Amphitryon

Who am I if I am not me? When I look at my equal, I see my appearance, just the same, there is nothing more like me! Am I what I have always been? Where did I die? Where did I lose my person? Can it be that I have left my me? That I have forgotten myself? Who is more wretched than I? No one recognises me any more and everyone mocks me at will. I no longer know who I am! These are some of the questions that torment both the protagonists of Amphitryon, written by Plautus more than 2000 years ago, and many of us today. The double, the construction of a fictitious identity, the theft of the ego, the loss of being guaranteed by a social role, are the themes that Plautus gives us in a new form, which he calls tragicomedy, because the events concern gods, masters and slaves. In it, the supreme Jupiter, after having transformed himself into the most varied animal, vegetable and natural forms, decides, for the first time, to disguise himself as a man. He assumes the guise of Amphitryon, far from home, in order to mate with his wife, the beautiful Alcmena, and to generate with her the demigod Hercules. Jupiter-Anphitryon during the love night, as long as three nights, tells Alcmena episodes from Amphitryon's journey as if he had experienced them personally. During the tale, the god experiences, for the first time, a hilarity, which he then takes care to leave as a gift to men. “Having abandoned the realm of metamorphosis, one entered that of counterfeit” Incipit Comoedia (R. Calasso).
“Open your eyes spectators, it is worth it: Jupiter and Mercury make comedy, here” (Plautus). After Plautus, many have rewritten Amphitryon, and each has done so while trying to listen to the stimuli and anxieties of their own time. I have tried to do it too.

Teresa Ludovico