New York Marathon

new staging 2024
Edoardo Erba / Rita Maffei

Twenty years after the successful production starring Claudio Moretti and Fabiano Fantini, which ran for over a hundred performances, Rita Maffei is directing New York Marathon again. This time, the play has been translated into Friulian by Paolo Patui and will be performed by a younger generation of Friulian actors: Daniele Fior and Marco Rogante.
This time, the play is a race that becomes a metaphor for life.

Two friends run in the countryside at night. They are training for the world's most famous amateur race. Long strides in the dark and few words. Just enough to avoid being alone and to overcome fatigue. It is when the pace becomes more intense and the breath begins to run out that the words take over. Like a stopwatch, the rhythm of their thoughts quickens. These are the shared memories and misunderstandings of two marathon runners coming to terms with themselves, others and the meaning of their actions, and the small details that do not add up. As the sweat turns cold and the spleen begins to ache, carefree, exhilarating training turns towards a dramatic goal. Images blur in the fog and darkness; points of reference are lost; even words wheeze. These are portents of a tragedy, caught in broken sentences, breathlessness and a racing heart. Perhaps only imagined, there is the noise of crumpling metal sheets.

Edoardo Erba's compelling script won the 1992 Candoni Arta Terme Prize for New Dramaturgy. It was first performed by Luca Zingaretti and Bruno Armando. Drawing on his training in sports and stage work, New York Marathon is dramaturgy in real time, agonism in a theatrical format, and a metaphor for life as a competition where anger must be consumed quickly. Too fast.

Running time: 65 minutes