The Fall of the Empire of… – materials for the fall of an empire

from Aeschylus, Herodotus and Adonis

“Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.” 

For the second time the course of set design and the Teatro Arsenale have worked together on an interactive work for the Spazio Patio of the Department of Architecture. The Spazio Patio has been reinterpreted here in terms of its second name, the one by which it is usually known, the Agora.

So we decided to go back to the source of the sources, to the beginnings of theater as it has come down to us, in Greek tragedy. With regard both to the space and to the theatrical content. The staging for the performance was the winner of a competition among the students of the course of set design: the design has divided the place into three spaces in the image of the Greek skene, the orchestra for the chorus and the tiers of seating for the audience, creating a modern semicircular space typical of the oldest theaters.

The performance unites Greek tragedy, history and contemporary poetry in its exploration of the ever present conflict between East and West, as presented to us by Aeschylus, Herodotus and Adonis. The texts on which the work is based are Aeschylus’s The Persians and Herodotus’s The Histories. In it we look at the conflict between East and West and tell the story of the fall of a great empire.

Authors of the project PierluigiSalvadeo, Walter Prati, Marina Spreafico

Texts Herodotus, Aeschylus, Adonis

Staging Set Design Workshop of the Department of Architecture and Society of Milan Polytechnic