In stato di Grazia

IN STATO DI GRAZIA

Actress: Margò Volo
Author: Tobia Rossi
Directed by: Chiara Valli and Tobia Rossi

In a state of Grace, monologue written by Tobia Rossi for Margò Volo who, with irony and self-irony, talks about taboo and prejudices, about self-discovery and sexual freedom, about menopause and joie de vivre, through the monologue-testimony of a bizarre character without hair on the tongue, which faces the public provoking the reaction that most of all characterizes the relationship with our body, our complexes, our intimacy: embarrassment.

In an age where bodies are overexposed, the most intimate secrets made public, are we really so free and aware? What are the limits of the sayable and the feasible that we face every day?

The show talks about all this through the bizarre epic of a kitsch heroine.
Mixing genres, black comedy, sex comedy and melò, and languages, to give us back the extraordinary – absurd and wonderful – complexity of a human being struggling with fears and fragility, furious passions and desires for redemption.

SYNOPSIS

An imaginary village in Northern Italy. Today.
Grazia is a woman all in one piece. Wife of the mayor and principal of the only high school in the country, she is feared by everyone: students, colleagues, parents. With firmness and austerity, Grazia guides not only her institute but in some way the whole country, governed by its principles: rigor, respectability and above all sexual repression.
For Grazia, the sexuality heralded on social media and on TV and the excessive freedom of customs are leading the world towards a slow decline.
Her husband tries everything to melt the block of ice that has become his heart, her son – gay and twenty – no longer knows what to invent to make his mother more tolerant and open, but every effort is in vain.
Even friends and colleagues make fun of Grace for her rigidity, someone tries to move her from her positions, but to no avail.
For Grazia, things in the village are getting worse. It seems that everywhere he turns he sees depravity and sex exhibited. Why? An urban legend begins to circulate according to which it is supposed that the “exciting” air circulating in the area is due to the fumes of a Viagra factory, recently opened nearby. Sounds absurd, sure, but what if there was some truth? When in doubt, Grazia personally goes to the hill on which the factory is located, but the path is impervious, she stumbles and falls into the tank full of the factory’s sewage.
Just like in a mutant movie, after that accident, something in her changes radically. She begins to feel a strange itch, a strange desire to be herself and free her sexuality, which ends up pervading her totally, sending her into a tailspin giving life to a new Grace.

Her look changes, she begins to be called Grace, she suddenly becomes sexually very active with her husband (so much so that he is now unable to keep up with her!), She turns to her son in an unscrupulous and direct way, too direct even. for him.
“I have to make up for all the time I lost!” is Grazia’s new motto, and in the meantime, those who previously accused her of narrow views and bigotry are now embarrassed, uncomfortable in her presence… maybe they weren’t really as open and uninhibited as they professed.
Grazia’s eldest daughter, Martina, a manager in Germany, returns to the country to find out what is happening to her mother. Find a totally new mom who is discovering a new balance with herself and a new way to listen and understand others.
After an initial moment of disorientation, the family manages to deal with his skeletons in the closet and the four find themselves sincere with each other and united as they have never been.
But some people don’t like all this freedom, they are annoyed and afraid that the new Grace could lead the people of the country on the wrong path.

In a short time, within the school, teachers and parents join forces in a sort of anti-Grace party, which becomes the scapegoat of the community, a real crusade is moving against her.
Apparently the entire citizenry preferred a cynical and repressive despot to a colorful and extravagant but authentic free woman.
In the last part of the story, the comedy, up to that point lively and carefree, is dangerously tinged with black …