La Codista

When he loses his job, Giovanni Cafaro from Milan invents a new profession: for a fee, he waits in line for other people at offices and government agencies. The actress Marleen Scholten bases her monologue "La Codista" on Giovanni's story. She has created a riveting performance about waiting in line (Italian: la coda), about putting oneself in another person's shoes, and, last but not least, about the impatience and desire that waiting evokes.

Dutch actress and author Marleen Scholten lives in Italy and interviewed various people in her adopted country about their experience of standstill for this project. In addition, the actress herself stood in line for hours, for instance at the post office or the tax office, to experience the mechanism of intense waiting for herself. She found chaos and simplicity there, people who came together by chance with only one purpose: to wait their turn.