Stefano Massini arrives at Trento's Teatro Sociale with "L 'interpretation dei sogni", a work freely inspired by and drawn from Freud's writings.

First appointment of 2024 with the Social Theatre Season scheduled by the S. Chiara Cultural Services Centre in Trento, which from 12 to 14 January 2024 will have the pleasure of hosting one of the most famous Italian writers in the world: Stefano Massini. 

The first Italian author to receive the Tony Awards, the Oscar of American theatre, Massini completes his decade-long work on The interpretation of dreams by Sigmund Freud, which began in 2008.

The great Florentine playwright will be in Trento with The Interpretation of Dreams, a work he wrote and interpreted, freely inspired and drawn from the writings of Sigmund Freud. A Teatro Stabile production by Bolzano, Fondazione Teatro della Toscana, Teatro di Roma, in collaboration with Piccolo Teatro di Milano/Teatro d 'Europa.

Please note that, unlike what was initially announced in recent months, the show scheduled for Thursday 11 January has been cancelled and will be rescheduled on Saturday 13 January with a double replica: at 6 pm and 9 pm. (For all subscribers who do not have the opportunity to take part in the performance on Saturday, January 13, it will be possible to choose for free the shift change between the day of Friday, January 12 and that of Sunday, January 14).

Where do we go when we dream? What do we try to say to ourselves in that suspended, additional and intermediate space that welcomes us as soon as we close our eyes? Every being dreams, regardless of the fact that it retains memory of it: our existence is a succession of night visions, elaborate and complex architectures, whose construction obeys a natural necessity. And then the question becomes: why do we dream? Why is it a vital and inescapable need for the human being?

The research on Sigmund Freud's dreams, a milestone of the twentieth century, attempts an answer through the analysis of numerous clinical cases, sometimes dramatic, sometimes even funny and occasional, each capable of revealing something about the mysterious and splendid laws that oversee our nocturnal scenes. Yes, staged. Because the dream in Freud's reading has a deeply theatrical structure, evident even from that original title of the volume that alluded to a true "dream dramaturgy". And so the last question arises: with what rules do we proceed, in the phantasmagorical theater of the Dream?

Stefano Massini completes his decade-long work on The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, which began in 2008 and is studded with prestigious public occasions, including the intermediate stage of the highly successful novel published by Mondadori in 2017 and translated into several languages. Massini returns to Freud's world with a completely new text, putting his narrator's flair at the service of a show freely inspired and drawn from Freud's writings. An impressive human catalogue: on the stage, among the notes of Enrico Fink, a colourful mosaic of characters takes shape who, narrating their dreams, compose a symphony of images and possible interpretations, in which the public recognizes itself and finds itself.

Stefano Massini

He is the first Italian author to have received the Tony Awards, the Oscar of American theatre, as well as winning both the Drama League Award 2022 and the Outer Critics Circle Award 2022. It has its distinctive feature in combining a strong literary vein with a strong flair as a live narrator. With its narrative frescoes "touches the heart and mind", it excites and makes you think, creating short circuits with a unique style. The general Italian public has discovered him with his refined and unsettling interventions on television in Piazzapulita, and in other television programmes, such as Ricomincio da Rai 3.

Since 2016 he has also collaborated with the newspaper la Repubblica with its weekly space Manual of Survival and with the daily columns on repubblica.it (Words in progress and Lost stories office). Pop communicator, scratchy, ironic, unsettling, far from the aura of the self-celebrating and elitist intellectual, he is a composer and "decomposer" of words and stories, an investigator of everyday stories and moods. His special ‘lessons‘ - stories on the books in the talent show Amici - have made him known and appreciated even by young audiences. His lyrics are translated into 27 languages and staged from Broadway to the Comédie-Française, by directors such as Luca Ronconi or the Oscar winner Sam Mendes.

Something about Lehman (Mondadori 2016) was one of the most acclaimed novels of recent years (Campiello Selection Award, SuperMondello Award, De Sica Award, Prix Médicis Essai, Prix Meilleur Livre Étranger). His latest books are Dizionario nonexistente (Mondadori 2018), Ladies Football Club (Mondadori 2019), Eichmann. Where the Night Begins (Fandango 2020) and Survival Manual. Messages in bottles at the beginning of the millennium (Il Mulino 2021). The link between Massini and the Bolzanino Stable is tight: Massini is the author of Eichmann. The night begins with the TSB production directed by Mauro Avogadro and starring Ottavia Piccolo and Paolo Pierobon, which was a great success with the public and critics. Now the collaboration is renewed with The Interpretation of Dreams, a co-production by TSB and Teatro della Toscana.