Maddalena Crippa

Sandro Campagna

February 22, 2022

When theatre is inclusion

February 23, 2022

Ph. © Franca CENTARO

Maddalena Crippa and Siracusa

The extraordinary artistic career of Maddalena Crippa starts on the stage of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano where, when she is just seventeen, Giorgio Strehler chooses her for the role of Lucietta in his Campiello. After that performance there are a series of events of great prestige in which one of the most fascinating, complete and versatile protagonists of Italian theatre enjoys great success in Italy and abroad, interpreting important, profound characters and working with great directors such as Luca Ronconi, Peter Stein, Egisto Marcucci, and Antonio Calenda.

Greatly admired, a winner of many awards, she has always followed an unconventional path, without neglecting an intelligent line of theatrical research which has led her to confront various genres. She interpreted an unforgettable Medea at the Greek Theatre of Siracusa in 2004 under Stein’s direction. In 2019 she interpreted Hecuba in “Le Troiane” - Trojan Women directed by Muriel Mayette-Holtz.

Parts of her interview given on that occasion to PaneAcquaCulture.net perfectly reveal Maddalena Crippas’s passions: “Theatre, luckily, is disconnected from the absurd technologies that have now filled our lives. We aren’t just made of flesh, we also have a spirit and a soul which is filled with passions and pulsations: theatre will never die and will always have a reason to exist because it is the only remaining place where one can develop an idea and an emotion together with others, something unique and unrepeatable… when it happens - because obviously this doesn’t happen very often and then, theatre fails. But when it does happen, it is something unrepeatable, irreplaceable and necessary. I hope that INDA continues, as it has done until now, to preserve this peculiarity of the Greek Theatre, as it is unique in the whole wide world. It is an archaeological site dedicated to theatre, it is of incredible value, and theatre needs this.”