Tredici secondi ovvero Un bipede implume ma con unghie piatte

When a man's car breaks down on a deserted provincial road, he seeks help in an anonymous and derelict bar, marked by an old neon sign. In the cold light of the room, the man notices the profiles of two women and a man silhouetted against the back wall next to the counter. The three characters are sitting in a semicircle with their backs to the wall and a collected and serious expression fixed on an enormous chicken which, expressionless, stands on a table in the center of the seat. In difficulty, the Man tries to interact in vain but the characters, he learns inconveniently, are concentrated on the task of making the bird fly...

Tredici secondi ovvero Un bipede implume ma con unghie piatte (Thirteen Seconds or A Featherless Biped but with Flat Nails) is a tribute to the theater of the absurd to the extent that it manifests a sense of vague metaphysical anguish in the face of the burlesque absurdity of the human condition. In the dramaturgical tradition of Eugene Ionescu, Samuel Beckett and, in a more existentialist sense, Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Genet and Albert Camus, the work reveals the failure of communication – and understanding – in modern society which leaves man alienated , self-referential and conformist.

Through the ploy of the broken down car - which calls into question the expectation of reality - within the psychogeographical dynamics of the non-place, Man is catapulted into a sterile and homogenized reality. Every time he tries to interact with the characters, non-sequiturs will follow which will emphasize first the exasperation and then the profound discouragement produced by the failure of communication and lack of understanding.

F. Funari