A young man returns to visit his mother on a rainy afternoon. Upon entering the house, he finds the living room filled with boxes, scattered across the table, on the floor, and on the chairs. Amid the clutter, the woman moves restlessly, talking nonstop. She is looking for an old newspaper article she had read some time ago and then saved, in an attempt to recall the last words of a quote: “All that remains of intimacy is…?” As if her life had been left hanging there, waiting to complete the sentence. 
Before long, her son gets drawn into the search. Any resistance is futile: the pull of that forgotten word is too strong, even for him. Old photo albums, novels, and small, unsettling cockroaches—difficult to get rid of—then emerge from the boxes. Suspended between dream and reality, between action and thought, mother and son sink into what we might call a collective unconscious, in an attempt to rediscover the lost words.
*Madri* was nominated for the 2025 Ubu Awards for best new Italian play or dramatic writing. 

“The direction,” says Alice Sinigaglia, “focuses on the word and therefore on sound, the most elusive of all theatrical elements (just as elusive as the tender uncertainty of the two characters). Whether polyphonic or monolithic, split, or layered, an in-depth and complex exploration of sound seeks to convey all the levels of thought’s stratification—the true protagonist of this play. The dramaturgical and directorial approaches merge; stage directions become dialogue, dialogue becomes thought, thoughts become monologues, and the monologues are heard by those who are supposed to perform them.”