister, ANNA, hearing her cries, arrives.]

ANNA
Dido, my dear sister, are you still crying for that wanderer?
Really, Dido? You burned for him, was it not enough?
Carthage burned for him.

DIDO
Sister! Stop! Stop the memories, stop the pain.
I need to get over it, over him.
I loved him too much when I needed to love my people more.
Was I selfish?

ANNA
[ANNA puts a hand on her sister’s shoulder.]
Oh, sweet Dido… no, no you weren’t.
You were in love.
It was the most important thing at the time.
The sea, the shells, the sunsets on the beach… were they something to you when you had him?
Don’t blame yourself, don’t blame love. It is the current that moves rivers.

DIDO
What about my city? What about Carthage?

ANNA
Carthage surely misses her queen. But she’ll go on.
You should too.

DIDO
[DIDO looks at her sister and attempts a smile.]
Yes, you’re right. I should.

[ANNA smiles at her and exits.]

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