Co-creation with Daria Deflorian, Paolo Musio, Monica Piseddu and Gabriele Portoghese

Using various materials and her usual dose of humour, Italian theatre director and actor Daria Deflorian creates a form of theatre that rides a fine line, mixing the most mundane aspects of life with dreamlike, neurotic and even fantastic moments that stand out abruptly on stage. In The Vegetarian, the novel by internationally renowned South Korean writer Han Kang, Yeong-hye, a young woman who leads a banal life, one day has such a blood-soaked dream that she throws out all of the meat in her freezer and decides to become a vegetarian. It’s the start of an increasingly strange transformation up until the moment she herself wants to become vegetation. From the moment she read the novel, Daria Deflorian knew that Yeong-hye, with her secret radical outlook, subversive dream and way of disrupting a standardised world would feel right at home in Deflorian’s theatre.

Cast

adaptation Daria Deflorian, Francesca Marciano
space Daniele Spanò
lighting Giulia Pastore
sound Emanuele Pontecorvo
costumes Metella Raboni
project collaborator Attilio Scarpellini
assistant director Andrea Pizzalis
artistic collaboration on set design Lisetta Buccellato
project collaboration Attilio Scarpellini
technical director Lorenzo Martinelli with Micol Giovanelli
trainee director Blu Silla
assistant director Andrea Pizzalis


for INDEX Valentina Bertolino, Elena de Pascale, Francesco Di Stefano, Silvia Parlani

an INDEX production,

coproduction Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT - teatro nazionale, La Fabbrica dell'Attore - Teatro Vascello (Rome) with Romaeuropa Festival, TPE Teatro Piemonte Europa, Milan Triennale, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Festival d'Automne à Paris, Théâtre Garonne - scène européenne à Toulouse

with the collaboration of ATCL / Spazio Rossellini; Istituto Culturale Coreano in Italia

with the support of MiC - ministero della cultura (Italy)

La Végétarienne by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Jeong Eun-Jin and Jacques Batilliot, Le Livre de Poche, 2016


copyright Han Kang 2007
copyright LGF/Le Livre de Poche, 2016


creation in October 2024

Biography of Daria Deflorian

Daria Deflorian is an actress who has worked in Italy, Europe and New York. In France, she has appeared in shows by Lucia Calamaro (notably La Vita ferma at the Odéon in 2017) and in Les Géants de la montagne (2015) directed by Stéphane Braunschweig, who also directed her in Pirandello's La vita che ti diedi at Turin's Teatro Stabile in 2024. From 2008 to 2021, she co-directed with Antonio Tagliarini shows that have often won awards (Prix Ubu, Best Foreign Show in Canada), including Ce ne andiamo per non darvi altre preoccupazioni and Avremo ancora l'occasione di ballare insieme, presented at the Odéon in 2016 and 2021. She has also directed her own shows since 2001. With the Oceano Indiano/Teatro di Roma group, she recently created Radio India (Prix Ubu 2021) and Elogio della vita a rovescio (2023), the first part of a project based on the work of Han Kang.