Queues are emblematic places that bring together groups of human beings who share a single purpose: that of awaiting their turn. In them we find chaos, misunderstandings and anger, but also relief and boredom. La codista [something like “the queuer”] is the latest work by the actress and director Marleen Scholten, who takes her cue from the true story of a Milanese woman who, having suddenly lost his job, chooses to work as a professional “queuer”.

Starting from this event, Scholten creates a story on the theme of waiting: in a society in which we are constantly encouraged to race ahead, to move rapidly (both physically and mentally) from one place to another, from one emotion to the next, trying not to miss any opportunity, La codista makes us reflect on the revolutionary idea of stopping, taking possession of our own time at long last, and facing up to the increasingly ephemeral concept of our own identity. 

Her reflections are transparent and personal, comic but political, absurd and yet extraordinarily real.

For her show, Marleen Scholten has made a video in which she interviews a number of Italian citizens on the significance of waiting. What have we got to lose?

La codista

Nessun uomo è un’isola
Completo in se stesso
Ogni uomo è parte della terra
Una parte del tutto
Se una zolla è portata via dal mare
L’Europa risulta essere più piccola
Come se fosse un promontorio
Come se fosse tua
La morte di ciascun uomo mi sminuisce
Perché faccio parte del genere umano
E perciò non chiederti
Per chi suona la campana
Suona per te.

John Donne, author of the seventeenth century

Taken from one of the poems that La codista recites in the show