"Acting? What an ugly word! If it were only about acting, I feel that I have never known how, nor will I ever know how to act!

Those poor women in my plays have entered my heart and mind so deeply ,that while I strive to make them understood as best as I can to those who listen to me, almost as if I wanted to comfort them... it is they who, little by little, have ended up comforting me!

How – and why, and since when – this affectionate, inexplicable, and undeniable 'exchange' has happened between those women and me... it would be too long and also difficult – to be precise – to tell.

The fact is that, while everyone distrusts women, I get along perfectly with them! I don’t care if they’ve lied, if they’ve betrayed, if they’ve sinned, or if they were born perverse, as long as I feel that they have cried, suffered either to lie, to betray, or to love...

I stand with them and explore them not out of a mania for suffering but because female sorrow is greater and more detailed, it is sweeter and more complete than what men allow for!"

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The work is divided into two parts, and the division followis Duse's progression towards an increasingly aware art.

The first part is "exquisitely artificial," and the last Duse, now elderly, is "all immaculate light."

It is a NON-WORK, an hymn to women.

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A necessary thanks to the text by Mirella Schino, Eleonora Duse – Stories and Images of a Theatrical Revolution, for telling the story of this extraordinary woman, transcending the male influences that have obscured her path and freeing her from the clichés that obscure female genius. It was the undisputed starting point for all the research.