Second to None? Menelaus as a Tragic Hero on the Contemporary Stage

The paper examines Davide Carnevali’s Menelao (una tragedia contemporanea), premiered by Teatrino Giullare at the Teatro Arena del Sole in Bologna in February 2019. Drawing on the Homeric and tragic tradition, the study analyses how Carnevali, in sustained dialogue with antiquity, reshapes Menelaus into an eidolon of himself – a man struggling with the idealized image of who he wishes to be. Through his encounters with pivotal figures from his mythological past, such as Helen, Agamemnon, and Proteus, as well as with newly invented characters like the Rhapsode, Menelaus is gradually transformed into a symbol of the tragic condition of contemporary humanity.