Ermanna Montanari: a minute body that grows enormous on stage and a magnetic visage capable of expressing unlimited intensities; a voice that creates stage figures and becomes a musical instrument; an original language that encompasses every type of performance; microscopic precision and the magma of an infancy still vital in the language of dreams and the enigma of her native dialect. Laura Mariani, subtle analyst of theater and memory, portrays Ermanna in the weaving of art and life and in relation to Marco Martinelli, director and playwright and other pole in a complex alchemy. Mariani interrogates the figure of Ermanna through written and visual sources, unpublished notebooks and traces of the process of creation. A narrative journey-biography, portrait of the artist, chronicle of becoming-to examine in detail the raw material of an actress and of theater as it unfolds.