The epistolary friendship between the American writer Flannery O’Connor and a young university student. Featuring Tamara Bartolini. Directed by Maria Francesca Destefanis.

 

Compagnia Sycamore T Company
with: Tamara Bartolini
Text and direction: Maria Francesca Destefanis
Lights: Michele Baronio
Scenery: Alessia Sambrini
Scene photography: Francesco Cavaliere

In 1950’s America a young woman writes a letter to an authoress by whose book she has been strongly impressed. Unexpectedly she receives a reply which will change both their lives. Inspired by the letters which American writer, Flannery O’Connor, sent to a young woman who for a long time remained anonymous, and known to the readers of this correspondence as A., The peacocks have the last word tells the story of one of the most interesting women writers of our times through the unexpected and sudden relationship with her new admirer. Just by wanting to remain known only as A, the narrator of the story becomes a metaphor for the reader who meets the authoress through her books and shares with her discoveries and passions. A relationship which leaves its mark and changes one’s life until the final outcome of death which is not the last word on existence, because, as Flannery O’Connor wrote, “the Peacocks have the last word”. The show, under the patronage of the Rome City Council, was presented as a stage reading in 2004 at the Centro Studi americani, during a conference to mark the forty years anniversary of Flannery O’Connor’s death. In 2007 it had its Rome debut at the Sala Uno Theatre and it repeated at the Teatro Belli. In April 2009 it played at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in Roma, in the course of the events organised for the international conference Reason Fiction and Faith, dedicated to Flannery O’Connor. The text, originally written as a diploma essay by Maria Francesca Destefanis at the Holden School, has won the XXXI Flaiano Drama prize in the Under 35 category.