Strupiaus. A word that in Sardinian means crippled, wounded, imperfect, but which in everyday speech can take on another meaning: something surprising, extraordinary, capable of attracting the eye. It is within the short circuit triggered by this linguistic polysemy that the "Lucido Festival 2026" was born, thirteen days starting August 28th in which Cagliari and its metropolitan area attempt to tell their story through what is normally relegated to the margins. Not a glossy postcard city, then, but a city to be explored in its imperfections, its contradictions, its less photographed places.

The word is also a poetic declaration: if a wound can become wonder, then a suburb can transform into a stage, a bus into a theater, an everyday space into a venue for artistic performance. Thus, the free and widespread festival chooses to bring theater, music, dance, workshops, residencies, and traveling performances to places where culture normally struggles to reach.

For the first time, Lucido Festival, On the Road, Burning City, and CagliariTiAmo come together in a single experience, a project that seeks to free the city center from its privileged position, creating a multicentric event that equally spans Giorgino and Pirri, Is Mirrionis and San Michel, Elmas, and some of the most recognizable locations like the T-Hotel, as well as decidedly less conventional spaces like a bus on Line 1 of the CTM. The audience, therefore, is not simply invited to a show but to explore the city, changing their perspective along with the location.

It's an interesting reversal: for years, the suburbs have been viewed primarily as places to be redeveloped, reclaimed, and included. For thirteen days, they instead become places capable of producing culture and attracting visitors, distributing cultural and tourist flows so as to generate benefits that extend beyond the festival's duration.

From August 28th to 30th, the event will be at 8 pm at the THotel in Cagliari for a preview of the festival.

Comedian Laura Formenti presents a preview of her show, which will debut in 2027. The show focuses on mental illness, the rise of extremism and fanaticism, and the need to find ways to maintain our sense of humor while the world seems intent on losing it.

Giuseppe Scoditti returns to Lucido for the third time, this time with Tano Mongelli, co-founder of Contenuti Zero. "Livelli altissimi" was born from a surreal phone call and the equally surreal mission of helping Mongelli become the new James Bond. Sketches, songs, unlikely attempts, and a contemporary cabaret rhythm create a show that takes only one thing seriously: the game.

Antonello Taurino presents "I'm Good with My Mouth," a monologue co-written with Carlo Turati that begins with language to explore, with wit and wit, the relationship between words, thought, and the world. At the center is a linguistics professor, an expert in ancient idioms, grappling with the anticipation of the most important and destabilizing professional turning point of his career: being catapulted into the world of Silicon Valley's high-tech corporations. A comical and surreal journey into language, just as artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize our relationship with words.

The festival also embraces environmental and social sustainability. Accessibility, the involvement of vulnerable people in the creative process, sustainable mobility, and the promotion of local supply chains are not mere decorative elements, but integral parts of the project, with the stated ambition of building a cultural model whose driving force will not fade once the events are over.

And so perhaps "Strupiaus" is the word that best describes this edition, because a city is alive even in its suburbs and its wounds, and a city that knows how to recognize them, traverse them, and sometimes transform them, is a city that recognizes everyone's equal place in its narrative.

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