Il Codista is a topical piece about identity and about the desire to sometimes slow down.
Based on the story of Giovanni Cafaro, a Milanese man who lost his job and subsequently started standing in line for others in exchange for payment, Marleen Scholten wrote this new text about standing still.
Standing still in line (la coda) for others in this case. In the line, he finds chaos and simplicity; people gathering in a place with only one goal: to wait until it is their turn.
Together with the audience, the codista waits for his turn and for answers that you only get after patiently waiting.
‘I don't want to be the first, rather the last. The faster the world goes, the more I slow down. I go against the current. Like a salmon. For a codista, the world is the other way around.’
La Codista, as the original title reads, was originally written in Italian by Marleen Scholten, a Dutch actress and playwright who lives in Milan. In Italy she received the national playwriting prize Antonio Conti for this work.
‘Io non voglio essere il primo, preferisco essere l’ultimo.
Piu' il mondo va veloce e piu' io sento il bisogno di
rallentare.
Io nuoto controcorrente. Come un salmone. Per un
codista il mondo gira alla rovescia’
Performed by Massimo Zamboni, directed by Herman Boets by Theater de Seine.