La coscienza di Zeno

Published in 1923, La coscienza di Zeno by Italo Svevo was a revolutionary novel: the author depicts the crisis of the modern man, proceeding through thematic clusters that deconstruct the traditional linear plot. Svevo portrays a man who was ahead of his time, a weak-willed anti-hero searching for the origins of his malaise.

The protagonist obsessively revisits his past, attempting to identify the affliction that has hindered his fulfilment, following a stream of consciousness that constantly treads the fine line between sincerity and falsehood, between rationality and the unconscious. In his attempt to tell his own story, deep contradictions and inner rifts are revealed.

In the vision of Oyes, a contemporary theatre company, Zeno Cosini is the paradigm of a bygone humanity, of a time that is drawing to a close but refuses to fade away; he moves without a centre of gravity, struggling to make sense of the reality around him, now devoid of any certainties to fall back on.

On stage, a public self-analysis unfolds, involving the characters from the protagonist’s life—ghosts of his conscience—clinging to and trapped in a century now past, in a surreal game where the planes of reality blur. Zeno torments himself by retracing the critical moments of his existence, where the narrative becomes a tragicomic graveyard of good intentions.