Based on one of the most famous stories in North American literature - considered to be the forerunner of existentialist literature and the literature of the absurd -, Miss Bartleby is a show that offers a gateway to reflection on social conventions, moral choices and individual truths. Its theme is the dilemma of existence, between those who want everything and therefore end up killing themselves, or those who give up everything and therefore actually kill life itself.

In Herman Melville's tale, the meek and diligent Bartleby is hired as a scrivener, that is to say a notary’s clerk, in a Wall Street law office, and he immediately begins to behave strangely: bent over his desk, copying documents day and night, but not undertaking any other task requested by the lawyer. He always refuses with the answer "I'd rather not", but without giving any explanation for his refusal.
Throughout the story, the lawyer struggles with himself, between empathy for the new employee and the desire to fire him, between duty and conscience, driven, like all of us, to solve the enigma of Bartleby.
Over the years, many critics have tried to give a definitive answer to his famous statement, each according to their own interests and points of view. The Teatro della Contraddizione company believes that Bartleby’s power lies precisely in the mysterious charge that drives him on to face the profound human need to define and judge the reasons of others.
This question is the focal point of this new project: putting the Bartleby "mechanism" into operation not to decode it, but rather to let the answer change depending on who asks the question.
To do this, the author and director Marco Maria Linzi felt the need to imagine what happened before the beginning of Melville's story, before Bartleby crossed the door of the Wall Street office, the moment when his last descent occurred. But this is not a day-by-day biography, but rather the inner journey of an individual, in which his universality is a symbol.
The show activates a device that contains not only Bartleby's existential apprenticeship, but also that of the characters around him, who are launched in search of their own place in society, creating a mutual relationship between the two dimensions. Bartleby thus becomes an alchemical force for others too, a mirror that is uncomfortable for those who want to face the journey towards the heart of society.

Through a dramaturgy composed of text, expressive and sound elements, in which the body is the main protagonist, Miss Bartleby develops a world oscillating between an inner reality that becomes visible and a path littered with symbols and traces that redefine the Bartleby character, bringing to light what is hidden and immersing the spectators in a rational and emotional investigation.
As an invitation to confront the ambiguity of human existence and to embrace the complexity of individual experiences, Bartleby becomes a mirror in the search for oneself and for the world we would like to live in, as opposed to the comedy that we banally call normality.