Seeing the Unseen, Staging the Unspoken: The Gender Politics and Political Language of Emma Dante’s Theatre in the Berlusconi Era (1994-2011)

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Francesca Spedalieri, M.A.

Graduate Program in Theatre

The Ohio State University

2017

Dissertation Committee:

Lesley Ferris, Co-advisor

Jennifer Schlueter, Co-advisor

Ana Elena Puga

Charles Klopp

Copyright by

Francesca Spedalieri

2017

ii

Abstract

The invisibility of Italian contemporary women directors in Italy and abroad is

symptomatic of how Italian theatre is studied in the Anglophone academy and the

concerning gender inequality and misogyny widespread in Italy during the Berlusconi

Era (1994-2011). This dissertation looks at this grossly understudied aspect of Italian

theatre by examining the role that Sicilian director Emma Dante (b. 1967), her company

Sud Costa Occidentale, and her works played in the 1994-2011 Italian theatre landscape.

This study reads her staging of female bodies, her theatrical works as a whole, and her

directorial persona for attitudes towards women in the context of Sicilian and Italian

culture. It analyzes the individual stories told in Dante’s La trilogia della famiglia

siciliana (The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family, 2001-2004), Cani di Bancata (Market Dogs,

2006), and Trilogia degli occhiali (The Eyeglasses Trilogy, 2011) as vehicles to denounce

the symbolic and systemic violence targeting and oppressing Italian women. Although

primarily based on text and performance analysis, feminist and body theory also

undergird the explorations undertaken in this study. This work is historiographically

guided and rooted in contemporary Italian cultural studies, as it reconstructs the context

in which Dante’s plays were written.

Chapter 1 provides the historical, sociological, and cultural background necessary

to frame to rest of the dissertation. Chapter 2 presents the lower-class Sicilian women in

La trilogia della famiglia siciliana as doubly marginalized by their

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gender and socio-economic status. It explores how the financial disparity between the

sexes, the gender roles, and the violence perpetuated against women depicted in the

Trilogy point at gender issues such as economic inequality, Catholic Church-backed ideas

predicating the submission of women to men, and gendered killings.

Chapter 3 paints mafia realities as controlled by both regional and national power

dynamics regulated by laws of silence and behavior, and strengthened by the corruption

and complicity of governmental and religious institutions. It then dissects the female

imagery in Cani di bancata, depicting southern Italian women living in mafia-controlled

regions as perennially subordinated to men and marginalized within mafia organizations,

where they are idealized by male fantasies and relegated to traditional gender roles.

Chapter 4 discusses Trilogia degli occhiali focusing on Ballarini. It portrays the

last play of the Trilogy as questioning gendered ageism through an investigation of the

representation of old age and the presence/absence of older women’s bodies in the media,

the structure of the play itself, and the actors’ performances of age and the aging process.

Beyond summarizing the arguments made in preceding chapters and outlining

future research, Chapter 5 looks at Dante’s public persona as continuing her questioning

of gender inequality, gender roles, and mediatized gendered bodies. Finally, translations

of the seven plays analyzed and a list of works directed by Dante are provided in the

appendix. In addition to assisting with textual analysis, these translations offer scripts that

could be used by Anglophone scholars for future research on Italian theatre and by

English language theatre companies to stage Dante’s works.

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Dedication

To my famiglia.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to:

My co-advisors, Dr. Lesley Ferris and Dr. Jennifer Schlueter, for their constant

support and my committee members, Dr. Ana Elena Puga, and Dr. Charles Klopp, for

their guidance, particularly in the process of translating Dante’s plays.

The Ohio State University Department of Theatre, Jerome Lawrence and Robert

E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, the Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Grant

Committee, and The Ohio State University Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and

Scholarship (AGGRS) Committee for believing in me, my passion for contemporary

Italian theatre, and Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale. This dissertation would have not

been written without their encouragement and contributions to my fieldwork in Italy.

The theatre archives visited throughout Italy, theatre directors Lina Prosa, Laura

Sicignano, Marina Spreafico, Sabrina Sinatti, Marinella Manicardi, Caterina Costantini,

and Teresa Ludovico, and the friends and colleagues of Sud Costa Occidentale for their

willingness to share their wealth of knowledge. Further acknowledgment goes to

videographer Clarissa Cappellani for the invaluable archival material provided.

The countless people who have encouraged me along the way, my fellow Ohio

State travellers, my family, and, most of all, my partner, Dr. Il Memming Park.

And to Emma Dante, who has been and will continue to be an inspiration for my

own work.

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Vita

2004 ............................................................... I.B. Diploma and I.B. Certificate in Further

Mathematics, United World College of the

Atlantic, Wales

2008 ............................................................... B.A. Theatre, University of Florida

2011 ............................................................... M.A. Theatre, The Ohio State University

2011 to 2015 ................................................ Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of Theatre, The Ohio State University

Publications

“Review: Operetta Burlesque.” Theater Journal 67:2 (May 2015): 320-322. “Emma Dante and the Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale.” TheatreForum –

International TheatreForum – International Theatre Journal 45 (2014): 31-40. “Quietly Posthuman: Oriza Hirata’s Robot-Theatre.” Performance Research 19:2 (2014).

138-140. “American (Hi)Story Re-Presented and Revised: The Builders Association and the

Making of HOUSE/DIVIDED.” TheatreForum – International Theatre Journal 41 (2012): 3-11.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Theatre

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Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii  

Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv  

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... v  

Vita ..................................................................................................................................... vi  

Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1  

Chapter 2: La trilogia della famiglia siciliana ................................................................. 38  

Chapter 3: Cani di bancata ............................................................................................... 86  

Chapter 4: Trilogia degli occhiali ................................................................................... 136  

Chapter 5: Expanding the Discourse ............................................................................... 168  

Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 183  

Appendix A: Translated Plays ........................................................................................ 195  

Translator’s Note ........................................................................................................ 196  

The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family .............................................................................. 208  

mPalermu ................................................................................................................ 209  

The Butchery ........................................................................................................... 250  

Life of Mine ............................................................................................................. 298  

Market Dogs ................................................................................................................ 328  

The Eyeglasses Trilogy ............................................................................................... 369  

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Holywater ................................................................................................................ 372  

The Zisa Castle ....................................................................................................... 389  

Dancers ................................................................................................................... 405  

Appendix B: Works Directed by Emma Dante (1999 to 2017) ...................................... 418  

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Chapter 1: Introduction

A survey of English academic literature reveals that historical narratives

promulgated in English-language theatre histories, such as Oscar Brockett’s History of

the Theatre (2007) or Zarilli et.al.’s Theatre Histories (2006), have cemented the view of

Italian theatre as the sum of sporadic, male-driven theatrical spurts of genius occurring

centuries apart from each other and all dated before the year 2000.1 Even A History of

Italian Theatre, a 2006 in-depth specialized study edited by Joseph Farrell and Paolo

Puppa, unfortunately leaves much to be desired. To date, it is the most comprehensive

study of Italian theatre history, spanning activity from the Middle Ages to the turn of the

millennium. In recent years, it has become an essential source for Anglophone scholars

since it is the only history of Italian theatre available in English after Marvin Carlson’s

The Italian Stage from Goldoni to D’Annunzio (1981). While Farrell and Puppa’s study

does not claim to be exhaustive, disclaiming itself even in its title as ‘a’ history of Italian

theatre, it is particularly striking that there is no trace of women directors in the volume.2

1 In the least comprehensive of these surveys (Zarilli’s), Italian theatre is memorialized as the cradle of Commedia dell’Arte, Futurism, and the works of Dario Fo. In the most comprehensive surveys (Brockett’s), the impact of Neo-classicism/Humanism, Italian theatre scenographers of the Renaissance, the acting of Eleonora Duse, and the playwriting of Luigi Pirandello are also touched upon. 2 Carlo Vallauri’s chapter on Italy included in The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Europe (2001) provides a detailed overview of the 1980s and the early 1990s that supplements Farrell and Puppa’s book. Unfortunately, even in this chapter there is no mention of women directors.

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Directly related to the underrepresentation of Italian contemporary theatre as a whole on

the global theatrical scene, a disappointingly low number of English translations of

Italian plays, and a shortage of critical literature on Italian theatre, this vacuum is also

connected to the lack of visibility of women directors in the Italian national academic

discourse on contemporary theatre, making their works even less likely to be known in

Anglophone academic circles despite the wealth of contemporary theatrical productions

directed and/or devised by women. In fact, while in the last ten years there has been a

surge of research, published in Italian, connected to women in theatre, these studies have

dealt primarily with actresses and playwrights from the late Middle Ages to the 1990s,

overlooking both women directors and the post-2000s scene. For examples, even Italian

academics, such as Roberta Gandolfi,3 who are laboring to re-claim forgotten women

directors in a field that has been historically male-dominated, prefer to focus on French

and Anglo-Saxon artists, rather than their compatriots. It is thus not surprising that

English language surveys of contemporary women stage directors with an international

scope, such as the 2013 book International Women Stage Directors edited by Anne

Fliotsos and Wendy Vierow and covering twenty-four countries around the world, does

not include any Italian nationals. By leaving out Italian women directors, these studies

perpetuate a simplistic discourse that seems to label this void as due to either their non-

existence or to the subordination of their talent to that of their male counterparts, thus

making them undeserving of mention.

The research I conducted in Italy in 2010, 2013, and 2014 revealed that the

absence of Italian women directors in the national and international academic discourse is 3 See Roberta Gandolfi’s essay “Gli studi sulla regia teatrale” in Annali Online di Ferrara – Lettere, v.1, 2006, pp. 237-253.

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not prompted by an actual lack of women stage directors in the Bel Paese (The Beautiful

Country).4 An examination of the holdings of 25 different theaters and theater festivals

archives across the peninsula,5 as well as the contents of Italian newspapers’ and

magazines’ digital archives from the late 1990s up to the first decade of the 2000s,6

produced a list of more than 135 Italian women directors active during this period in

Italian venues of national and international significance. If not prompted by their non-

existence, then this invisibility of Italian contemporary women directors in the Italian

academy and abroad can be read as symptomatic of two larger issues: the way in which

Italian theatre has been traditionally approached in the Anglophone academy and the

worrisome gender inequality and misogyny widespread in Italy during a period referred

to in this dissertation as the Berlusconi Era. This era is here defined as the years

bookended by Berlusconi’s first election to President of the Council of Ministers in 1994

and his November 8, 2011 resignation as prime minister following a series of sex

scandals known as the “Bunga Bunga Saga” that led to his trial and conviction for having

paid to have sex with a minor.

This dissertation looks at the grossly understudied yet extremely active Italian

women theatre directors operating in contemporary Italy by examining, in particular, the

role that Emma Dante and her works have played in the Italian theatre landscape between

4 ‘Bel Paese,’ meaning ‘Beautiful Country,’ is a poetic appellative for Italy that was used by poets Dante and Petrarch. Possibly originating during the Middle Ages, this phrase is utilized today as a term of endearment to refer to the Italian peninsula. 5 In Palermo: Teatro Biondo, Teatro Libero. In Bari: Tratro Kismet OperA, In Bologna: Teatro Arena del Sole, Teatri di Vita. In Milan: Piccolo Teatro, Teatro Arsenale, Teatro Franco Parenti, Teatro Verdi, Teatro Elfo Puccini, Teatro OUT/OFF. In Turin: Festival delle Colline Torinesi. Teatro a Corte. In Genoa: Teatro Cargo, Teatro dell’Archivolto. In Florence: Fabbrica Europa Festival, Teatro della Pergola. In Rome: Teatro Vascello, Teatro Argentina, Teatro India, Biblioteca Teatro Quarticciolo. In Naples: Teatro Mercadante, Teatro San Ferdinando, Teatro Nuovo, Teatro Galleria Toledo. 6 Including La Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera, L’Espresso, Il Venerdì di Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Giornale and Il Manifesto.

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1994 and 2011. Implementing Carol Chillington Rutter’s ideas on the female body on

stage suggested in her Enter the Body: Women and Representation on Shakespeare’s

Stage (2001), this study reads the Sicilian director’s staging of female bodies, her body of

theatrical work as a whole, and her directorial persona for attitudes towards women and

gender roles in the context of Sicilian and Italian culture in the Berlusconi Era. Within

this timeframe, the analysis of Dante’s plays presented here is limited to her two trilogies,

La trilogia della famiglia siciliana (The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family, 2001-2004) and

Trilogia degli occhiali (The Eyeglasses Trilogy, 2011), and her 2006 play Cani di

Bancata (Market Dogs). The examination of the seven productions included in this

selection investigates the ways in which these plays make strong social and political

statements rooted in a Sicilian and Italian cultural context to protest against the

androcentrism rampant in Italy in the last decade of the 1990s and the first years of the

2000s. Borrowing Slavoj Žižek’s thoughts outlined in his Violence (2008), this

dissertation looks at the stories of subjective violence against and oppression of women

staged by Dante as vehicles to denounce larger symbolic and systemic violence and

oppression present in contemporary Italian society during the Berlusconi Era.

While feminist and body theory, with a particular eye to Italian feminism, will

undergird explorations of the meaning and significance of the female body in Dante’s

staging, this dissertation is primarily historiographically guided and rooted in

contemporary Italian cultural studies, as it attempts to reconstruct the context in which

Dante’s plays were written. Particular attention will be devoted to the economic and

cultural disparity between the North and the South of Italy at the cusp of the new

millennium, and to the complicated relation between regional and national languages in

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presenting cultural hierarchy within the country. The methodology employed in this

project combines an analysis of primary and secondary sources. Much of the research for

it was gathered while doing fieldwork in Italian theatres and archives, as well as at

Dante’s rehearsal space in Palermo where I was able to observe her company’s rehearsals

and performances. Other primary sources include playbills and performance texts. In

addition to academic and non-academic texts published about Dante’s works, feminist

theory, and Italian cultural studies, secondary sources utilized in this dissertation also

include video recordings of the company’s performances, documentary films about Sud

Costa Occidentale, newspaper reviews of the performances, and articles and video-

interviews for television specials conducted by Dante and other members of her

company.

Translations of Dante’s seven plays are provided as an integral part of the

dissertation with two aims: first, to facilitate understanding of textual analysis references

by English-speaking readers; second, to provide playable scripts of contemporary Italian

theatre that could be used by Anglophone scholars for future research and by English

language theatre companies to stage Dante’s works for English-speaking audiences.

Italian Performance History in Anglophone Scholarship

A partial answer to the lack of recorded mentions of women directors by

Anglophone scholars can be found in the historical compartmentalization of American

and British universities and in the ways in which Italian theatre is studied. Often based in

Italian Language and Italian Studies departments rather than Performance or Theatre

Studies departments, scholars researching Italian theatre frequently focus on dramatic

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literature rather than performance – which, even in recorded form, are less readily

available than dramatic texts. Even when Italian Studies departments complemented

traditional research on Italian literature and poetry with more interdisciplinary topics of

inquiry touching on sociology, anthropology, film studies, and gender and sexuality

studies (to name a few), the research focusing on Italian theatre lagged behind. The

examination of Italian theatre largely continued to focus on the infrequently published

play-texts and their authors, rather than tackling productions and performance. This

practice rendered less visible directors and theatre authors who center their work on the

body and utilize devising processes to create performances.

While interdisciplinary endeavors analyzing the many cultural aspects of Italy

remarked on its diversity of languages, its multi-faceted, rich histories, and the tensions

created by such histories, the scholarly output of many Anglophone academics

researching Italian theatre did otherwise. By not directly addressing this diversity, they

design a simplified Italy for export – to use Beverly Allen and Mary Russo’s analogy

included in their co-edited 1997 Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture

– perpetuating the illusion of a homogeneous Italian cultural tradition and relegating

Italian theatre to its pre-assigned role. Their work often left unquestioned historical issues

connected to a unified Italian national identity and problematics linked to the Italian

language, a tongue that can truly be claimed as no-one’s native language.7 This failure to

problematize Italian cultural unity can be overlooked when research on Italian theatre in

presented to other Italianists who are aware of the cultural fragmentation and diversity

that is being implied. Yet, this omission becomes extremely problematic when the same 7 Beyond Allen and Russo’s work, see the article by Paolo Coluzzi titled “Endangered minority and regional languages (‘dialects’) in Italy” published in Modern Italy in 2009.

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work is presented to Anglophone theatre scholars who lack a background in Italian

Studies.

One such challenging issue is that of the Questione della lingua (The Language

Issue) that took center stage among Italian academics during the Renaissance and

initiated a long dispute on the virtues of creating a unified Italian language that could

replace Latin as the shared cultured language of the peninsula.8 The alternative many

academics and artists9 suggested was to continue to use – at least in the theater and for

some kinds of poetry – the variegated neo-Latin regional vulgar languages – like Sicilian,

Neapolitan, and Venetian – that developed organically beginning before the Middle

Ages. A strong bias by many Renaissance Italian scholars against regional languages and

regional language theatrical performance certainly contributed to a selective admiration

of mediocre theatre in the Italian language at the expense of more ‘popular’ regional

language theatre. As Marvin Carlson points out in his book Speaking in Tongues:

Languages at Play in the Theatre (2006), while playwright Carlo Gozzi received

accolades from academics of his time for his use of Italian, Carlo Goldoni, one of the

most famous and successful Italian playwrights of all times, was often criticized by

writers for his mixed use of Italian with his native Venetian dialect and other regional

languages such as Lombard (Carlson 82-86). But it was precisely this linguistic

complexity that made Goldoni’s theatre so valued by his audiences thus garnering

international attention. Unfortunately, categorizing Goldoni’s theatre simply as Italian

without interrogating the complexity of its language, as is done in many theatre history

8 The debate to select which vulgar language would be used as the base for the new, unified Italian language was long and multi-voiced. Eventually, the Florentine vulgar language was selected to this scope. 9 Among them, early Commedia dell’Arte actors-playwrights such as Ruzzante who, incidentally, scripted his own plays.

8

volumes is a reductionist approach. The Questione della lingua influenced how theatre

was classified and perceived in Italy for nearly four hundred and fifty years and continues

to be central today both in its historical significance and in the contemporary tensions

between regional languages and Italian. Yet, it is rarely addressed in Italian theatre

histories and never mentioned in theatre history survey textbooks in English. Regardless

of the authors’ awareness of the Questione, failing to mention it results in stripping

Italian theatre of much of its complexity.

The problem of the geographical and cultural fragmentation of the Italian

peninsula is part of why the Questione della lingua was so important in the country’s

history. After the process of unification was completed in 1870, ‘Italy’ was thought by

some to possess a singular national identity. However, such identity was superimposed on

pre-existing regional identities that originated with Greek invasions of southern Italy,

expanded after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and during the Middle Ages, and

were later cross-pollinated by a series of invasions from northern and southern Europe as

well as from the Ottoman Empire. Prior to 1947, Italy was not officially divided into

twenty regions although the peninsula was already segmented into cultural and linguistic

areas that roughly corresponded to the States (or groups of neighboring States) that

covered the peninsula before Unification. While the borders of regions such as Veneto,

Puglia, and Tuscany have been largely consistent since the Middle Ages, those of many

other regions were modified throughout the centuries. This historical process of

geographical restructuring contributed to the creation of a unified nation with marked

cultural, economic, and social differences between its regions and, in particular, among

its northern and southern regions. These distinctions gave rise to the Questione

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Meridionale (Southern Issue), a phrase first used in 1873 by the politician Antonio Billia.

To this day, to talk about the Questione Meridionale means to tackle the political,

economic, and social disparities between the Mezzogiorno (the southern part of Italy) and

the rest of the Italian peninsula; disparities that became particularly troublesome in their

implications for the newborn Kingdom of Italy. Like the Questione della Lingua, the

Questione Meriodionale is never touched upon in theatre history volumes, although

scholars of Italian Studies are acutely aware of both matters.

This oversimplified, pre-packaged version of Italian culture, removed from a

complex historical, economic, cultural, and sociological context, is at the root of many

Anglophone theatre historians’ view of the Italian theatrical tradition as homogeneous.

As they select actors, directors, and playwrights as representative of an ‘Italian national

theatre,’ they create historiographical narratives based on the assumption that Italy is and

has always been a unified, nationalist state, with a shared, somewhat uniform culture and

linguistic heritage. These assumptions are reinforced by the need for scholars not residing

in Italy to use available archival material to reconstruct theatrical events. As Thomas

Postlewait warns us in The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Historiography (2009),

partial documentation of an event made by a limited number of participants, witnesses,

and social organizations can be further tainted by bias, hence modifying, distorting, or

limiting a document’s reliability. Moreover, historiographical narratives are perpetuated

by the cyclical use of limited secondary sources in both English and Italian that often

repeatedly draw from each other, by the lack of performance documentation, and by the

limited body of published Italian plays and texts of theatre criticism.

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Such an incomplete portrait of Italy and its theatre is aggravated by a lack of

translations into English of Italian contemporary plays and by a timeframe that is often

associated with the publication of new plays in translations. In fact, even the handful of

play texts that is eventually translated often suffers a ten-year lag separating the

production of the original from the publication of the translation. The scattered, often

internationally inaccessible, Italian performance and play archives also contribute to this

lag in translation and in the generation of new scholarship. Further, Italian companies that

focus on the creation of new works are often decentralized, taking up residency away

from the two internationally recognized centers of theatrical activity in the country, Milan

and Rome. In the years before the popularization of digital self-promotion in Italy, these

companies could only attract national and international attention if they are able to tour or

perform at national and international festivals. Unfortunately, the dismantling in 2009 of

the Ente Teatrale Italiano (the national Italian Theatre Institution) and the reduction of

state contributions to the Fondo Unico per lo Spettacolo (the Unified Fund for

Performance Arts) exacerbated the financial constraints that prevented many

contemporary Italian companies from touring, making it arduous for their work to be

known outside their region.

Ultimately, the exclusion of Italian women directors from the discourse on

contemporary Italian culture generated in Italian Studies departments and perpetuated by

Anglophone theatre historians encourages English histories of Italian theatre to replicate

the process of exclusion initiated in Italy by cultural chauvinism. This blindness thus

effectively erases Italian women directors from the English-language record of Italian

theatre history.

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Women in the Berlusconi Era

Although Italian institutionalized chauvinism existed well before the 1990s, under

Berlusconi’s reign the country witnessed a rise in the mediatization and normalization of

the commodification of the female body in a climate of expanded gender inequality.

During these twenty years, Italy – or the “most chauvinist country in Europe” as the

journalist and writer Caterina Soffice sensationally dubs it in the title of her 2010 book

Ma le donne no10 – underwent what Italian theatre director Annamaria Talone refers to as

a “cultural involution:” a widespread and deeply embodied manifestation of cultural

sexism that put the achievements of Italian feminism in danger (Talone 13). Year after

year, the rhetoric of an uncountable number of Italian public figures reinforced the

representation of Italian women as silent objects of male pleasure hierarchically

subordinated to men. Speeches such as the one given by Berlusconi at the New York

stock exchange in 2003 inviting traders to invest in Italian products since the county has

“beautiful secretaries”11 quickly became the norm, foregrounding the importance of

women’s beauty and youth over qualifications and intelligence (“In quotes” n.p.).12

While hard to pinpoint, Giovanna Cosenza, professor of Philosophy and

Communication at the University of Bologna, working with the student group

Studenti&Reporter attempted to, at least qualitatively, assess the impact of this “cultural

10 For more, see Soffice’s Ma Le Donne No: Come Si Vive Nel Paese Più Maschilista D'Europa (But Not Women: Life In The Most Chauvinist Country in Europe). 11 As well as “fewer communists.” Berlusconi’s remarks seem to connect feminism with communism. In one instance, he posited that the reason why he was sentenced to pay a large alimony to his divorced wife was because the Italian justice system was full of “feminist, communist” magistrates are not the only remarks that, over the course of decades, have equated feminism with left-wing politics, creating a political impasse that seems to prohibit right-winged politicians from being feminists. See the article by Lizzy Davies titled “Berlusconi accuses judges of ‘feminist’ bias over divorce deal.” Guardian.co.uk. 9 January 2013. Web. 31 April 2013. 12 See the article “In quotes: Italy's Silvio Berlusconi in his own words,” on Bbc.co.uk, 2 August 2013.

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involution.” In 2010, Cosenza’s group conducted a series of interviews of University of

Bologna students, largely in their twenties, aimed at determining their views on feminism

and feminists. Their findings were published in the Bologna edition of the newspaper La

Repubblica and online on March 3 of that same year.13 The article documents how the

majority of the interviewees, regardless of their sex, saw feminism as a historical

phenomenon confined to the 1960s and 1970s and no longer relevant to their lives. Many

believed that parity between the sexes had been fully achieved in Italy. Some offered

comparisons between Italy and other (often post-colonial) countries to support their

conviction that, although imperfect, gender equality in Italy was far more advanced than

elsewhere in the world. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of the students interviewed

regarded the term feminism and being identified as a feminist negatively. Many of them

distanced themselves from both ‘feminism’ and ‘feminists,’ viewing them as

synonymous with angry, aggressive women, insulated in their ideals and unwilling to

compromise, women whose ultimate goal is to dominate men (“Il femminismo” n.p.).

Although geographically limited in its scope and lacking in quantitative data, this

study identifies a complicated relationship between Italian millennials and feminism that

mirrors that seen in other countries. For example, in her 2004 book The F-Word:

Feminism In Jeopardy - Women, Politics and the Future author Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

points out that, at the turn of the new millennium, many American young men and

women regarded the word feminism as a “dirty word.” While recognizing its past

accomplishments, they often equated it with an outdated war between the sexes in a

13 See the article “Il femminismo? Roba anni ’70. Anche le ragazze lo rifiutano” in La Repubblica – Bologna on March 3, 2010. http://bologna.repubblica.it/dettaglio/il-femminismo-roba-anni-70-anche-le-ragazze-lo-rifiutano/1875881.

13

world that had achieved parity between men and women. This discourse, which declared

feminism obsolete and no-longer possessing any useful political weight for the

advancement of society, quickly garnered media attention in the early 2000s as a series of

female celebrities publicly distanced themselves from the feminist movement.14

Whereas many younger people in the Berlusconi Era might have regarded

feminism in its cultural, political, and social aspects, as a ‘thing of the past,’ feminist

concerns, such as gender inequality and the objectification of the female body, were (and

indeed are) undoubtedly still relevant. The World Economic Forum’s annual Gender Gap

Report provides decisive statistical heft to gender parity concerns in Italy. Established in

2006, the report ranks nations around the world by gender equality in the sectors of

economic participation, health and survival, educational attainment, and political

empowerment. In 2012, it put the Bel Paese at the 80th place overall among the 135

countries it surveyed. While the rest of Europe scored relatively well, with twelve

European countries ranked in the top twenty, Italy fared particularly poorly on measures

of women’s economic participation and opportunity (101st), and on surveyed wage

inequality (126th). These numbers were largely unchanged in subsequent surveys

conducted between 2006 and 2014.15

While the Gender Gap Report underlines the economic and political disparity

between genders, works such as Lorella Zanardo’s 2009 documentary film Il corpo delle

14 Examples are Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Demi Moore, and Gwyneth Paltrow. For more information and links to the article outlining these celebrities testimonials, see the April 23, 2013 post “Why Feminism Still Fits With Younger Generations of Women” by Lily Horton on the blog “FemChat” curated by the Washington DC based Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). https://femchat-iwpr.org/2013/04/23/why-feminism-still-fits-with-younger-generations-of-women/. 15 Between 2006 and 2014, Italy’s overall rank has fluctuated of plus or minus 15 positions as the number of nations included in the report steadily increased from 115 to 142: 77th (2006), 84th (2007), 67th (2008), 72nd (2009), 74th (2010-2011), 80th (2012), 71st (2013), 69th (2014).

14

donne, highlight how the media re-shaped the way in which women and their bodies were

perceived in Italy during the Berlusconi Era and up to the present. From the early 1980s

onwards, a plethora of game show and reality television programs (aired on both public

and private channels), commercial advertisements, and movies featured surgically

altered, ageless, and perpetually eroticized female figures. Often, these female entities

were portrayed as the silent, constantly smiling, young companions of older men. The

2000 television program Libero is an elucidating example. The show revolved around

prank phone calls and featured a young woman, Flavia Vento, as the on-screen

companion of the program’s host, Teo Mammuccari. Vento’s assigned role was to crawl,

often silently, under Mammuccari’s table as he praised her for her beauty and sex appeal,

and made fun of her simple-mindedness. Although programs like Libero were widespread

across Italian television channels in the 1990s and 2000s, these shows acquired their

popularity through Silvio Berlusconi’s own media empire. The sexism of Italian

television during this time period has been well documented by the international press

and by Italian intellectuals (such as Soffici and Zanardo) for whom it constituted a sort of

national scandal given the often progressive and intellectually stimulating programs that

had filled pre-Berlusconi television programming.

Pigeonholed in public discourse, granted less economic and political

opportunities, and portrayed as fleshy, voiceless male accessories in the media and

popular culture, Italian women in the Berlusconi Era faced blatant inequality (in the

media and in daily life) while being construed by dominant popular and political

discourses as having achieved gender equality. In this social, political, economic, and

cultural climate, appeals from feminists like that of the journalist Chiara Volpato who, in

15

a 2009 New York Times article titled “Italian Women Rise Up,” urged her compatriots to

be vocal and united in manifesting their concerns, saw no mass response until after

Berlusconi’s “Bunga Bunga Saga” sex scandals. On February 13, 2011, an unprecedented

one million women and men took to the streets of 230 Italian cities and 30 cities around

the world to expressed their deep indignation towards a culture that objectifies and hyper-

sexualizes the female body. To the refrain of: “Se non ora quando? Adesso!” (“If not

now, when? Now!”), they protested the disparity in the role and representation of women

in Italian media and society. Women from all walks of life and of all ages marched to

defend their rights and dignity in the face of “cultural involution,” identifying Berlusconi

and his government as the tip of a large iceberg of misogyny that had taken hold of the

country. Impressive in its numbers, the February 13, 2011 marches were an explosive

popular manifestation of the pent up rage and frustration of many Italian women: a large-

scale demonstration of the need to be finally heard and truly seen as equal. While

addressing undoubtedly important and urgent concerns, the protests also gave visibility to

Italian women in their diversity, providing them with an exposure that was refreshingly

different from that granted them by the media over the previous two decades.

Italian women directors of the Berlusconi Era have repeatedly tackled these same

themes in their own work, often responding to the economic and social instability of the

time. However, they have been hidden by a double cloak of invisibility as their

systematic absence from scholarly treatises (in Italy and abroad) also reflects the larger

role assigned to women in Italy at the turn of the new millennium. Although many

women directors have produced extremely important work in the context of

16

contemporary Italian theatre, the director, deviser, and playwright, Emma Dante,16

provides a fascinating case study for the examination of these issues. Dante has slowly

risen to international fame during the past twenty years while continuing as a major

contributor to the contemporary Italian theatre scene. Her artistic process, her theatrical

output and its reception, and even her constructed public persona have all contributed to

raising questions regarding the visibility, role, and positionality of women, and, more

specifically, of women directors in Italy.

Emma Dante as a Case Study

Emma Dante was born in 1967 in Palermo, Sicily’s capital. She moved to Catania

at the age of six, to then return to her native city in her teenage years. While in scuola

secondaria (secondary school, the Italian equivalent to high school), she began to attend

the Palermo-based theatre school Teatès, which was run by the Italian playwright,

director, and theatre theorist Michele Perriera (1937-2010). Driven by her fascination for

the theatre and the strong encouragement given by her mother, in 1986 the nineteen year-

old Dante left Sicily for the first time to audition and later attend the Accademia

Nazionale di Arte Drammatica ‘Silvio D’Amico’ (‘Silvio D’Amico’ National Academy

for Dramatic Arts) in Rome. At the Accademia, she studied acting and trained with such

nationally respected artists as Lorenzo Salveti (b. 1949),17 Andrea Camilleri (b.1926),18

16 Dante is also a performer, and designer. She worked as a professional actor in the 1990s and still occasionally performs in her own work. She appeared in the operetta Le pulle (2008), the film Via Castellana Bandiera (2014) and the play Io, Nessuno e Polifemo (2015). She frequently curates the set, costume, and sound design of her productions. She also wrote a novel, Via Castellana Bandiera (2008), which was adapted into her 2014 film by the same title. 17 Salveti is currently a lecturer in acting at the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica ‘Silvio D’Amico’ where he also acted as director of the Accademia until 2015 when he was succeeded by Daniela Bortignoni. He has been a professional theatre director since 1976, when he debuted at Teatro Stabile di

17

and Roberto Guicciardini (b.1933).19 In 1990, Dante graduated from the Accademia and

began to work as a professional actor for theater, cinema, and television, performing with

such iconic Italian actors as Vittorio Gassman (1922-2000) and Marcello Mastroianni

(1924-1996). In 1993, she became a regular member of the then Turin-based20 Gruppo

della Rocca, one of the first Italian co-op theatre companies.21 After her brother’s

accidental death in 1995, Dante briefly returned to Sicily, giving up her membership in

the Gruppo. She then moved to Rome where she continued to work as an actor in minor

roles and continued to refine her acting skills by taking part in experimental theatre

workshops with important Italian theatre practitioners, such as the director Cesare

Ronconi (b. 1951).22

Punctuated by personal and family-related hardships that culminated with the

death of her mother in 1999, this four-year period was the darkest in Dante’s career. She

remembers:

When I returned [to Palermo] […] – to assist my dying mother – I felt that the whole path I had followed was a failure […]. I came back to Palermo with a sense

Torino. From 1990 to 1994, he was the Artistic Director of the Teatro Stabile dell'Aquila-Teatro Stabile Abbruzzese. 18 Camilleri is a novelist and a screenwriter, author of the Montalbano series. He occasionally teaches at the Accademia ‘Silvio D’Amico.’ Camilleri wrote the introduction to Emma Dante’s first trilogy: La trilogia della famiglia siciliana. 19 Guicciardini is a theatre director. He also worked as a television director and held the artistic director position at the Teatro Biondo Stabile in Palermo from 1992 to 1998. He was one of the founding members of the Gruppo della Rocca. 20 Founded in 1968, the Gruppo della Rocca was initially based in Florence. It moved to Turin in 1982, where it took up residence at the Teatro Adua. The Gruppo dissolved in 1998 due to financial hardships. 21 Together with Giorgio Strehler’s Cooperativa Gruppo Teatro e Azione (1969-1971) and Luca Ronconi’s Cooperativa Teatro Libero. These companies functioned under the socialist principles of workers’ self-management. Everyone in the company had the same rights and duties. Each member received the same compensation. Everyone had a say in the artistic and cultural direction of the company, as well as the administration of its funds and its administrative structure. Further, they aimed to make their theatre for the common people and keep it available to them. 22 In 1983 Cesare Ronconi founded the Teatro Valdoca in Cesena with playwright and poet Mariangela Gualtieri (b. 1951). Primarily based on physical theatre and poetry, the works of Teatro Valdoca have received European acclaim since its establishment. Ronconi studied with both Kantor and Grotowski as well as collaborated with Bread and Puppet Theatre.

18

of failure: because I was 32 years old and, at that age, I was nothing […]. That was the worse time of my life: I had lost my brother, my mother was dying, I was unemployed, I had left my house in Rome, I had nothing left […]. (Emma Dante, “La strada” 47)

Perhaps because of this sense of failure, Dante decided to abandon her acting career,

move back to Palermo, and leave the world of the theatre behind. Yet, only few months

after this decision, she was asked by a family friend to organize an experimental theatre

workshop for a cultural center in Palermo. This experience reignited her passion for the

theatre and, in 1999, together with a collective of actors and designers, she established

her theatre company, Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale (literally: South, Western Coast

Company). The company was carefully named to reflect its commitment to putting the

‘Sud’ – the South of Italy – at the forefront of all its artistic endeavors, to re-evaluate a

geographical area traditionally considered to hold a lower cultural status than cities in

central and northern Italy, and to let their location inform the content and aesthetic of the

work they produced.

Sud Costa Occidentale began to attract national attention in 2001, when the play

mPalermu (inside Palermo) won the Scenario Prize23 followed by the 2002 UBU Award

for “Best Italian New Work.”24 mPalermu’s success was soon followed by that of

23 The Scenario Prize is given annually by the Associazione Scenario to a theatre project spearheaded by young people under 35 years of age. Associazione Scenario aims at promoting new works staged by young artists. For more, see the website http://www.associazionescenario.it/premio-scenario.html. 24 The UBU Awards are often referred to as the Oscars of the Italian theatre. Founded by theatre critic Franco Quadri, they are considered the highest recognition in Italian theatre. The name of the award derives from Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu roi (1896). After Quadri’s death in 2011, the Associazione UBU per Franco Quadri (UBU Association for Franco Quadri) took over the organization of the awards. Every year, fifty among Italian theatre critics and theatre academics are invited by the award committee to submit their nominations in 12 different categories: best show, best director, best scenery, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best up-and-coming actor or actress (under 30), best new Italian play, best new foreign play, special projects price, best foreign work presented in Italy. The nominations are then counted and the judges are then asked to vote by picking among the works and practitioners that received the most nominations. It is important to notice that among the 54 judges for the 2012 edition of the awards, sixteen were women and thirty-eight were men. Only three women figured among the

19

Carnezzeria (The Butchery), which won the 2003 UBU Award for “Best Italian New

Work.” Simultaneously, Dante began to be recognized as a theatre director for her work

with her company. In 2001, she won the Lo Straniero Award as a young emerging

director,25 which was followed in 2003 by the Premio della Critica (Critics Award) by the

Associazione Nazionale dei Critici di Teatro (National Association of Theatre Critics) for

the staging of her adaptation of Medea. In 2004 she received the Gassman Award26 for

“Best Director” and the women-only Donnadiscena Award for “Best Directing.” In 2005

she won the Golden Graal27 Award for “Best Directing” for her 2004 adaptation of

Medea.

Despite this widespread national acclaim, Sud Costa Occidentale had no fixed

theatre space to call their own for nine years. The company’s road to finding a space of

their own was an arduous one. On Dante’s first personal website (which also doubled as

the company’s site) these difficulties were blamed on “ widespread indifference and

ignorance on the part of cultural authorities and local theatres” (Emma Dante: Sito n.p.),28

something reinforced in Titti De Simone’s 2010 book Intervista a Emma Dante (De

Simone 44). The company finally put down roots in April 2008 in a basement in via

nominations for best director: Daniela Nicoló of MOTUS, Enrica Sangiovanni of Archivio Zeta , and Veronica Cruciani founder of the theatre company Scuolaroma. Cruciani was the only stand-alone woman director as Nicoló and Sangiovanni were co-nominated with their directing partners (Enrico Casagrande and Gianluca Guidotti respectively). It is also important to notice that Nicoló has always been referred to as the dramaturg and playwright in her artistic partnership with Casagrande. Further, I would like to point out that Cruciani was nominated by a woman theatre critic and journalist, Laura Palmieri. 25 This is an annual prize given by the magazine Lo Straniero, edited by journalist and critic Goffredo Fofi, to artists and groups who distinguish themselves by creating works with a strong social and civic impact. 26 Established in 2004, the Gassman Award is an audience-driven prize competition in which theatregoers are asked to vote to determine the winners. Emma Dante was the first artist to be honored with this prestigious recognition. 27 The ‘Golden Graal’ is an annual national award given to deserving artists selected by a jury composed of young people studying at the Italian conservatories focusing on theatre, cinema, and music. 28 The webpage La Vicaria on Emma Dante’s first official website has since been removed. The webpage was accessed in November 2009.

20

Polito, a street located in the heart of the Zisa quarter – a neighborhood situated in the

center of Palermo and characterized by elevated secondary school drop out rates, as well

as deep-rooted organized crime. Originally housing a shoe factory, the space was rented

and remodeled into a small theatre and rehearsal space at the company’s and Dante’s

expense. This slice of reclaimed territory was defiantly named La Vicaria after Palermo’s

historical prison.

A second home to the members of the company, La Vicaria continues to be Sud

Costa Occidentale’s multipurpose space for theatrical and cultural experimentation.

Dante writes that:

[…] important [panel] discussions, variety reviews, performances, encounters, and events have taken place at La Vicaria that have freed it from the official insignia of high culture theatre. It is not by chance that those who take part in these activities [at La Vicaria] are mostly common citizens […] instead of people who belong to the theatre world. (Emma Dante: Sito n.p.)

Although certainly self-proclaimed ‘theater people,’ including other artists and

academics,29 have become progressively more interested in Sud Costa Occidentale’s

work, La Vicaria has remained a space for ‘common citizens.’ This is a claim that is

verifiable both in conversations with people from the neighborhood and when

considering the demographics that frequent the space, the type of events organized there,

which go beyond theater training, laboratories, and performances, and the affordable

ticket prices for those events.30 The local residents are often the first to see Dante’s shows

29 Such as puppet master Mimmo Cuticchio; musicians Serena Ganci, Carmen Consoli, and the Mancuso Brothers; videographer and director Clarrissa Cappellani; photographer and critic Giuseppe Distefano; illustrator Maria Cristina Costa; and academics and critics including Anna Barsotti, Andra Porcheddu, Linda Dalisi, Brenda Donohue and many others. 30 Daniela Gusmano, the manager of Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale, in personal email correspondence with the author of this dissertation outlines that the cultural and artistic events that take place at La Vicaria, including performances and workshops, are open to all annual members (who pay no annual fees, but just register with the company) and are either free or priced between five to ten euros.

21

in their open dress rehearsals or at the end of the company’s many laboratories, and they

act as the works’ first and, arguably, most important critics. La Vicaria thus provides a

creative space that has increased the number of opportunities for interpersonal interaction

among the people of the Zisa quarter, as well as in Palermo more generally, and fosters

an environment of egalitarian relationships between locals, ‘theater people,’ and other

artists. The openness of Sud Costa Occidentale’s creative process engages the audience in

an act of call and response initiated by Dante. It invites them and the company to witness

each other as well as the ‘others’ – the characters they stage in their productions –

throughout the continuing re-shaping of these works.31 Since Dante and the company

never see their plays as a completed, final product, their works are always mutating after

their debut or script publication. While this can be problematic for scholars of Dante’s

work, as it requires them to pay attention to the evolution of each specific production

over time, the constant state of development of the company’s plays, together with the

establishment of relationships between actors, audience, and characters, provide fertile

ground for the creation of timely, pertinent social, civic, and ethical questions that are

then collectively discussed.

Working at the center of Palermo, a geographical position that is central to the

city but at the same time marginalized, Dante and her company devise, without relying on

government subsidies, extremely physical new works that speak to and are inspired by

the people of southern Italy. The creative development of Sud Costa Occidentale’s pieces

31 These particular relationships between actors, the characters they embody, and spectators are established through encounters with what Emmanuel Lévinas defined as the “face of the other” in a process of replacement of the self with the other (Hand 5, 75). An act of engagement, this cyclic substitution ultimately re-activates spectators placing them in a position of “response-ability” to the other, which ultimately creates a sense of responsibility for the other (Lehmann 185-186).

22

is both complex and lengthy. Each new work undergoes a gestation period that can last

up to two years. Different plays are often rehearsed and developed simultaneously,

creating an artistic sandbox where themes and visual images can overlap and seed ideas

present in one can be expanded in another. In this environment, Dante is the principal

force that drives and channels the company’s creativity. She brings to the rehearsal room

kernels of ideas that function as inspirations for a new play. Often in the form of poetic or

literary quotes, some of these citations of the work of others remain attached to the

company’s plays as epigraphs that accompany the published scripts right along with

Dante’s directorial notes.32 Actors then elaborate upon these starting points through a

series of guided devising moments and individual or collective improvisations.

Eventually, Dante collects, edits, and transforms the results of these experiments into

scripts, which function as the basis for further exploration.

Nourished by an artistic process that is uncommon among Italian theatre

companies, Dante’s theatre, with its beautiful imagery underscoring substantial social and

civic criticism, slowly managed to carve a niche for her artistic vision in the

contemporary Italian theatre scene. Sud Costa Occidentale toured extensively across

Italy, as well as throughout Europe and beyond.33 In October 2009, the company toured

Mishelle di Sant’Oliva (Mishelle from St. Oliva Sq.) in Argentina, where it was

performed at the Festival Internacional del Mercosur (The International Festival of the

Mercosur) in Córdoba and at the seventh FIBA - Festival International de Teatro

(International Theatre Festival) in Buenos Aires. In December of that same year, Dante

32 They are also posted on Dante’s website. 33 Where they have been performed in France, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Poland to name a few.

23

made her operatic directorial debut at the La Scala Theatre in Milan, perhaps the premier

theatre for grand opera in the world. There, together with members of Sud Costa

Occidentale and other actors who had trained at La Vicaria to be part of this project,

Dante staged a provocative and controversial interpretation of Georges Bizet’s Carmen

that inaugurated the theater’s 2009-2010 opera season. No woman director had ever been

asked to direct the first opera of the season at La Scala (De Simone 71-73).

Dante’s practice does not follow the traditional Italian model for director-led

theatre making, which usually has a man in the role she occupies in her company. Her

work represents a practical response to the necessity for Italian women directors to find

space and visibility for their artistic endeavors. She presents a model of theatre making

that is self-sustained and independent from national organizations as well as rooted – in

both content and language – in the geographical territory it treats. Her highly

collaborative model requires two things: a permanent space for the work and a stable core

of performers proficient in her company’s demanding physical training method, which

constitutes the basis of Sud Costa Occidentale devising process.

In analyzing the performance pieces that Dante developed with her company

between 1999 and 2011, we can trace an evolutionary arc that began with early

experimental works such as Il Sortilegio (The Spell) (1999) and La Favola di Farruscad e

Cherastanì (The Fairytale of Farruscad and Cherastanì) (2001). Both plays involved

highly theatrical make-up and costumes that were heavily influenced by the aesthetic

sensibility of Teatro Valdoca’s director Cesare Ronconi with whom Dante had studied as

an actor. She eventually distanced her work from Ronconi’s in 2001 when she first staged

mPalermu. Since then, she has developed a very specific personal aesthetic that she felt

24

would better accommodate the social change rooted in the content of her works. Sud

Costa’s productions staged after 2001 embraced a ‘poor’ aesthetic – of Grotowskian

inspiration and Kantorian principles34 – that focused on a curated distilling of visual

elements to concentrate on the body and the stunning, simple imagery it creates. These

later works fall into four categories: adaptations of fairy tales in the style of théâtre tout

public (theatre for children and adults), adaptations of previously written plays or literary

works, music theatre works (including operas, operettas, and musical revues), and

original devised works. This latter category encompasses Dante’s first trilogy, La trilogia

della famiglia siciliana (The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family), which includes mPalermu,

Carnezzeria (2002) and Vita mia (Life of Mine, 2004); Mishelle di Sant’Oliva (Mishelle

from Saint Oliva Sq., 2005); Cani di Bancata (Market Dogs, 2005), Il Festino (The Party,

2007); and Dante’s 2011 second trilogy, Trilogia degli occhiali (The Eyeglasses Trilogy)

that is comprised of Acquasanta (Holywater), Il castello della Zisa (The Zisa Castle), and

Ballarini (Dancers).

34 Dante’s work is heavily influenced by that of Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999) and Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990). She was an audience member in Kantor's 1987 production of The Machine of Love and Death when it was presented at the Teatro Biondo in Palermo, and the 1990 production of Memory by the Odin Teatret directed by Eugenio Barba, which she saw at the Accademia in Rome, where she was studying as an actor. Memory brought to Rome Grotowski’s legacy through Barba. The founder and director of Odin Teatret, Barba spent three years in Poland (1961-1963) working with Grotowski at his Teatr Laboratorium where he cultivated a personal friendship as well as a deep professional relationship with the Polish director which lasted until Grotowski’s death. Dante also studied with Cesare Ronconi who studied with both Grotowski and Kantor. Like Grotowski, she sees theatrical laboratories of extraordinary length to be essential to the creation of original work of quality. Additionally, she uses a method of devising that starts from the body to arrive at character, regarding it as central to the creation and production of her plays. Further, she regards specificity in gestures as important as monologues in communicating to an audience. She also sees her devised works as “poor” in the sense of their limited use of props and sets. Like Kantor, Dante believes that, in order for her work to be ‘alive,’ it has to be kept in a state of constant incompleteness and rehearsal. She also removes the barriers between the stage, the backstage, and the auditorium. Similarly to Kantor’s works, hers is a theatre that often deals with memory and death, as well as often utilizing cyclical structures and repetition.

25

While each of Dante’s productions is enthralling in its own right,35 this

dissertation focuses on original works devised and written by Dante herself in

collaboration with her actors that place female bodies on stage. Although Mishelle di

Sant’Oliva deals with gender and queer politics in its staging of the story of a transvestite

prostitute and her relationship with her father, this play is not considered in this study

since both Mishelle and Il festino only include male bodies and are thus outside the scope

of this dissertation.

Only six among the remaining seven plays put female bodies on stage in a theatre

that is matriarchal but that almost always sees its women as being taken advantage of,

even violated. Hélène Cixous’s theories on “writing the body” and the theatre as a

fundamental place for gendered social change that she sets out in her essay “Aller a la

Mer” (1977) underline the importance of exposing the female body on stage, as well as

the necessity for retaining the centrality of such staged body in written translations. As

Dante constructs them, her women are:

moribund creatures with an exaggerated and cumbersome vital charge. They are donne del sud, strong and fragile at the same time. They are women with a strong survival instinct, defending their species no matter the cost, and this species is male, the people able to inseminate their wombs. (Dante, La pratica 196)

Dante calls these women “madrìci,” a word that is half-way between a madre (mother)

and a matrice, which can mean both uterus and an original generative point; an

imprinting matrix (Dante, La pratica 196). They are sacred, carnal in origin, strong in

their generation of life but, at the same time, feeble and decaying, destroyed by the world

in which they live. These women and their bodies, simultaneously generating and dying,

are monstrous stage representations of the Bakhtinian grotesque. If we understand Mary 35 For a complete theatrography of Dante’s directorial work, see Appendix B of this dissertation.

26

Russo’s definition of the female grotesque outlined in her 1994 book The Female

Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity as both the cyclical and disruptive Bakhtinian

carnivalesque as well as the uncanny and the different, this study suggests that the female

grotesque in Dante’s theatre is a way to question ideas of difference and norm in the

context of a dominant androcentric discourse. By creating such women – generating them

in her scripts and productions – Dante manages to “show the monstrous side of the

feminine; its metamorphosis; the unseen; the unrepresented,” and repurposes the

monstrous and the grotesque to free her women from the binary dynamic of the ‘other’

versus the ‘norm.’ In doing so, she ultimately uses the monstrous and the grotesque to re-

present female subjectivity (De Simone 53). She thus espouses Rosi Braidotti’s ideas

outlined in Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary

Feminist Theory (1995, 2011), where Braidotti defines feminist nomadism as “the

positive affirmation of women’s desire to enact different forms of subjectivity” through

the critique of existing representations of women and “the creation of new images of

female subjectivity” (150). Dante’s works hence move beyond the simplistic portrayal of

women that Italians have been accustomed to seeing elsewhere during the Berlusconi

Era. As she points out, at a time when, “speaking about woman instantly makes one think

of heels and lipstick,” one must go beyond an investigation of the feminine as a result of

male phobias and/or fantasies (Dante, “Palermo” 14). It is imperative to highlight the

dissonance between the experience of real-life Italian women and the mediatized

representation of ‘Woman’ as reflective of male fantasies. By subverting the sign of a

femininity of submission, hypersexualization, and ethereal, eternal beauty that has been

27

“mythologized” – to use Roland Barthes’ term36 – in contemporary Italy, Dante embraces

the postmodern possibility of toppling the male power structure analyzed by both Julia

Kristeva in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982) and Braidotti in In

Metamorfosi: Verso Una Teoria Materialista Del Divenire (Metamorphosing: Towards a

Materialist Theory of Becoming, 2003). Her representations of women break with the

Berlusconian “norm.” Their degree of “difference” is determined by how far they diverge

from such “norm;” their level of monstrosity is thus dictated by their extreme

marginalization from what the media and other sectors of Italian society at the turn of the

twenty-first century mark as normative.

Dante’s connection with women goes beyond the stage. While she primarily

collaborates with women in making her devised pieces and in managing her company,

she is adamant that her theatre is not a teatro al femminile (a feminine theatre). Labeling

it such would confine her to biology and subject her plays to a male-centric system of

categorization that is ever present in today’s world (De Simone 54). Dante prefers to

move beyond biology, looking at ‘woman’ as a “subject of becoming, nomadic,

mutating” whose difference from ‘man’ has been constructed through a sociological and

historical discourse that has given rise to a symbolic and mythological series of signs (De

Simone 54). This point of view is perfectly consonant with the dialectic of Italian

feminism. As Paola Bono affirms in the introduction to Italian Feminist Thought: A

Reader (1991), there are two characteristics that are crucial to Italian feminism (Bono 2).

The first is its ability to revel in difference and to embrace pluralism, which is reflected in

36 Barthes defines myth as the way in which a culture attributes meaning to and signifies the world around it. Mythologies are cultural manifestations that express ideology. By presenting themselves as “natural,” mythologies often become transparent allowing for analysis that can exposing the underlying ideology of a culture and presenting it as subject for scrutiny.

28

the lack of a single national feminist rhetoric and the presence of groups all over Italy that

are often in conflict with each other. The second is the importance of politics for Italian

feminism. Braidotti addresses this issue when she speaks of the necessity for Italian

feminists to establish a philosophy of sexual difference as:

a necessary political gesture. As a collective political, social, theoretical, movement we must found a female cogito. We authorize for ourselves the statement: ‘I/woman/think/as/woman and therefore I am.’ What I am, as a woman, is another matter, located at a more individual level. Let us not confuse the individual with the subject. We can all agree on the affirmation of a female subjectivity. ‘We,’ movement of liberation of each woman’s ‘I’, of all those women who recognize themselves in the statement ‘I/woman am.’ (Braidotti, “Commento” 190-91; quot. and trans. Bono and Kemp, 17)

Although this could conceivably sound like an essentialist line of thought, Braidotti

works within a postmodern tradition to “take the risk of essentialism seriously,” as Teresa

De Lauretis’s article “The Essence of the Triangle” suggests, to ultimately argue against

an essentialist reading of sexual difference (1). For Braidotti, woman-ness is not simply

dictated by biological factors, it is an experience accumulated through a long history of

difference and separateness that makes the female person not an abstract essence but a

flesh and blood ‘I’ who engages in a larger political discourse. Such active engagement

means she – ‘woman’ – is no longer willing to ‘be like’ or ‘be inferior to.’ This notion

would then facilitate a shift in what is different as it would redefine ‘norm.’ Emma Dante

adopts this theoretical position both in the way she makes her work and in the work itself.

Her refusal to have her plays classified as feminine theatre then becomes a strong

political assertion of individuality. In a sense, she embraces Braidotti’s thoughts on

difference when she rejects dualism in gender politics, ultimately aligning her views

about gender with those expressed in the multiplicity of queer theory.

29

In reconstructing her ‘I,’ unchained from the mythical Berlusconian feminine,

Dante identifies with being a donna del sud (southern woman). Just as socio-political

constructs of difference and exclusions contributed to shape her identity as a woman, the

socio-political and economic disparity of the Mezzogiorno, and the particularly taxing

conditions such as the mafia that have historically afflicted the Sicilian island, have

contributed to shape her identity as a Palermitan and a Sicilian, something which is

directly reflected in her theatre. It is for this reason that, despite opportunities to do so,

she has refused to leave her native city regardless of the difficulties and artistic prejudice

her company has encountered there. An artist and an activist, Dante believes one can only

critique the dysfunctions of the world she lives in from a position at its center (De

Simone 66). Like the late Dario Fo (1926-2016), she is a giullare or, better, as Goffredo

Fofi described her, a vastasa: a subversive Sicilian woman jester of the people who uses

the language, gestures, and attitudes of the people of Palermo to promote social change

(Fofi 133).

To date (and to my knowledge), only four published writings in English mention

Emma Dante, her works, and her company. The first is Daniela Cavallaro’s 2010 book

chapter “Giving Birth to a New Woman: Italian Women Playwrights” published in

Unbinding Medea: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Classical Myth from Antiquity to

the 21st Century. Cavallaro’s chapter focuses on reinterpretations of Euripides’ Medea by

Italian women playwrights and includes Dante’s 2004 adaptation of the play. The second

is Brenda Donohue’s 2012 essay “Liminality in Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow

and Emma Dante's Vita mia,” published in the conference proceedings Focus: Papers in

English Literary and Cultural Studies. Donohue’s essay is taken from her unpublished

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2012 dissertation “Towards a Theory of the Anxiety of Ontology: Differentiated Working

Stategies, Dramaturgical Manipulations and the Theme of Death in the Work of Marina

Carr and Emma Dante.” In her work, Donohue undertakes a comparative study looking at

Dante’s and Carr’s strategies as women playwrights respectively working in Sicily and

Ireland, to address their anxiety of producing work in countries where playwriting is seen

primarily as a male occupation. Both Cavallaro’s and Donohue’s publications frame

Dante as primarily a playwright, rather than a director.

The third work published on Dante is the article “Emma Dante and the

Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale,” which I authored for TheatreForum in 2014. This is

a nine page introduction to Dante’s plays and directorial aesthetic, which was based on

my 2011 master’s thesis titled “Innovation and Tradition: Kantor, Grotowski, and the

Sicilian School in the Theatre of Emma Dante.” As a survey essay, the article briefly

covers Dante’s activity with Sud Costa Occidentale, outlining her body of work and its

recurrent themes. The fourth publication is an English-language review of Dante’s 2014

play Operetta Burlesca (Operetta Burlesque), which I wrote for Theatre Journal. The

review was published in May 2015 after Dante’s company North American debut in

September 2014, when it performed at The Ohio State University’s Thurber Theatre. The

performance was part of a larger, multidisciplinary endeavor I spearheaded with the

university’s Department of Theatre and in collaboration with the Department of French

and Italian, which included Sud Costa Occidentale: A Story in Images, a photographic

exhibition of the company’s productions, a screening of Clarissa Cappellani’s 2011

documentary film EMMA DANTE Sud Costa Occidentale, and an international

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symposium titled Blurring Boundaries without Burning Bridges: Italian Contemporary

Performance, the Theatre of Emma Dante and Beyond.

While no books in English on Emma Dante or Sud Costa Occidentale have been

published to date, a number of volumes, articles, and university thesis have been

published in Italian. Among these, Anna Barsotti’s 2009 La lingua teatrale di Emma

Dante: mPalermu, Carnezzeria, Vita mia (The Theatrical Language of Emma Dante:

mPalermu, Carnezzeria, Vita mia) is particularly valuable for this dissertation. This book

provides insights into some of the traditional Sicilian themes present in Emma Dante’s

work and explains how Dante’s alternation of the Italian language and the Sicilian of

Palermo create a new theatrical language intrinsic to her performance texts. Barsotti’s

research does not address issues of power that derive from the staging of different

languages with embedded historical and cultural significance. It does, however,

contextualize Dante’s work as deeply connected to Sicily and the Sicilian people, and is

thus a useful starting point for further analysis of the ways in which Dante’s hybrid

language becomes itself a means of resistance in both La trilogia della famiglia siciliana

and Cani di bancata.

Another useful study for the investigation of Dante’s works, especially Cani di

bancata, is Linda Dalisi’s 2009 Messa in scena della mafia. Cani di bancata: il metodo

maieutico di Emma Dante (The Mise-en-scène of the Mafia. Market Dogs: Emma

Dante’s maieutic method, 2009). An account on the development of Cani di Bancata, the

book uses the Socratic maieutic method to talk about the process of creation of Dante’s

pieces. Dalisi defines Dante’s role in Sud Costa Occidentale’s devising process as that of

an ‘artistic midwife’ who helps the actors and creative team to bring forth ideas,

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language, and gestures previously latent within them through open dialogue and

improvisational prompts. The study is structured like a production diary and includes

snippets of the play’s script, dialogues between the director and her actors, quotes by

Dante, movement diagrams, drawings, production pictures, and paragraphs of critical

analysis to clarify the performance text or a moment of mise-en-scène. Her book provides

insights into Dante’s production process for Cani di Bancata, which, together with a

close analysis of the script of the play and a recording of the production, are useful in

evaluating the work in its totality as well as offering an understanding of Dante’s overall

artistic process.

There are numerous published interviews with Dante and her company members

that inevitably provide some overlapping content and are often tightly linked to the

premier or touring of a specific productions. Some of the most useful for an

understanding of Dante’s method of creating original works, the origins of her theatre,

the thematic influences that have affected her productions, and the connections between

those themes and the socio-political and economic state of Sicily and Italy, are collected

in the 2006 volume Palermo Dentro: Il Teatro di Emma Dante (Palermo Inside: Emma

Dante’s Theatre). The volume, edited by Andrea Purcheddu, contains interviews as well

as short essays by seven other scholars. It was subsequently re-published in 2010 in a

revised and expanded edition called Emma Dante: Palermo Dentro. Other interviews I

have found useful for my work include Luisa Cavaliere’s Anticorpi: Dialoghi Con Emma

Dante e Rossella Postorino (Antibodies: Dialogues with Emma Dante and Rossella

Pastorino, 2010) and Titti De Simone’s Intervista a Emma Dante (Interview with Emma

Dante, 2010). Porcheddu’s book is a valuable source of background, albeit unsorted

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information as it delineates a biographical and artistic portrait of Dante through

interviews with the director and members of her company, as well as contains critical

essays exploring her aesthetic views. While both Cavaliere’s and De Simone’s short

books also provide interviews with Dante, they further frame her as a Sicilian woman and

an artist, exploring, among other topics, the significance of Dante’s work in the

sociological context of twenty-first century Italy and her relationship with Palermo and

Sicily. Although they do not undertake specific analyses of Dante’s plays or stagings,

these authors hint at the possibility of reading Dante’s works through a feminist lens and

as a response to the widespread misogyny present in Italy.

The study that unfolds in the coming chapters begins with an analysis of the three

plays of La trilogia della famiglia siciliana: mPalermu, Carnezzeria, and Vita mia.

Chapter 2 examines the three Sicilian families portrayed in these works as subjective

examples of systemic violence and oppression within Italy that accompanied the socio-

political, economic, and cultural disenfranchisement of lower class Sicilians. In doing so,

I focus on the lower-class Sicilian women depicted as doubly marginalized, both as

Southern Italians and as women. The chapter explores how the financial disparity

between the sexes, gender roles, and the violence perpetuated against women portrayed in

the Trilogy point to the larger gender issues prevalent in Italy during the Berlusconi Era;

these include gendered economic inequality, the Catholic Church-backed ideology of the

submission of women to men, and gendered killings or femminicidi.

Chapter 3 focuses on Dante’s play, Cani di bancata, and examines her depiction

of the Sicilian mafia and its systemic violence and oppression within Italy. The chapter

frames Dante’s portrayal of southern Italian women as subordinated to men within mafia

34

realities. Dante’s view of the mafia is complex and I look at Cani di bancata in four

stages. The first is a close examination of the Sicilian director’s hybrid language that is

used to illustrate the nature of socio-cultural power dynamics at the regional and national

level. The second is an investigation of the grotesque bodies, physical violence, and

blindness included in the play as physicalizations of an atteggiamento mafioso (mafioso-

like attitude) and omertà (the mafia law of silence), which enable the mafia and other

‘mafia-like’ organizations to continue to thrive in southern Italian regions. The third stage

dicusses the religious imagery Dante utilizes in the play as illustrating the contemporary

modus operandi of the Sicilian mafia as well as the complicity of the Catholic Church.

Lastly, the fourth stage builds on the previous three to consider the role of women within

mafia-controlled realities. I use a feminist lens to dissect the female imagery present in

the play, which portrays women as excluded from positions of power, subjugated by

idealized male fantasies, and relegated to traditional gender roles. This chapter highlights

the ways in which such imagery denounces gender bias in mafia realities as well as the

larger gender politics present in Italy at the time Cani di bancata was written.

The fourth chapter of this dissertation discusses the second of Dante’s trilogies,

Trilogia degli occhiali, which Dante considers an exploration of character revolving

around themes of hardship, isolation, and loneliness. Here, the first two plays of the

triptych, Acquasanta and Il castello della Zisa, are briefly addressed with my focus

primarily on the third play, Ballarini. My interest here is in analyzing the representation

of old age and the presence/absence of older women’s bodies in the media. The play is a

demanding physical theatre work with little spoken text and requires the two actors who

embody its characters to perform age and the aging process. In addition to textual

35

analysis, my experience directing a production of Ballarini in translation provided unique

insights in my understanding of this work. Rehearsed in Columbus, Ohio during May

2015, the play opened in its English language premiere at the Courtyard Theatre in

London in July and was featured at the New York Fringe Festival the following August.

In addition to summarizing what has been said previously, the fifth and final

chapter looks at Emma Dante’s public persona as supplementing her plays’ questioning

of gender inequality, gender roles, and framing of female bodies. As a whole, her

persona, body of work, and the works’ content challenges the perceived invisibility of

contemporary women directors and rejects their marginalization even though they are

operating at the margins. While portraying Dante as potentially the most visible among

many other contemporary Italian women stage directors, I briefly introduce five other

women directors – Serena Sinigaglia (b. 1973), Veronica Cruciani, Laura Sicignano

(b.1967), Teresa Ludovico, and Laura Angiulli (b. 1955) – who also carved a niche for

themselves at the margins of the Italian theatre scene. By doing this, I re-contextualize

my research as a step towards tackling the bigger issue of the exclusion of Italian women

theatre directors from the historical record, and insisting on the necessity for continued in

depth work on Italian women theatre directors. Finally, I outline the need for further

studies on Dante’s work that focus on gender and sexuality beyond 2011 and beyond

plays devised specifically for adult audiences.

The content, language, and structure of Dante’s works reflect her struggle to come

to terms with her Sicilian/Italian identity and her identity as a woman. Her ‘civic theatre’

presents the sociological context surrounding southern Italian women and their

marginalization in respect to the national artistic dialectic. This commitment to her

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culture as a donna del sud is reflected in her predilection for the regional languages of

Naples and Palermo and in the creation of her own language, one that mixes the Italian

and the Sicilian languages with the Neapolitan and Palermitan dialects.37 The spoken

word text written in Dante’s plays is always supplemented by descriptions of extremely

physical stagings. Her writing process is a scrittura scenica, or on-stage writing, which

allows her texts to be constructed during the process of devising. For this reason,

translating these texts is especially daunting and at the same time necessary for a complex

analysis of her work.

Although the Trilogia degli occhiali was translated into Polish in 2011 by Ewa

Bal, to date Dante’s plays have not been published in English. Hence, as an essential

component of this dissertation, I provide the first English translations of La trilogia della

famiglia siciliana, Cani di Bancata, and Trilogia degli occhiali. These seven works were

translated with the permission and in consultation with Dante and her company. They

appear in Appendix A together with Dante’s introductions to the plays and my

translator’s notes. These notes present my approach to these texts (as well as to all the

other Italian text extracts present in this dissertation) as relying on recent post-colonial

translation theory in order to consider the original writings’ multiple languages and their

geographical and historical context as well as more traditional technical concerns.

37 This issue of minority languages and dialects in Italy is extremely complex. For example, UNESCO recognizes Sicilian and South Italian (also known as the Neapolitan-Calabrese) as endangered languages, while regarding Palermitan and Neapolitan as dialects as they are considered the respective off-springs of these two languages. These so called dialects follow the same general rules and structures of the language they derive from, but they frequently use variations in vocabulary. It is important to notice that, while language classifications and categorizations may be useful in cataloguing and documenting the linguistic variety of Italy, the designation of what constitutes a language and what constitutes a dialect is highly political. In the work of Emma Dante this is especially important as she works with such minority languages and their local variations in a geographical area that has been historically marginalized by the rest of the peninsula.

37

Additionally, in writing these translations, I consulted recordings of the original

productions directed by Dante, comparing the action on stage with the movement-heavy

stage directions included in the scripts. This was vital for understanding the added layer

of complexity given to the fully produced plays by Dante’s direction and by the physical

presence of gendered bodies on stage. Overall, this multilayered investigation helped me

to address such questions as: When and why is Italian used in Dante’s plays? Why does

the company often opt to use regional languages/local dialects? When do gestures and

gendered bodies on stage add a fundamental layer of political and social criticism that

must be preserved in translation? And, lastly, How does Dante’s creation of a hybrid

scenic language contribute to her subversion of male hegemony?

This dissertation project targets a huge absence in the fields of both Theatre and

Italian Studies where women practitioners of Italian theatre in the last twenty years have

been excluded from the international dialogue. Focusing on the works of Dante is a first

step to begin filling the gap of knowledge that exists regarding Italian women theatre

practitioners, while helping to paint a broader picture of Italian theatre’s attempts to

achieve social change and gender equality in the Berlusconi Era.

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Chapter 2: La trilogia della famiglia siciliana

La trilogia della famiglia siciliana (The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family) is a

collection of one-acts conceived as a series of stylized reflections on the institution of the

family within the Sicilian context – an investigation that is revisited, revised, and

expanded upon in such later works by Dante as Mishelle di Sant’Oliva (Mishelle from St.

Oliva Sq., 2005) and Le Sorelle Macaluso (The Macaluso Sisters, 2014). This chapter

frames Dante’s representation of the three distinct, sometimes enlarged, Sicilian family

nuclei depicted in the Trilogy as manifestations of subjective violence and oppression

within Sicily that ultimately denounce larger issues of symbolic and systemic violence

within Italy. The chapter contends that Dante utilizes the scripted language and

physicality of the gendered bodies she stages to make visible the socio-political and

economic disenfranchisement of lower class Sicilians with respect to Italian politics and

economic policies during the Berlusconi Era. In particular, it analyzes how Dante’s

portrayal in the Trilogy of gender inequality and violence against women in Sicily

engages with nation-wide, deep-set gender issues still prevalent within Italy at the turn of

the twenty-first century

Published together in 2007, the three installments of La trilogia della famiglia

siciliana came into existence as stand-alone plays. The first, mPalermu (inside Palermo),

debuted in 2001 and was followed shortly afterward by Carnezzeria (The Butchery) and

39

Vita mia (Life of Mine), which premiered respectively in 2002 and 2004. mPalermu and

Carnezzeria each won an UBU Award for “Best Italian New Work,” bringing national

acclaim to Dante and Sud Costa Occidentale for the first time while the company still had

no theatre nor rehearsal space to call its own. Within the Trilogy, mPalermu’s script

stands out structurally as the only one to be subdivided into titled scenes, or sequences.

Sequentially linked and often bleeding into each other, these vary in content, ranging

from descriptive cameos painstakingly recording the movement of the actors, to more

traditional, text-heavy moments marked by entrances and exists (although no characters

ever physically leave the stage). While diverse in form, the three sections of the Trilogy

are thematically and stylistically intertwined in their non-realistic, often metaphorical,

sometimes vaudevillian, portrayal of three lower class Sicilian families in their daily

struggle for survival and in their interactions with death.

Frequently the first point of contact with society, family is influential on the

formation of an individual’s identity and their understanding of their relationship to the

world. The families in the Trilogy played a similar function in the formation of Dante’s

directorial and aesthetic identity. Devised with members of the newly formed Compagnia

Sud Costa Occidentale, they became the first point of contact between Dante and the kind

of theatre she envisioned: a theatre that stemmed from a closely knit theatrical family that

would produce artistic works dealing with the Sicily she had returned to after her time as

an actress in mainland Italy. Yet, although she functioned as the shaper, guiding

improvisations and acting as a playwright-compiler à la Caryl Churchill in Cloud Nine,

Dante declared the Trilogy to be parentless. Unlike later works, which have been clearly

identified by Sud Costa Occidentale company members as singly authored by Dante even

40

though created through an extended period of guided devising, the Trilogy has been

explicitly described by the Italian director as lacking a single generative figure, thus

blurring the lines of authorship (Dante, “La Strada” 42). While the limited presence of

maternal figures and the lack of paternal figures in the Trilogy can be metaphorically

connected to Dante’s desire for nurturing a theatre of research, on the other hand the

recurrence of death throughout the Trilogy has occasionally brought critics and

journalists to consider the three plays autobiographical. In this respect, Dante herself has

clarified:

My family is no different from others. Clearly it is not the family I talk about in my works, also because mine is a bourgeois family: in my house there’s never been poverty, or stories of incest or violence. There has been serious mourning, but my theatre is not autobiographical. (Dante, “La Strada” 32)

Although not entirely autobiographical, the plays of the Trilogy contain self-referential

elements insofar as they are fruit of Dante’s experiences growing up in Sicily in a middle

class family in the 1970s and 1980s and living on the Italian mainland in the 1990s

(during and after her studies at the Accademia). Further, they encompass the clash of

those experiences with the reality she faced once she returned to Palermo in 1999 after

the death of her brother, to nurse her dying mother who passed away shortly thereafter.

Devastating as they were, these losses inevitably informed the symbolic manifestations of

death that appear in each of the three plays and, particularly, in Vita mia. Although

recurrent, death manifests itself differently in each one-act, affecting its characters in

disparate ways: it is sudden and inevitable in mPalermu; accidental yet preannounced in

Carnezzeria; and always and already present in Vita mia.

41

mPalermu focuses on the five members of the Carollo family: Mimmo (the head

of the family), Rosalia (Mimmo’s cousin), Giammarco (Rosalia’s brother-in-law), Nonna

Citta (Mimmo and Rosalia’s grandmother) and Zia Lucia (Rosalia’s mother, Mimmo’s

aunt). Reminiscent of the impossibility to reach Moscow in Chekov’s Three Sisters or the

perennial waiting of the protagonists of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the play traces the

Carollos’ attempts to fulfill an apparently simple task: leaving the house to take a Sunday

stroll. The task proves impossible to complete as each attempt to depart is hijacked by

never-ending, mundane, consumerist distractions that turn into aggressive confrontations.

Clothing items and exterior appearance are considered inadequate; unfit to be seen by

outsiders. Squabbles drag on about the relative size and beauty of churches in Palermo

and outside of Sicily, pitting Nonna Citta’s and Giammarco’s obstinacy against each

other. A heated debate erupts concerning the ownership of the wrapped pastries on stage

– rare treats for the Carollos that are eventually wasted together with the family’s

precious, limited water supply. Soccer is the miraculous pacifier that re-unifies the family

as its members reenact the famous game that propelled the Palermo team in the Serie A

League, the Italian counterpart to the English Premier League. The ultimate roadblock

appears at the end of the play when Nonna Citta dies unexpectedly, presumably of old

age, and this puts to an end to any further efforts to leave the house for the day.

While in mPalermu the Carollos are trapped in their Palermo home, in

Carnezzeria the Cuore family ventures beyond Sicily, taking the journey across the Strait

of Messina to mainland Italy. The play begins as the three Cuore brothers, Paride (the

eldest), Toruccio and Ignazio (the youngest) and their sister, Nina, reach the final

destination of their journey: the location where she will wed a mysterious man from the

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peninsula. The brothers’ carry Nina on stage on their shoulders just like a patron Saint

statue on parade during a traditional southern Italian religious festival. The girl is dressed

in a white wedding gown. A large white sash adorned with a black cross is wrapped

around her visibly pregnant belly. The brothers ready the stage for the nuptials,

decorating it with flowers, candles and luminarie.38 Although the occasion is festive,

there is an air of imminent danger that cannot be hidden by twinkling decorations and

insincere enthusiasm. The wedding turns out to be an elaborate sham orchestrated by the

three men to abandon their dimwitted sister far from home and prying eyes. Yet, time

after time, Nina’s determination to remain close to her brothers unintentionally – and

often comically – disrupts their endeavors to flee. The siblings’ unexpected, prolonged

interaction with each other is intensified by their shared memories encapsulated in dozens

of pictures of deceased relatives that Nina stealthily brought with her to the wedding. It is

this seemingly innocent act that eventually reveals the horrific secrets of the Cuores. A

flashback exposes the sexual abuse by their father that was endured by the brothers

during their childhood. A violent beating, Nina’s aborted attempt to go into labor, and a

stylized orgy uncover the brothers’ abuse of their sister, indicating that the creature

growing in Nina’s belly is the offspring of incest. In the end, the brothers succeed in

deserting an exhausted Nina after nailing her wedding veil to the stage. Exhausted by an

unsuccessful labor and distraught at her brothers’ absence, the girl inadvertently hangs

herself as the play comes to a close.

Nina’s death in Carnezzeria occurs at the very end of the play, just like Nonna

Citta’s passing in mPalermu. In the last chapter of the Trilogy, however, death is present

38 Metallic street illuminations used during Italian folk and religious festivals.

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from the very beginning. Possibly the most autobiographical play of the triptych, Vita

mia presents a mother’s vigil for her youngest son: a vivid portrayal of her painful

struggle to overcome the loss of a child. For Dante, the play was a way to “exorcise her

own pain” for the deaths in her family (Dante, “La Strada” 69). In it, she sought to

capture the fleeting instant when, after a heartbeat stops, “the soul is suspended in the air

for a moment before being ripped apart from the body” (Dante, Carnezzeria 137). But

rather then crystallizing this ephemeral moment of violent separation, Dante manages to

stretch and magnify it in a staged temporal distortion originating from the unwillingness

of an archetypally named character, “the Mother,” to let go of her son after a domestic

accident claimed his life. In the one-act, Vita mia’s Calafiores are confined to their home

just like the Carollos of mPalermu. Using direct address, the Mother introduces her three

sons to the audience. Gaspare (the eldest) and Uccio (the second) stand around a bed that

occupies center stage while Chicco (the youngest) races around them on a bicycle. The

Mother mercilessly tells the audience about her sons’ embarrassing flaws, their

unemployment, and their unwillingness to help out around the house while at the same

time declaring her profound, unconditional love for her three sons. As the play progresses

amid childish games among the brothers, Gaspare urges his mother to begin preparations

for the vigil. The bed turns into a catafalque: candles are lit, sheets smoothed, a large

cross is affixed to the head of the bed. The Mother dresses Chicco in a white suit,

struggling to overcome his youthful energy. She asks him to lie down on the bed and, as

soon as he obliges her, he stops moving, taking on the semblances of a corpse in a casket.

Unexpectedly, the Mother’s desperate pleas miraculously bring the dead Chicco back to

the world of the living. His sternum becomes the point where an undulatory, caressing

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motion begins that spreads out from the center of his body to his extremities, constantly

increasing in intensity and allowing Chicco to temporarily come back to life. He jumps

out of the bed and cycles around the room until he relives the moment of his death when

the handles of his reliable ride pierce his chest leaving him lifeless on the floor. In a

danse macabre, the mother tries to cling to Chicco’s body as it slides away from between

her arms. With difficulty, she takes him back to the bed, balancing his feet on her own.

Once there, she lies down with her son as her other children cover them with a funerary

veil and place the bicycle at the feet of the bed. The two brothers disappear under the

catafalque where they find confetti and other decorations left over from past carnival

celebrations. They use these objects to transform the vigil into a grotesque carnival

celebration, preventing their mother from slipping into a peaceful slumber. With empty

threats, she forcefully reduces their glee into silence. She then extends one foot, freeing it

from under the covers, and uses it to spin one of the wheels of the murderous bike. As the

lights dim to black, the bicycle’s wheel continues to spin, the rattling it makes slowly

fading away as if swallowed by darkness.

Dante has often cited the Trilogy as her first aesthetically non-derivative work

(Dante, “La Strada” 50). Her portrayals of Sicilian families in mPalermu, Carnezzeria

and Vita mia, distance her aesthetic from the loud theatricality of Ronconi’s Teatro

Valdoca, one that she had borrowed in previous works and that was still abundantly

present in Dante’s 2001 La Favola di Farruscad e Cherastanì (The Fairytale of

Farruscad and Cherastanì). With the Trilogy, Dante abandons exaggerated, clown-like

make-up and an abundance of props in favor of restraint and selectivity. Make up

becomes realistic and props are used only if strictly necessary and symbolically

45

meaningful. She makes a significant shift towards a barer, poor-er (in a Grotowskian

sense) aesthetic centered on the body that will eventually encompass recurring elements

such as wedding dresses, crosses, candles, carillons, dolls, large revolving musical dolls,

twinkling lights, faces covered with nylon stockings, lipstick, free-flowing hair, nudity,

and characters emerging from and returning into darkness after following specific floor

patterns built upon Dante’s reinvention of la schiera (the rank).39 In addition to

displaying a more mature, Dantesque aesthetic, the Trilogy also openly toys with genre

while exploring themes that will recur throughout Dante’s career. As examples of what

will become Dante’s customary genre-blurring, the three one-acts are genre-hybrids in

which moments of farcical and grotesque humor are juxtaposed with heartbreaking

sorrow. They make use of elements of Symbolism and Absurdism spliced with dialogues

rooted in Realism to capture the economic decay of the Sicilian and, more largely, Italian

society on the cusp of the twenty-first century. At the same time, these elements spotlight

the cross-generational women of the Carollo, Cuore, and Calafiore families and

emphasize issues of gender disparity in a context of economic decline. In this way,

Dante’s Trilogy fulfills a double function: it protests the economic disenfranchisement

and political oppression of lower-class Sicilian families while, at the same time, it

39 La schiera is a highly physical exercise inspired by training routines utilized by Stanislavsky and Grotowski. Dante adapted and modified her variation of this exercise from a simpler version used since 1985 by Gabriele Vacis (an Italian playwright and director). In its simplest form, la schiera consists of a line of actors moving forward and backward in twelve steps while following an established rhythm. The actor’s job is to avoid getting out of sync with the pre-imposed rhythm and with the rest of the ensemble. By repeating this particular training sequence for prolonged periods of time, actors are encouraged to create a neutral voice and body, stripping off acting habits and eliminating each actor’s rigidity that inhibits movement and speech. After learning Vacis’s original exercise while being part of his theatre company Gruppo della Rocca, Dante elaborated upon it, disassembling the limitations and rigidity of the straight line used by Vacis and creating a series of interlacing grids and crosses which opened up the possibility of more complicated interactions, sudden encounters and realizations that might have not been possible if the exercise were to be performed in a straight line.

46

investigates gender roles and gender-related violence within the Sicilian and Italian

family in the Berlusconi Era.

Disenfranchisement and Oppression: Sicily at the turn of the Twenty-First Century

In the Trilogy of the Sicilian Family, Dante first and foremost stages the daily life

of lower-class individuals living in Sicily, contextualizing the South of Italy as

economically lagging behind the rest of the country. As it is apparent any survey of the

economic condition of European countries at the turn of the new millennium, the Sicilian

island figures as one of the most disenfranchised regions in Western Europe. Statistical

data collected by the European Commission through Eurostat reveals that in the 2004-

2014 decade an average 51.2% of the population of Sicily was at risk of poverty or social

exclusion40 – the highest percentage recorded among all Italian regions. Though slightly

higher than the 42.4% recorded in mainland southern regions, this number is staggering

when compared to the percentages of the population at risk of poverty in the center and

North of the country where regional areas average 20.6% in central Italy, 17.1% in the

North-West, and 15.2% in the North-East. Unemployment and youth unemployment41

data available through Istat, the Italian National Institute for Statistics, further elucidate 40 A measure defined by Eurostat as: “Persons who are at risk of poverty or severely materially deprived or living in households with very low work intensity. Persons are only counted once even if they are present in several sub-indicators. At risk-of-poverty are persons with an equivalised disposable income below the risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60 % of the national median equivalised disposable income (after social transfers). Material deprivation covers indicators relating to economic strain and durables. Severely materially deprived persons have living conditions severely constrained by a lack of resources, they experience at least 4 out of 9 following deprivations items: cannot afford i) to pay rent or utility bills, ii) keep home adequately warm, iii) face unexpected expenses, iv) eat meat, fish or a protein equivalent every second day, v) a week holiday away from home, vi) a car, vii) a washing machine, viii) a color TV, or ix) a telephone. People living in households with very low work intensity are those aged 0-59 living in households where the adults (aged 18-59) work less than 20% of their total work potential during the past year.” (Eurostat np) 41 Refers to the rate of young people between fifteen and twenty-four years old who are unemployed but actively seeking work.

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the economic disparity between northern and southern Italian regions. In the Berlusconi

Era (1994-2011) Sicily had an average unemployment rate of 19.1%, a percentage that

increases to 45.6% when considering only youth unemployment. Both of these

percentages are well above the national average of 9.1% and 25.7% respectively and are

by far the highest in the peninsula, leading those of other southern regions such as

Campania and Calabria. The Sicilian economic situation would appear even bleaker if we

were to factor in the number of underemployed Sicilians as well as those employed in

black market labor force who are working without a minimum wage, job security, state

protection, sick or vacation leave, or contributions towards pensions. Faced by a

seemingly insurmountable wealth and employment gap that separates the North from the

South, many Sicilians who decide to continue living in their region struggle to find

alternative means to survive in a stagnant and hostile economic environment. Yet the

economic inequality plaguing Sicily in the new millennium is hardly new. Rather, it is a

historical malady often referred to as the Questione Meridionale (Southern Issue) 42 a

matter that, for centuries, has afflicted the island as well as other southern Italian regions.

The Questione is still a favorite topic among intellectuals and the media, who periodically

revisit it when considering the economic state of the country. To date, it is still seen as

one of the factors that prompted widespread corruption and illegality in southern Italy.

The absence of support from the Italian and regional government pushed individuals to

protect their personal interests by learning how to navigate a corrupt political and social

system in service of their own needs. This ‘self-first’ marketplace provided fertile ground

42 The Questione Meridionale (Southern Issue) is a phrase first used in 1873 by the politician Antonio Billia. To this day, to talk about the Questione Meridionale means to tackle the political, economic and social disparities between the Mezzogiorno (the southern part of Italy) and the rest of the Italian peninsula; disparities that became particularly concerning in their implications for the newborn Kingdom of Italy.

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on which an atteggiamento mafioso (mafioso-like attitude) could flourish.43 In the

introduction to Cani di bancata (Market Dogs, 2006), Dante writes:

There are people who live in Sicily who speak a secret jargon, accompanied by winks, by gestures made with hands, head, eyes, shoulders, belly, feet. A people capable of making a whole speech without ever opening their mouths. These people have a mafioso-like attitude that has nothing to do with the mafia. One example: I’m driving my car down a one-way street and a car going the wrong way appears in front of me. I stop, I’m in a hurry and I honk my horn. I wait for the driver to move back and, despite my courage, one look together with a motion of her head is enough to make me understand that it would be in my best interest to back up. I don’t think that the driver of that car is a mafiosa, even though her attitude is. (Dante, Nuovo Sito n.p.)

Reminiscent of Dante’s 2013 film Via Castellana Bandiera (Castellana Bandiera St. or A

Street in Palermo), a cinematic adaptation of her 2008 book by the same name, this

description provides an apt definition of what Dante sees as an atteggiamento mafioso: a

deeply-set, constant need to assert dominance through displays of power and aggression

while respecting the rules of silence or omertà.

With its constant presence in the media, the Questione Meridionale has undergone

a century-long process in which it has morphed into a sign itself. To borrow Roland

Barthes’ term, years of public discourse have “mythologized” it, turning it into an

abstract marker of a generalized inequality between Italian geographical regions branding

the North of the country as far better off than the South. The myth of the Questione

Meridionale seldom quantifies such gaps in specifics as differences in quality of life,

economic status and life prospects, nor does it allow for reflections on the implications of

the economic and cultural dominance of the rest of Italy on the Mezzogiorno. In this

context, the Trilogy of the Sicilian Family represents an attempt to concretize the abstract

43 This notion is elaborated upon in depth in the analysis of Dante’s Cani di bancata conducted in the third chapter of this dissertation.

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and to re-connect it with the everyday life of lower-class individuals, thus utilizing them

as a starting point for the continuation of a national conversations on the disenfranchised

South.

The disparity between Sicily and continental Italy is tackled openly in mPalermu

where it is made clear from the play’s juxtaposition of the Italian language with the

Palermitan dialect as well as throughout a family debate centered on the size of the

churches in Palermo and on the Italian mainland. Both instances ultimately mark

everything beyond Sicily as better than its Sicilian counterpart. A script written primarily

in the dialect of Palermo, mPalermu includes strategically positioned Italian sentences

within its performance text. Particularly noteworthy is the single phrase in standard

Italian uttered by Mimmo at the beginning of the play. Underlined in the quote below, the

statement stands out sharply against the Sicilian sentences that surround it:

ROSALIA: Amunì, hamu a nèsciri? MIMMO: E certo che dobbiamo uscire! ZIA LUCIA: (Bisbiglia a Rosalia) Ciù dissi in italiano! MIMMO: Picchì, chi è? ZIA LUCIA: Niente… MIMMO: Ah mi pareva ca mi stavi sfuttènnu! ZIA LUCIA: Può essere mai?

---- ROSALIA: Come on, shouldn’t we go? MIMMO: E certo che dobbiamo uscire!44 AUNT LUCIA: (Whispering to Rosalia) He said it in Italian! MIMMO: Why, what is it? AUNT LUCIA: Nothing… MIMMO: Hah. Seemed like you’re making fun of me! AUNT LUCIA: Would I ever…? (Dante, Carnezzeria 25).

44 Trans.: We absolutely must go out!

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A second instance of a careful pairing of Italian and Palermitan can be seen in the lines

spoken by Zia Lucia at the end of the play, in the sequence entitled “Lucia del sole”

(“Lucia of the Sun”), which immediately precedes Nonna Citta’s death. As the underlined

lines in the quote below show, Italian sentences seemingly inundate Zia Lucia’s

previously almost exclusively dialectal speech:

ZIA LUCIA: Sono pronta! Usciamo. Rosalia? La mamma è pronta! Sbrigati! Mimmo? Mi? Amunì, che sono pronta! Mi senti? Giammarco, prendi la nonna che la portiamo al mare. (Si fotte dalle risate) Mii Mimmo, ciù dissi in italiano! Usciamo in Italiano! Fuori c’è ‘u suli! Ma non lo vedi come è bello questo sole? È grande ‘u suli! È giallo! […] Amunì, spicciatevi, che il sole cala! A noi sta aspettando. Mi sentite? (Agli spettatori) E voi non ve ne andate che stiamo arrivando. (Ai parenti) Aprite le porte, aprite le finestre, aprite tutto che dobbiamo uscire, ora! Non domani! Domani è tardi. Non lo possiamo perdere questo treno. Ora dobbiamo uscire, perchè io non ce la faccio più a stare qua dentro…L’hamu a lassàri stu porto chinu di navi di pietra. C’è ‘u suli! Ma non lo vedi come è bello questo sole? (Agli spettatori) La famiglia Carollo sta arrivando!!! […] ZIA LUCIA: Perchè io non sono muta. Io so parlare, so parlare in italiano. Senti, Giammarco: usciamo? […] ZIA LUCIA: Amunì, spicciatevi… Usciamo. Usciamo in italiano! ---- AUNT LUCIA: Sono pronta! Usciamo. Rosalia? La mamma e’ pronta! Sbrigati! Mimmo? Mi? Let’s go, I’m ready! Mi senti? Giammarco, prendi Grandma Citta che la portiamo al mare.45 (Dying with laughter) Jee Mimmo, I said it in Italian! Let’s go out in Italian! The sun’s outside! Don’t you see how beautiful this sun is? It’s big, the sun! It’s yellow![…] Come on, be quick, that the sun’s setting! It’s waiting for us. You hear me? (To the audience) And you don’t go away - we’re coming. (To the relatives) Open the doors, open the windows, open everything up - we’ve got to go out, now! Not tomorrow! Tomorrow is too late. We can’t miss this train. We have to go out now because I can’t stand being in here

45 Trans.: “I’m ready! Let’s go out. Rosalia? Mom’s ready! Hurry up! Mimmo? Mi? Let’s go, I’m ready! You hear? Giammarco, get Grandma Citta, we’ll bring her to the beach.”

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anymore…We’ve got to leave this harbor full of stone ships. The sun’s out! Don’t you see how beautiful this sun is? (To the audience) The Carollo family is coming!!! […] AUNT LUCIA: Because I’m not mute. I can speak, I can speak in Italian. Listen, Giammarco: usciamo46? […] AUNT LUCIA: Come on, hurry up… Usciamo. Let’s go out in Italian! (Dante, Carnezzeria 64-67).

In both examples, when a character speaks Italian in mPalermu it creates an out of the

ordinary event that solicits reactions of acknowledgement from other characters. The act

of speaking in Italian then sets individuals apart from the rest, marking them as different,

even if only temporarily. In Mimmo’s case, a surprised Zia Lucia comments upon the

young man’s use of Italian. In turn, Mimmo interprets her remark as sarcastic, believing

she is making fun of his choice of language with respect to his social and cultural

standing. Zia Lucia’s intentions notwithstanding, the tension that surfaces in this short

exchange is generated by the existing hierarchy of languages within Italian culture that

considers the national idiom superior to regional ones, something that Dante will

continue to explore in many later works and especially in Cani di bancata. Thus, a lower-

class Palermitan-speaking individual’s unusual use of Italian becomes either an

unexpected yet admirable display of refined culture through linguistic proficiency, or the

affected attempt of an ignorant man to elevate his status by adopting a language with

higher cultural capital. In both cases, Italian takes on a position of cultural dominance

with respect to the language of the Sicilian island. In the case of Zia Lucia’s monologue,

it also becomes a symbol for something better than what the family has known in their

daily life. Zia Lucia’s desire is not simply to go out, but rather “di uscire in italiano:” to

46 Translation: “should we go out”?

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go out in Italian (Dante, Carnezzeria 64). This desire manifests itself linguistically in the

uncharacteristically large number of Italian sentences she utilizes in her monologue

between her remarks in Palermitan. If her family’s inability to leave their home is their

failure to overcome their abject social and economic condition, then Zia Lucia’s wish to

“go out in Italian” represents her family’s yearning for escape and a better life. It is their

hope to undertake an ultimate journey towards greener pastures, far from a Palermo that

Dante paints as a “harbor full of stone ships” (Carnezzeria 65). Perhaps, it is even the

manifestation of a longing to assimilate, to conform in public, to join the majority and

thus finally belong to the cultural elite. However, as foreshadowed in the epigraph to

mPalermu, the Carollos’ attempts are bound to be unsuccessful, leaving them only with

“the deaf regret of having already consumed almost all of one’s existence, having

unraveled the yarn down to the last piece of thread” (Carnezzeria 17; Ortese 83). Taken

from Anna Maria Ortese’s 1961 essay “Arrivo a Palermo” (“Arrival in Palermo”), the

play’s epigraph expresses Ortese’s bitter realization of the significance behind a common

look she seemingly recognizes in the eyes of the Palermitans she encounters in the

Sicilian capital. Dante embraces Ortese’s experience, one she felt was close to her own

re-encounter with the city and its inhabitants when she moved back to Palermo in 1999.

In her introduction to the first play of the Trilogy, she writes:

Palermo. If it had a body, it’d use it to dodge. What? Everything. To not be hit, identified. The emblem, the crest on the shield is silence. mPalermu speaks of this silence, this immobility that is, from a close distance, familial. Of indoors and outdoors divided by a threshold that is impossible to cross. Of gestures that are perfectly formed in the mind, but that can’t get through to the muscles, the blood, like children eternally nourished by ever-pregnant mothers but never birthed. mPalermu means inside Palermo. It is a fertile womb, where too many children huddle in the dark alleys of its deformed abdomen, and while they suck lymph

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from a tangle of umbilical cords, they kick, they push but they don’t want to get out. In Palermo no actions are taken, rather ceremonies are staged; no dialogues take place, rather people operate rhetorically, citing, winking, alluding… it is a city of waste and the superfluous, of magnificent decorations crowning dilapidation. This theater of the impossible, which makes Palermo a kind of symbolic representation of the soul of the world, incessantly busy and incessantly dying, is our comedy. (Dante, Carnezzeria 19-20)

Combined with the play’s epigraph, Dante’s introduction – which doubles as a directorial

note – sketches a bleak picture of the stifled immobility of a city that Ortese describes as

“stopped in time, kept young and at the same time decrepit” (83). Living inside this

decaying womb, the Carollos, while conscious of their condition, are incapable, possibly

unwilling to change their fate. Their truncated – often self-sabotaged – attempts to move

forward, to go out in Italian, to ameliorate their financial and social position leave them

in a permanent state of want and dissatisfaction. They are thus left to endure life till the

moment of their death while stuck in an eternal loop of failure. These constructs are

rendered particularly evident in the play through its cyclical structure, Nonna Citta’s

sudden, inexplicable death, and the scripted disappearance of the Italian language in its

last scene. It is in this sequence, titled “The Big Sleep,” that the Palermitan dialect

reasserts itself, gradually supplanting the national language that had saturated the

character’s dialogue in “Lucia del sole.”

The higher cultural currency of the Italian language in mPalermu thus situates it

in a position of dominance with respect to the Palermitan dialect. This dichotomy mirrors

the Carollos’ belief that things – such as material goods and infrastructure – existing

beyond the island are bigger, and therefore better than anything one may find on the

island. For Nonna Citta, who was born on the mainland, this phenomenon has a simple

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explanation. When discussing the relative size of a sanctuary in her native city of Pollena

Trocchia in the Campania region as compared to the cathedral of Palermo, she does not

hesitate to proclaim: “[The sanctuary] It’s bigger because it’s up North!” (Dante,

Carnezzeria 45). Tania Garribba’s performance of this role heavily underscores this

pronouncement in production. Recorded on video in 2002 and again in 2006, Garibba’s

tone as she delivers the line is unwavering. Her knowledge is definitive; impossible to

challenge, so much so that it puts an end to the belligerent debate that had ensued

regarding the size of the two religious institutions. Faced with this wall of certitude, that

same audience who had so far laughed out loud at the farcical cacophony and silly puns

packed in the quickly paced dialogue is put off-balance. As a stunned silence takes hold

of the stage and the house, the quiet stillness that settles in provides the conditions for a

collective, mystical light bulb to switch on. Captured in the 2002 play’s video recording,

this bizarre occurrence is almost tangible in its fleeting manifestation as in the instants of

arresting speechlessness that follow Nonna Citta’s declaration, the audience is forcibly

made to wonder if, maybe, there could be some truth hiding behind the grandma’s punch

line. Rosalia is the one to speak up, digging into her own experiences to answer the

collective, unuttered question:

ROSALIA: It could be that Grandma Citta’s right, because when my husband writes me from up North, he always tells me: Rosalia, here everything is much bigger! (Dante, Carnezzeria 46).

For her, the letters received from her husband who emigrated in search of a job, are a

reliable confirmation of Nonna Citta’s tales, regardless of the gross exaggeration her

grandma inserts in the line immediately following Rosalia’s, where she shamelessly

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declares the sanctuary of Pollena Trocchia to be “so big, but so big that it contains all the

cathedrals in the world…” (Dante, Carnezzeria 46).

Mirroring the larger global North/South divide, this idea of an idyllic, prosperous

North where one must go in order to meet one’s destiny resurfaces in the second play of

the Trilogy. In Carnezzeria, the Cuore family braves the journey across the Messina strait

to physically enter an unfamiliar, foreign land. There the four siblings are greeted by

mainlanders – the audience – who are transformed into the unexpected guests at Nina’s

fake wedding. In the presence of these foreigners, the Cuores opt to speak the ‘common

language,’ self-consciously utilizing an Italian molded by Sicilian speech patters.

Nonetheless, the siblings’ dialogue remains sprinkled with Sicilian vocabulary and

idioms throughout the play. In particular, the prominence of the regional language in their

conversations exponentially increases when the family forgets about the audience’s

presence, or when their exchanges become deeply personal. In this way, the Italian

utilized in Carnezzeria can be regarded as a mask, which hides the brothers’ true

intentions behind a layer of propriety. As the play goes on and their plan to abandon their

sister is revealed, their use of Italian decreases. Hence, the illusion of respectability

provided by the Italian language shatters along with the construct that Nina is heading

towards a prosperous future on the mainland. Perhaps even more significantly, the larger

myth equating ‘North’ with ‘better’ is also called into question. For the naïve Nina, as for

Rosalia’s husband and the thousands of others who still travel from Sicily to the Italian

peninsula in search of fortune, this voyage towards a promised land is propelled by the

hope to better one’s condition far from one’s native soil. Carnezzeria then exposes the

too common experience of facing disillusion at the end of one’s emigration journey.

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Dreams of happiness and prosperity rapidly turn to dust as the tale that feeds them is

exposed as a hoax. As already hinted in Nonna Citta’s exaggerations, it is exposed as too

simplistic, too easy to be true.

Despite being doomed to fail, the Cuore’s voyage to the mainland and

mPalermu’s “going out in Italian” are the only attempts made by the families of the

Trilogy to physically escape from the island’s poverty, unemployment, and widespread

corruption (Dante, Carnezzeria 64). All three families in the Trilogy are abject in their

lack of means. For the Cuores, this lack can be seen in the brothers’ preoccupation with

the expenses they had to undergo for Nina’s wedding. It further manifests itself in the

description of their family background, which can be pieced together as they comment on

the pictures that Nina brought with her across the Strait. While the audience is left to

collage the state of the Cuore family finances, only to then question them when

contrasting the ostentatious furs worn by the brothers with their anxious fixation with

daily expenses, Dante is much more specific when it comes to the Carollos’ financial

situation. In mPalermu’s stage directions she writes:

They are poor and, apart from the rags they gaily put on, they own a large plastic container filled to the brim with water and the individually gift-wrapped pastry they each clutch in their hands. (Dante, Carnezzeria 24)

The Carollos’ bodies are thus marked by their poverty, which is made plainly visible in

their clothing and other belongings. Mimmo’s trousers are worn out and too short for

him. Rosalia does not own shoes, only a pair of slippers. Each of the family members is

awarded one and only one individually wrapped miniature pastry: a small Sunday luxury

that the family regards as a precious possession, the preservation of which is worthy of

heated confrontations (Dante, Carnezzeria 50-60). Like that of the Carollos’, the

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Calafiores’s lack of means is concretized for the audience by the simplicity of Vita mia’s

scenic elements, props, and costumes. It is further reinforced throughout the script by the

Mother’s references to her sons’ non-existent contributions to the household finances:

THE MOTHER: […] (Reprovingly pointing at GASPARE) This one! This one this one… he’s the eldest. His name is Gaspare. Now, you might ask: being that he’s the eldest shouldn’t he bring something home to his mother? (She nods repeatedly, answering the question herself.) I really think he should bring something! And so I tell him: “Blood of mine, go work, go look for a teeny-weeny job… Something to do…”. GASPARE: There’s no work, mà! THE MOTHER: “There’s no work” he tells me. “No openings to be found!”. “There’s unemployment!”. Because my darling boy would like to be… I don’t know: a lawyer, an engineer, a state employee, he’d like to have cash incentives, end-of-year bonuses…that’s what he’d like. And instead I tell him: “Blood of mine, make do, go be a baker, I’m not telling you to go work in the shipyards because if you fall off a ladder, since we all know those shipyards are never built according to the law, you’ll end up dead, it’s dangerous and I’d even understand that! But the ice-cream man, the illegal valet parker, couldn’t you do that?”. And instead, what does he do? He strolls around the whole damn day, left and right, left and right… (Referring to UCCIO) with this other idiot that’s here at my side. (Dante, Carnezzeria 144-145)

In Vita mia, Gaspare and Uccio are both unemployed, yet the Mother handles their lack

of employment differently. She begrudgingly accepts Uccio’s inability to earn as the

byproduct of a real (or possibly perceived) mental disability, which she verbally

expresses by calling him a “menzu cretino” (a half-wit) (Dante, Carnezzeria 145). On the

other hand, Gaspare’s unemployment is seen as an outright refusal to be useful. In fact,

the Mother believes that he would undoubtedly be able to secure a position if he only

were less picky in selecting an occupation. His mother sees his unwillingness to

compromise on his rights as a worker, to be underemployed, or to enter the labor black

market as disgraceful expressions of idleness in the face of the family’s financial strife.

Rather than the result of an actual scarcity of viable jobs, his inability to find work

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becomes a public declaration of his laziness, complacency, and lack of grit. The pajamas

that Gaspare and his brothers wear all day long come to symbolize these three attributes

and become a sort of uniform of the unemployed. The Mother ultimately equates success

to obtaining any kind of employment, no matter how temporary, nor through which legal

or illegal avenues it is acquired. She justifies it as a form of viable self-help when faced

with lackluster alternatives such as emigration (and thus the separation of family

members), or continued passivity. The state of being employed then becomes the only

active way to take personal responsibility for the family; “something to do” in the face of

poverty for those who have no hope of rescue from the State, no power, and no

connections (Dante, Carnezzeria 144). While continuing to push Gaspare to find work by

any means necessary, she also unashamedly exhorts her youngest son, Chicco, to study

hard with the hope that he may become a local politician, thus finally occupying a

position that would allow him to secure a job for Gaspare and a disability pension for

Uccio, finally elevating the financial and social status of the family (Dante, Carnezzeria

146).

This degradation of the self through the process of navigating a corrupt system

while seeking employment is a tale that is well known to the people of the Italian

Mezzogiorno. In Dante’s works, it becomes a recursive theme that reappears in later plays

such as Cani di bancata, Operetta burlesca (Operetta Burlesque, 2014) and Le sorelle

Macaluso (The Macaluso Sisters, 2014) all three of which contain explicit references to

poverty, unemployment, nepotism, and underemployment. The disenfranchisement

suffered by the Sicilian families of the Trilogy is not limited to a representation of their

individual lack of financial means, or their difficulties in finding work. Rather, it

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stretches beyond subjective stories to question the larger systemic ills of corruption and

greed gripping a flawed political and economic system that, to date, continues to fail to

effectively address the Questione Meridionale. In this respect, mPalermu best

exemplifies these aspects of Dante’s social criticism in the sequences “La piccola

abbuffata” (“The Little Binge”) and “Il miracolo dell’acqua” (“The Water Miracle”).

La piccola abbuffata tackles the notion of the survival of the fittest in a society

that is left to fend for itself by fighting for scraps. In this sequence, Giammarco seizes all

of his family’s pastries and selfishly devours the treats in front of them. Dante’s detailed

description of the scene is viscerally unsettling:

Giammarco tears the croissant from his [Mimmo’s] hands and quickly steals all the other pastries. He amasses them, mixes them, squashes them into a single soggy mass and gets ready to devour them: he loosens his tie, stretches his legs, throws his butt out to not dirty his suit and dives face first into the amalgam of custard ricotta cinnamon chocolate hard crust candied fruits. Then he throws up and cries. (Dante, Carnezzeria 60-61)

As described in the stage directions and rendered in performance, Giammarco’s thievery

is a violent act of total destruction of the family’s precious sweets. Simultaneously, it

devastates his own body, which twists and gags as the actor forcefully ingests a brown,

pasty goo only to regurgitate it all. In the play, Giammarco is described as a “distantly

related parasite” who contributes little to the family (Dante, Carnezzeria 24). He lives

with the Carollos with the excuse that his brother, Rosalia’s husband, appointed him to be

her guardian while he was away for work. To satisfy his gluttony, Giammarco

unceremoniously takes what is not his, depriving the other family members of their share.

As he, “[t]he bastard[,] feeds, eying his relatives, while chocolate dribbles from his

mouth like the slobber of a dog gnawing on a bone,” his relatives watch as he renders

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their treats inedible (Dante, Carnezzeria 60). His avarice combined with his inability to

share turns what was previously equally distributed wealth into a bounty to be used for

personal gain. Yet, in this self-centered process, Giammarco completely destroys the

family’s initial resources, leaving everyone empty-handed. Staging the consequences of

ruthlessly pursuing individual interests without regard for others, “La piccola abbuffata”

transforms potentially appetizing pastries into a revolting, excrement-like blob – a course

of action that ultimately encourages waste without ever actualizing potential.

Dante elaborates on this notion of excessive greed and waste in “Il miracolo

dell’acqua,” the sequence that immediately follows Giammarco’s selfish binge. From a

Sicilian perspective, Dante’s “water miracle” is the most sacrilegious moment in the

whole play. Mimmo reluctantly agrees to dip into the family’s water reservoir upon

Giammarco’s request. The Carollos initially line up to receive a single cap-full of water

from Mimmo who supplies them with a sort of life-giving communion. But the family

members are not satisfied with their ration, each of them rejoining the line to receive

more. As the same faces appear again and again, Mimmo throws away the cap and begins

to fill their cupped hands with water. This changes into splashing them with the

remaining contents of the plastic tank in a sort of joyous, lyrical baptism. Caught up in

the moment, the family chooses to waste their limited water supply knowing full well

that, to replenish their stock, they will only have two choices. Either they will have to line

up with their containers at a public fountain, or they will have to wait till the following

morning for a “water day” – the day of the week when Sicilians get to experience the

miracle of running water flowing from their home faucets (Dante, Carnezzeria 61). In an

ecstatic frenzy, the relatives take off their garments, their naked silhouettes dancing in the

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puddles covering the stage as backlit droplets of water fall on them like sparkling jewels.

This moment, breathtaking in its aesthetic simplicity, allows the audience to witness a

disconcerting contradiction: the horror of wasting and the freedom to waste a family’s

entire water supply in a land where water is historically one of the most precious goods.

In fact, at the turn of the twenty-first century, the storage and distribution of the

limited reserves of freshwater in Sicily remains a political and economically delicate

matter entangled with the interests of politicians, entrepreneurs, and mafia clans. For

decades, the ‘blue gold’ of the island has been mismanaged by authorities (Preston n.p.),

with 40% of the water lost in an obsolete infrastructure made of leaking pipes and

incomplete or poorly built reservoirs (“Sicily, Southern Italy Suffers Water Shortage”

n.p.; Catalano, Genco and Vignetti 4). Sometimes deliberately caused or perpetuated, this

inefficiency facilitated the collection of water by organized crime in illegal tanks with the

intent to sell it to the highest bidder (Haberman n.p.; Willan n.p.). The situation is further

strained by the illegal acts of private citizens who try to circumvent drought by abusively

connecting their houses and field irrigation systems to public aqueducts (Preston n.p.).

Generally, the areas most impacted by this scarcity of water are the most rural parts of the

island, as well as the poorest quarters in major cities where, even to date, water may

arrive on alternate days for extended periods of time.

Devised in 2001, mPalermu continued to tour the Italian peninsula in 2002 while

Sicily once again suffered a terrible drought. During July of that same year, people took

to the streets of Palermo, erecting barricades to protest the lack of government

intervention to resolve what the media labeled as the region’s worse water crisis in over

70 years. Farmers in the province of Palermo blocked highways with their tractors

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demanding swift action from the authorities and telling appalling stories of villagers left

without running water for as long as twenty consecutives days (Darlington n.p.). The

Berlusconi-led government promised to take extraordinary measures such as instituting a

water commission to find a solution for the lack of water in Sicily and sending the army

to the island to provide immediate help to those in need. As the 2002 summer turned to

fall and the urgency of the July water emergency subsided, the island returned to the

accustomed, but no longer remarkable, corrupt system of water scarcity. Uncannily, this

unfolding of events closely resembled that occurring during the “water crisis” of October

1999, only three years before the 2002 drought (“Sicilia, allarme” n.p.; “Sicilia,

emergenza” n.p.; “L’italia” n.p. ).47 Thirteen years later, in 2015, the people of Sicily

again faced a severe scarcity of water. This time, the “water emergency” was not caused

by a drought, but rather due to lacking infrastructures and widespread mismanagement

from private and governmental institutions. In his article “Autobotti e code all'alba:

vivere senz'acqua da Messina ad Agrigento” published in newspaper La Repubblica,

Antonio Fraschilla mentions that the dismal condition of the pipelines in some Sicilian

towns demand that water be rationed during the summer months. In the town of San Vito

Lo Capo, for example, water is only distributed twice a week (“Autobotti” n.p.). He

further explains that what he names the 2015 Sicilian “Great Thirst” left the towns of

Caltanissetta, Niscemi, Campobello di Licata, Gela, Milazzo, Agrigento, and Messina

among others without water for weeks (Fraschilla, “Acqua” n.p.; ). Unsurprisingly, the

47 The water scarcity that swept the island in 1999 is documented in numerous articles published in Italian newspaper La Repubblica between October 28 and October 30. Among them we find the October 28 article “L'Italia in una bolla d'afa record. In Sicilia: 39 gradi” (“Italy in a Record-Breaking Heat Bubble: 39 degrees in Sicily”) and the October 29 article “Sicilia, allarme siccità” (“Sicily, Drought Alarm”).

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cycle of crisis, ineffective rhetorical response, and forgetfulness began anew (Fraschilla,

“Acqua” n.p.).48

In light of the presence/absence of water in Sicily, mPalermu’s “Il miracolo

dell’acqua” is an important and timely socio-political criticism. As Dante explains:

My theater has to do with the incivilities of the world. […] [U]ncovering every little flaw of the underclass that I talk about in my works, the audience can make up their mind about the politics that exists in this country [Italy]. If you say that in 2006 there are cities in Sicily where there is shortage of water, it is obvious that the people living in those cities are not those responsible […]. Water does not get there for other reasons, weighty and serious reasons. I do not investigate those reasons, but I try to lift a veil. […] Theater deals with lifting the veil that covers all things, to uncover them: to lift that veil also means to not forget, to not file away denunciations, and to reveal the dust that covers everything… (Dante, “La Strada” 77)

It is perhaps Dante’s desire to “not file away denunciations” that fuels Sud Costa

Occidentale’s propensity to revisit and elaborate upon themes of disenfranchisement in

the Sicilian and southern Italian context throughout their repertoire. While drawing

criticism for exploring seemingly repetitious topics, this commitment has allowed

Dante’s company to tenaciously address unresolved issues connected to the Questione

Meriodionale. Dante’s “lifting the veil” uncovers the special absurdity of the water

situation in Sicily, which, if it is to be considered a problem worthy of national attention,

must reach the level of a humanitarian crisis requiring emergency governmental

measures. Economic and political interests, combined with the recurrence of this issue in

48 While each of these towns’ cases is distinct (with water scarcity due to pipelines breakages, or water contamination prompted by lack of funds, or a long-standing water rationing aggravated by the climate), Fraschilla presents them as stemming from the same governmental indifference, corruption and lack of concrete, long-lasting solutions to the issue of water scarcity in Sicily that leaves Sicilian citizens to constantly be faced with unexpected circumstances that periodically cut their access to water.

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the national discourse, render the island and its citizens unable to progress. They are, just

like the Carollos, stuck in the same place, powerless to move forward.

Faced with such immobility and waste – ranging from Zia Lucia’s and Nina’s

crushed enthusiasm, to the Carollo family’s pastries and water supply, to the Calafiore’s

youth – the characters’ desires to better their condition, to move beyond their own

confines, and to turn the potentiality hidden in significant gestures into accomplished

actions, are easily trumped by glittering dreams of immediate satisfaction. Those who

remain, who are left behind, or who, like the Carollos and the Calafiores of Vita mia,

cannot or will not make the journey away from Sicily, find solace in distractions and the

little mundane pleasures they can afford. Chief among them is soccer, a sport commonly

referred to by Italian intellectuals as “the Italians’ other church” or, in a Marxist twist,

“the opium of the Italian people.”

Dante’s relationship with soccer in her theater is particularly interesting, as she

does not condemn the game as low-brow, popular entertainment. Rather, she recognizes

its importance for people who do not have many easily accessible ways to escape their

dejected reality.49 By adopting the lingo, body language, and conventions of soccer as a

shared, staged language, she also manages to present her audience with a powerful

commentary that emphasizes the contradictions that often surface when considering

Italians’ undying love for the sport. References to soccer are abundant in both Vita mia

and mPalermu, but while in the former they function as a last expression of Chicco’s

49 References to soccer appear in mPalermu, Vita Mia and Le sorelle Macaluso as well as in the movie Via Castellana Bandiera, where the camera lingers onto a huge graffiti reading “Forza Palermo” (“Go Palermo”) painted on a concrete wall overlooking a Palermo beach.

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vitality,50 in the latter they are strategically positioned to distract the Carollo family’s

attention from pressing concerns towards the fictional and the superfluous. In mPalermu,

Dante reconstructs the 2004 soccer match that allowed the Palermo soccer team to finally

claim a spot in the Serie A, the same epic match that Chicco later narrates in Vita mia. At

the beginning of an extended movement sequence entitled “La danza del pallone” (“The

ball’s dance”), which immediately follows Nonna Citta’s and Rosalia’s lines about the

North, Giammarco takes charge of the conversation, quickly silencing the two women

and swiftly changing the topic to soccer:

GIAMMARCO: Hold on! You’re right, dear granny! It’s true: the cathedral of Palermo is the same size as the sanctuary of Pollyanatroyka, right? But… Palermo is in Serie A! (Dante, Carnezzeria 46)

Prompted by the Carrollo men, the entire family then recreates the 2004 game, a match

that left an indelible mark in the collective consciousness of Palermitans. The shift that

moves the audience from Nonna Citta’s deafening assertion, to Rosalia’s defeatist

contemplation, to Giammarco’s consolatory statement that prompts the family’s frantic

physical reenactment using an imaginary ball, is a fast and harsh one. The combination of

the lines of dialogue and the quick mood changes that accompany them ultimately depicts

the Palermo team’s victory and, more generally, the game of soccer in Italy, as a

bittersweet consolation prize dished out to distract the characters and the Italian people

from other, more pressing, concerns. “La danza del pallone" thus aptly exposes the

process through which a discourse on important social and economic issues in today’s

50 Chicco’s soccer shoes in Vita mia allow him to hold on to life for just a little longer, delaying the moment of his soul’s disappearance. They compel his feet to move uncontrollably as if he were juggling an invisible ball, the same ball he had juggled thousands of times while he was still alive. They also allow him to reenact the ecstatic joy he felt; a joy that he perceived intensely, irrationally holding a deeply personal stake in the outcome of his team’s match to the point of talking about the match as if he were on the field with his idols.

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Italy can easily be displaced by a modern, nation-wide operation of panem et circenses,

or superficial ways to placate discontent that plays on regional and local pride.

Paradoxically, what is implied in the sequence, but widely known to Italian football fans,

is that the miraculous ascension of Palermo to Serie A that was awaited by the city for

thirty years is, in itself, a northern miracle. In 2002, Maurizio Zamparini, a northern

entrepreneur from the Friuli region, bought the team with the intention to prepare it for its

climb into the first Italian league. To this end, in 2003 he appointed Francesco Guidolin,

a northerner from the Veneto, as the team’s head coach. In the same year, Zamparini also

acquired Luca Toni: a northern Italian forward born in Emilia-Romagna who is still

regarded by Palermo fans as the legendary savior of the team. A later addition to Dante’s

play, which was first written in 2001, and a testimony to the constant state of flux of Sud

Costa’s works, the references to the Palermo team’s 2004 historic feat become almost

cruel in their irony when juxtaposed to Nonna Citta’s statements. Analyzed in the light of

the contemporary disparity between Sicily and the rest of Italy, soccer is strategically

used in mPalermu to underscore, once again, the great divide between northern and

southern Italy.

Gender Roles, the Sicilian Family and the Berlusconi Era

While giving visibility to the contemporary Questione Meridionale by staging the

socio-political and economic disenfranchisement of three lower-class Sicilian families,

Dante’s Trilogy significantly foregrounds the role of women within these family units. In

particular, it portrays a profound power imbalance between genders maintained through

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psychological and physical violence, which Dante ultimately holds responsible for

women’s economic and social inequality within the Sicilian family.

In all three plays of the Trilogy, women are financially dependent on men. This is

particularly visible in mPalermu, where Rosalia is not only reliant on the wages her

husband earns in northern Italy, but is also tied to Mimmo’s administration of the

family’s funds. In the sequence “Rosalia delle tappìne” (“Rosalia of the Slippers”), she

blames her cousin for her lack of appropriate footwear to wear on the family stroll:

ROSALIA: No, it’s my fault! Because I don’t have shoes! […] (Mimmo takes [her] purse) There’s nothing inside, I don’t need it. And besides, what am I going to do with a purse if I don’t have shoes? (Accusing Mimmo) You didn’t want to buy me shoes! I told him I needed them, but he didn’t want to buy them for me! And now I’m going to show you how one goes out into the streets wearing slippers! (Dante, Carnezzeria 36-37)

As her exasperated, stream-of-consciousness monologue proceeds, Rosalia engages the

audience by sarcastically questioning them regarding the possible fashion statements

made by the avant-garde pairing of her slippers and clothing. She then tries to strip naked

in a last attempt to take revenge on her cousin by exposing her body to publically

embarrass him and tarnish his honor. Pointing to her empty purse, as well as to Mimmo’s

refusal to buy shoes for her, Rosalia exposes her lack of financial autonomy within the

Carollo family where the gratification of her material needs is entirely at Mimmo’s

mercy. As head of the family, he not only has the authority to allow other family

members to unwrap their pastries in “La piccola abbuffata” and drink water in “Il

miracolo dell’acqua,” but, more significantly, he has the power to make all their financial

decisions. Thus, despite Zia Lucia’s generous offer in the sequence “Lucia del sole” to

buy anything the family may need once they leave the house, she, like the rest of the

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Carollo women, does not have the means to fulfill her promises and must abide by

Mimmo’s dictates (Dante, Carnezzeria 67). Her condition of economic dependence

contrasts with her wish to satisfy her own needs as well as that of others. Her desires are

destined to remain an unfulfilled dream, much like the family’s longing to leave the

house.

Like the Carollo women, both Nina and the Mother rely entirely on the men in

their families to provide for them. In both Carnezzeria and Vita mia, this total economic

reliance binding them to their male relatives is coupled with their relegation to the

domestic sphere. Both Nina and the Mother primarily tend to house chores: they cook,

clean, mend, and look after the wellbeing of their respective brothers and sons. Despite

their different roles within the families, the women’s duties are automatically assigned to

them according to traditional divisions of labor. At the same time, both women appear to

tacitly accept the inability of the Cuore and Calafiore men to help with housekeeping as a

consequence of their sex. The Mother in Vita mia insists that her sons’ inconsiderate

behavior with respect to domestic chores would be acceptable if they were occupied with

either contributing financially to the family, making active efforts to secure a job, or

succeeding in their studies (Dante, Carnezzeria 143-147). Yet, she exposes a different

point of view incongruous with this seemingly fair, tit-for-tat mentality when she utters:

THE MOTHER: Yet, all three of them are my life! All three! But what would I do without them? And them without me, where would they go? They’re three boys, they’re young! (Dante, Carnezzeria 147)

Moving beyond the devotion of a mother for her offsprings, her words ultimately show

that it is precisely her children’s gender, their maleness, that precludes them from doing

housework. Similar attributes characterize Nina’s monologues in Carnezzeria:

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NINA: (To her brothers, worried) What will you do without me? Poor dears! Who’s going to wash your underwear, who’s going to cook for you? (Sternly) Paride you’ll have to take care of your brothers. I can’t spend my whole life caring for you! (Speaking to the audience/guests) But what were they thinking, these three good-for-nothings? I’m a grown woman. If I wait any longer to get married, I’ll turn into an old maid. I know how to do everything: I can cook, I can clean, I’m good at doing the wash, I always separate it by color: whites with whites; reds with reds otherwise they bleed. I can iron, I can wash the stairs outside the house, I can buy presents, once a week I clean the light fixtures and once a month I clean inside the closets. […] I do everything I’m ordered. (Dante, Carnezzeria 127)

Nina’s competence as a caretaker makes her invaluable to her brothers. These abilities

coupled with her blind obedience to her kin are seen as characteristics that mark her as a

“good” (Dante, Carnezzeria 82, 83, 89, 117) and “sensible little girl” (Dante, Carnezzeria

110). An analogous idea transpires in Vita mia where the mother remarks:

THE MOTHER: (Turning her back to her sons who remain standing, their heads hanging) I wanted a girl! If I’d told a little girl to be quiet, wouldn’t she have stayed silent? (She nods repeatedly, answering the question herself.) She’d have been quiet, she’d have been quiet! Instead with the three of them it doesn’t happen, because I tell them one thing and they let it in one ear and out the other! (Dante, Carnezzeria 143)

Like the Cuore brothers, the Mother believes having a daughter is more desirable than

having a boy because of girls’ presumed ability to follow commands and fully comply to

another’s will. The value given women within the world of the Trilogy is thus always

necessarily linked to their capacity to conform to familial and societal expectations

combined with the ability to please the opposite sex. The women of the Carollo, Cuore,

and Calafiore families are forced into a submission similar to that of the character Kate in

revivals of The Taming of the Shrew. In the same way that Kate’s story is staged again

and again, the role of Dante’s women incarnates a contemporary, Sicilian iteration of

centuries-old submission to their male relatives. The families portrayed in the Trilogy

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espouse a larger narrative that depends on silent, female obedience. These families’

problematic narratives equate ‘good women’ with submissive women who come to value

their role as caretakers as a required sacrifice in order to see their male relatives succeed.

Disturbingly, this view appears to be a common one across Italy during the Berlusconi

Era. While quietly coexisting with opposing feminist ideas for decades, this tacitly agreed

upon, culturally upheld belief of the goodness of Italian women’s submission to men was

reinforced by author Costanza Miriano who, in the early 2000s, published a chart-topping

series of books heavily influenced by Catholic doctrine that focuses on the domestic

relations between husbands and wives.

Ten years after the debut of mPalermu, Miriano released the first tome of her

series: Sposati e sii sottomessa: Pratica estrema per donne senza paura (Get Married

and Be Submissive: An Extreme Practice for Women Who Have No Fear). The 2011

book encourages women to get married and start a family, while exhorting them to accept

a supporting role in the household, hence enabling their husbands to thrive. Miriano goes

to great lengths to explain that she does not ask women to become doormats for their life

companions, nor to give up their professional ambitions. Rather, she asks them to simply

embrace “their most profound desire, which is to put family first” (Miriano, Get Married

np). She urges the current generation of women “who have already shown that they can

make it outside the house, […] [that they] can occupy the most important positions in

society,” to find a more complete fulfillment by letting go of their need to be recognized

(Miriano, Get Married np; Miriano, BBC Nightnews np). Taking a step back and

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embracing a submissive51 domestic role, women would find gratification and a sense of

peace in recognizing that they are the heart of the family – a heart that, for Miriano,

labors to sustain the family’s head, the husband, “like a pillar supports a roof” (Miriano,

BBC Nightnews np; Miriano, Get Married np). In her writings, such willing submission is

framed as a positive step. Women are not obliged to serve their men but they can choose

to do so out of love (Miriano, Sposati 56). In doing so, they are then freed from their

“fundamental flaws” (Miriano, Get Married np) of wanting to subjugate, to

psychologically dominate their husbands – flaws that have been exacerbated by years of

feminist battles. For Miriano, while feminism was invaluable in securing universal

suffrage and in protecting women from physical violence, it created undesirable bi-

products by pushing women to accept an existing “logic of domination,” rather than

embrace their innate talents (Miriano, Sposati 57, 44). By denying the fundamental

nurturing instincts that she claims exist within women since infancy for the simple fact

that they are women, this ‘logic’ pushed women to be more like men, forgetting that they

“can’t have it all: work like a man and be a woman in the house” (Sposati 25, 57). It

stirred them to clamor for gender equality when, in reality, men and women are entirely

different, thus making parity between the sexes a misguided pursuit (Sposati 56-57).

In the five years following its publication Miriano’s book became a phenomenon.

It was quickly translated into Spanish, Polish, Dutch and French. In both Italy and Spain,

51 As Miriano specifies in her writings as well as in numerous interviews, submission here is intended in the etymological sense of the word found in the Bible’s New Testament in the “Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians:”

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (English Standard Version, Ephes. 5.22-24)

In this New Testament passage, as in Miriano’s book, submission to one’s husband is framed as an act of love mirroring that of the Church submitting to Christ.

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it swiftly climbed the best-seller charts. In Italy alone, the volume had two editions, and

six reprints. While popular in bookstores (both online and off),52 the book stirred

feminists’ outrage across Europe. In Spain, the minister for health, social services, and

equality, Ana Mato Adrover, pushed to take the book off the shelves for promoting an

antiquated and sexist lifestyle (Gover np). Her almost censorious position was strongly

supported by the left political party, Izquierda Unida. Hundreds of Spanish women of all

ages took to the streets to rip Miriano’s book in protest. Such strong reaction was not

confined to the Iberian Peninsula. On BBC News, Eleanor Mills, a journalist for The

Sunday Times, expressed that while Miriano’s model might work well in Italy, it would

never be acceptable in Britain where she believes women aspire to a Scandinavian model

of equality in their relationships (Miriano, Get Married np). Although possibly irking to

the academic elite in their sweeping generalization of Italy as a feminist-backwards

country, Mills’ words about the popularity of Miriano’s book in the Bel Paese find a

trifold validation in the vastly documented country’s rampant, public misogyny during

the Berlusconi Era; the Italian Catholic Church’s unwavering and vocal support of

traditional families and gender roles; and the lukewarm public backlash of Italian

intellectuals that followed the release of Miriano’s volumes and her first media

appearances. Not surprisingly, the Italian Catholic Church soon embraced Miriano as the

public face of Catholic women. On January 30, 2016, she took the stage of the 2016

Family Day organized by the Catholic Church at the Circo Massimo in Rome. Her words 52 Conflicting data are available on private blogs and newspapers regarding the number of copies of the book that sold between 2011 and 2016 in Italy and abroad. Approximate sales figure oscillate between 50,000 (in Italy alone from 2011 to 2013) and 150,000 (overall number to date) copies sold. On her personal blog (https://costanzamiriano.com/about/english-version/), Miriano writes that her Sposati e sii sottomessa and Sposala e muori per lei sold a combined 70,000 copies in Italy between 2011 and 2016. Sposati e sii sottomessa English translation was published in 2016 by TANbooks and it is titled Marry Him and Be Submissive.

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“let’s go back to that role we have forgotten because of emancipation […] let’s go back

to being welcoming women […] and our men will be capable of greater good,” were

applauded by the two million audience members gathered at the Circo Massimo and

broadcast across the country (#FamilyDay2016, np).

Sposati e sii sottomessa joins a long line of works authored by women aimed at

reinforcing traditional gender roles. Among them, we find the 2000 The New York Times

bestseller The Surrendered Wife: A Practical Guide to Find Intimacy, Passion and Peace

by American author Laura Doyle – a work which in turn hauntingly echoes Phyllis

Schlafly’s 1960s conservative thoughts on gender relations. Following a common thread,

these works encourage women to give up control and responsibility, avoid criticism and

discord with their significant others, and trust completely in their husband in every aspect

of the marriage: from intimacy to finances. They construct women, first and foremost as

wives and mothers, once again asking them to give in, to relent, to bear and to bend

according to men’s will. In a theoretical sense, both Doyle’s and Miriano’s work

juxtapose a Braidottian, intersectional notion of individual women’s identities,

perennially in flux,53 with the concept of a fixed identity of ‘Woman.’ At the same time,

they foment a public/private dissonance, painting a reality in which women’s freedom to

have successful careers – or, really, to follow any other individual, public pursuit – is

always necessarily subjugated to a religiously-backed ‘natural calling’ to the private

53 As previously discussed in the introduction to this dissertation, contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti asserts in Commento alla relazione di Adriana Cavarero and in Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory the existence of a singular female subjectivity among a multiplicity of individual women’s identities that are “nomadic:” never fixed, but rather evolving over time.

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sphere. Thus their socially recognized ‘goodness,’ like that of the women of Dante’s

Trilogy, becomes inextricably dependent on their degree of submissiveness.

The success of Sposati e sii sottomessa in Italy can be read as a popular, Catholic

Church-led endorsement of the economic and social condition facing the women of

Dante’s Trilogy. There, just as in Miriano’s work, the notion of submission is disguised

as an act of love. However, while Miriano’s writings insist on the importance of a

willing, freely accepted female subjugation for the common good, Dante’s plays expose

the dangers that subjugation poses to women’s freedoms and bodies. In mPalermu,

Carnezzeria and Vita mia, the idea of submission expands beyond the relation between

husband and wife to encompass any male-female relationship within a family. The

women of the Trilogy are expected to employ their innate ability to nurture, to take care

of the men in their family while accepting their economic disenfranchisement, a concept

that was also championed in Fascist and 1950s rhetoric about the role of women in Italian

society.54 The plays show how this implicit requirement for female submission rapidly

degenerates into a demand for an extreme surrender that is both mental and physical.

In Vita mia, the Mother is, simply that: a mother. She is asexualized. She has no

name, no identity beyond that given her by her archetypal title, the language she speaks,

and the crucifix adorning her room. Since her family lacks a husband/father figure, she

entirely submits her independence to her children. In this sense, her motherhood becomes

both excluding and exclusive: it isolates her from anything that is not complete devotion

54 For more, see the 1991 book edited by Zygmunt G. Barański and Shirley W. Vinall. Women and Italy: Essays on Gender, Culture, and History. An attempt to address the issue of relegation of Italian women to the private sphere and questions connected to the remuneration of house work brought to the forefront by Italian feminists in the 1970s and 1980s is addressed in detail by Bono and Kempt in the chapter “Women at Home: Salaries for Housewives” in their co-edited volume Italian Feminist Throught: A Reader (260-272).

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to her offspring who become the single reason for her existence. While, as we have seen,

the Mother herself justifies her behavior as an expression of infinite love, the play

presents it as a sort of voluntary imprisonment that reduces a possibly complex,

multifaceted woman to the incarnation of motherliness. She is physically locked in her

house with her children. She is reliant on their economic and social success if she is ever

to escape her own condition. As a single parent, thus the only one to bare the brunt of

society’s judgment of her children’s flaws, her success or failure in life is entirely

determined by her children’s achievements. Although she occasionally reminds her

children of her youth and her professed unwillingness to die for them, this desire to live

her own life – a desire that Dante materializes on stage in the beautiful red gown that the

Mother wears before she lies on the bed with her dead son – is always quickly hidden

(Dante, Carnezzeria 150, 173). After all, as the title unequivocally reminds the audience,

her children are her life. Thus, when the Mother is faced with Chicco’s death, she is

presented with the ultimate failure: her inability to protect her child despite her complete

devotion to her progeny.

In a desperate attempt to adhere to a submissive, servile code of motherhood and

preserve her sons’ lives, the Mother held them captive within the confines of their home,

the only place she deemed safe. Yet, this ‘protective’ action effectively erased the chance

for anything to happen. For both the Mother and her children, life then becomes

something that is talked about, planned, guarded, contained in a cage, but never actually

lived. Such wasting of one’s existence is, for Dante, the ultimate sin, one that is severely

punished. In fact, as we see in the play, if life is not lived, then it is inevitably taken

away. The Mother’s danse macabre with the body of her dead son, her solemn lying

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down on the catafalque/bed with him while his two brothers disappear underneath it, and

her spinning of one of the wheels of Chicco’s bike with her foot, are moments filled with

this tragic realization. The Mother’s purpose, her relationship to her sons, and even her

reason to exist are put into question. If, as Dante points out in the introduction to Vita

mia, life is indeed a bicycle race, a spin of the wheel of fortune around a bed of death,

then the enormity of the society-dictated notion that the single purpose of a woman’s life

is to completely devote herself to another human being is quickly laid bare (Dante,

Carnezzeria 137-138). The play thus makes it imperative to ponder the impact of these

traditional expectations regarding motherhood on women’s lives.

While the Mother in Vita mia voluntarily confines herself to her house, in

mPalermu Mimmo restricts Rosalia’s body by taking away her agency. He mercilessly

polices her appearance, flagging her slippers as unacceptable for appearance in public

(Dante, Carnezzeria 25-30). He uses physical violence to prevent her to from unclothing

herself in an act of rebellion. With the help of Zia Lucia, Mimmo quickly drags his

cousin upstage where, hidden in the dark, he exerts his strength to forcibly clothe her,

thus preventing a taint to his honor. This demonstration of power is meant to punish and

make his cousin submit to his will through a show of force similar to the one he displays

in the sequence “Le cinghiate dell’amore” (“Lashes of Love”) where he brandishes his

belt/whip while forcing his relatives to behave like circus animals. An expression of a

larger societal issue regarding the policing of women’s appearance, Mimmo’s act aims to

gain complete control over Rosalia’s body, and thus becomes just as violent as a forcible

undressing. This particular scene also demonstrates the complicity of brutalized women

in preserving the traditional power structure within the family. Zia Lucia and Nonna Citta

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are examples of such women, both opting to prioritize keeping domestic peace over

fighting back. For example, Zia Lucia goes so far as to accompany Mimmo upstage and

thus stifle Rosalia’s protest.

Like Rosalia, Nina is also expected to submit to her male relatives. In both cases,

this requires that the two women relinquish control of their economic welfare and give up

their individual freedom. In Nina’s case her physical wellbeing and even her own life

depend entirely on her ability to please her brothers. This is clear in their interactions on

stage, where the brothers’ tender caresses turn to blows in the blink of an eye. The most

extreme example of their power manifests itself when her brothers prohibit her from

giving birth before her wedding, forcing their sister to physically hold the baby in her

womb until they can run off and thus cover up their responsibility for her pregnancy

(Dante, Carnezzeria 124). Nina’s condition of motherhood is thus absurdly suspended as

she waits for her fictitious husband to absolve her brothers of sin, that same sin that has

marked her as undesirable. In her extreme subjugation to her brothers, Nina thus loses her

own humanity. In their eyes, she becomes as lowly as the old dog mentioned in the

epigraph to Carnezzeria:

When your dog has served you for many years and must die; when you want to dispose of him or he has sinned; when his skin is covered with scabs and tiny animals, his ears frayed and bleeding, his nose always dry, and he drags his hind legs, abandoned at his side, like a dead thing; or when his sight has become intolerable to you – do not entrust this being, who was your friend, to a stranger’s hands; not even to your brother’s hands: he does not know him as well as you; don’t let him sense death is coming; save a last gesture of respect for him and give him death yourself; call him to a corner of the garden, give him a last bone to gnaw, stroke his head with one hand and, with the other, without his noticing… (Dante, Carnezzeria 73; Landolfi 93)

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Like this old dog, Nina is tainted. Her value as a caretaker and a sexual diversion no

longer outweighs the risk of being exposed and morally condemned by society. Thus

even her physical presence becomes intolerable to her brothers and the evidence of her

pregnancy must be disposed of quickly before her baby can be born.

Nina’s complete mental and physical submission to Paride, Toruccio, and Ignazio,

is further evident through the rhetoric that the three men use to address her. Disturbingly

close to words used to harass women on the streets, their linguistic choices are based on

the idea that women must be quickly and docilely responsive to unwanted attention; their

refusal to respond in the way the men desire warrants their justified, savage denigration.

In this respect, Nina’s obedience is continuously tested as her brothers bark endless

commands at the young girl, many aimed at limiting her freedom of movement. Like a

trained animal, she is told to sit, kneel, and stand on command. Her covering and

uncovering of her body, the putting on of make-up, and the letting down of her hair is

also entirely subject to her brothers’ whims. Insofar as they are pleased with their sister’s

behavior, Nina is their “Ninuzza” (dear little Nina), their cherished ‘good girl,’ their

“beautiful monkey” (Date, Carnezzeria 91, 124). As soon as they are displeased, she

becomes a “complete idiot,” “an ingrate,” a buttana (a whore, a bitch) who must be

punished for her offences against them until she begs for forgiveness (Dante, Carnezzeria

109, 114, 115). Hence, she is made to crawl on the floor, she is beaten, her hair pulled,

her pregnant belly kicked. Paradoxically, through this slew of vicious physical and

mental abuse, Nina is reminded over and over again that she must laugh, she must be

grateful and happy because smiles make her look prettier – another construct that appears

again and again in the discourse surrounding expectations of women’s behavior (Dante,

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Carnezzeria 115). What looks like a reprise of the abuse suffered by the Carollo brothers

at the hand of their pedophile father, also becomes a deplorable attempt on their part to

reassert and reassure their masculinity within a patriarchal reality.55

Nina’s final monologues paint an even grimmer picture, as she reveals the details

of her life in her hometown of Roccapalumba. She is essentially a prisoner in her own

home. Physically locked in, she is forbidden to interact with the external world. Meeting

new people or going grocery shopping are forbidden. Further, as we see in the play after

her brothers discover the stack of family photos she brought to the wedding, she is

severely disciplined for any attempts to make her own decisions (Dante, Carnezzeria

113-115). Restricted in her activities, movements, and the ability to make choices, she is

completely stripped of any agency. Since they are without agency, her skills and her body

become something that her brothers, as the men in the family, have the unquestionable

right to pass on to other men through a transaction-like marriage without the previous

consent of the bride. Having known nothing different from her life in the little town of

Roccapalumba, Nina looks forward to what she thinks will be a new and improved life

with her husband. She declares that she already loves him, even without having met him,

because, like her brothers, he will value her for her obedience and domestic proficiency

(Dante, Carnezzeria 126). Most importantly, she is convinced that, unlike her brothers,

he will respect her needs, something that she believes consists of freedom of movement,

the ability to make decisions regarding the administration of the household, and finally

being able to give birth to her now acceptable child (Dante, Carnezzeria 126). Nina’s

55 This struggle goes beyond their interactions with Nina to reject any complexity of gender and sexuality outside heteronormativity, a fact that transpires in the brothers’ homophobic jokes and their propensity to start violent altercations if their heterosexuality is called into question (Dante, Carnezzeria 96, 106).

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dreams of making friends, of unlocking doors, of opening windows wide and of buying

bread by herself, are all markers of the huge disparity she suffers in her daily life. In her

current condition of domestic captivity, these commonplace activities for most women

constitute her own individual liberation.

Nina’s story, together with the rest of the stories told in the Trilogy, takes a clear

feminist stance in relation to the plight of women in Sicily. In regard to Nina, the Mother

and the women of the Carollo’s family, Dante invites her audience to consider the

diversity of the condition of women across the Italian peninsula and across cultural

backgrounds and social class. The Trilogy then becomes a stark reminder of the

diversified nature of the contemporary feminist struggle in Italy, where the free choice of

domesticity advocated by Miriano, might be a privilege not granted to all Italian women.

Many, particularly in the poorest parts of the country, are still forcibly confined in the

private sphere by a combination of cultural and religious norms that reinforce traditional

gender roles and economic disenfranchisement. Such disenfranchisement is exacerbated

by the distressing percentages of female unemployment, which between 1994 and 2011

averaged a worrisome 25.8% in Sicily and 21.5% in other Southern Italian regions

against a national average of 11.9%.

Given such circumstances, it is not surprising that both Nina’s and Zia Lucia’s

dreams of a better future are destined to come to an abrupt end. If in mPalermu it is

Nonna Citta’s death that puts an end to Zia Lucia’s desire to provide material goods for

her family and to leave the house, in Carnezzeria it is Nina’s own death that curtails her

pipe dreams. In the jarring last moments of the play, the girl strangles herself with her

nuptial veil – the same one that Paride nails to the floor before he finally abandons her.

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As she tries to break free from the mass of tulle covering her head, she accidentally wraps

it around her neck cutting off her access to air. She then steps on her throne-chair and

tries to stand tall as she pulls hard against the veil, rising from earth towards the sky:

In her last muscular contraction, in a terrible and uncontrolled spasm, Nina throws her bouquet of withered flowers at the audience/guests leaving an impression in their eyes of the sacred image of a martyr-bride encased in a religious shrine. (Dante, Carnezzeria 131-132)

The stage directions bringing Carnezzeria to a close provide a vivid description of the

play’s final metaphor. It is Nina’s brothers who literally tie her down to her fate with a

wedding veil. But while their misogyny and selfish need to uphold their honor in public

ultimately kills their sister, Dante also criticizes the role of the Catholic Church in Nina’s

tragic end.

Throughout the play, conspicuous visual and verbal references to Catholicism

appear: a religious shrine is erected on stage; a big, black cross, given to Nina by the

priest of Roccapalumba, visibly marks her swollen belly; references to Jesus recur during

the distressing flashback scene that exposes the childhood abuse suffered by the Cuore

siblings. These events repeatedly implicate Catholic religious institutions for their

complicity in the propagation of a rhetoric that insists on female submission, their

acceptance of women’s economic dependence as a consequence of upholding traditional

values, as well as for their, often misguided, handling of cases of domestic violence.

An example of the latter was brought to the attention of the Italian public in the

2015 TEDxMilano event with writer, journalist and university professor Farian Sabahi.

During this short talk with a live audience, which was recorded and later posted on

Youtube, Sabahi read out a letter to Pope Francis from Ginevra, a forty year-old Northern

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Italian housewife. The letter recounts the violence the letter-writer suffered for more than

a decade at the hand of her husband and her difficulties in leaving him without having the

financial means to support her children. It also includes the advice given her by a priest,

who, for many years, encouraged her to endure her plight in silence for the sake of the

indissoluble sacrament of holy matrimony. A response to one among many similar stories

in today’s Italy, Ginevra’s letter asks the Church to take a clear, unified position in

condemning domestic violence. It demands unconditional support for victims, as well as

the ceasing of victim-blaming and condemns the notion of endurance for the sake of

family unity in the hope of seeing a change in a recidivist violent partner.

Ginevra’s story has a happy ending: she eventually mustered the courage to leave

her husband and, with the monetary help of her initially unsupportive parents, she

managed to bring her four children to Turin and start a new life. Many other women,

however, cannot escape such daily horrors. Like Nina in Carnezzeria, they are confined

to the domestic sphere and isolated from the outside world. Often they are unable to seek

help, or unwilling to do so for fear of repercussion. Even in the event that they might

reach out for help, many are still faced with suspicion if they break the illusion of

normalcy surrounding their daily lives. Many are subject to invasive investigations that

often favor the assailant. Others receive misogynistic advice similar to that given

Ginevra. Others give in into a religion-fueled trade-off that sacrifices their safety in favor

of their adherence to what Catholic precepts expect of them. All this inevitably

contributes to a systematic oppression of women, one that often sees their attempted

rebellion punished by the loss of their lives. Nina’s death in Carnezzeria can be seen as a

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metaphorical representation of the many foretold deaths caused by women’s inability to

escape the cycle of violence.

Domestic deaths at the hands of family relations, often partners or ex-partners,

constitute the bulk of femicidi and femminicidi (respectively femicides and feminicides)

in Italy. Coined as an alternative to the gender-neutral ‘homicide,’ the word ‘femicide’

identifies the deaths of women who are killed by men for being women (Russel and

Radford, xi). The term ‘feminicide’ is even broader in its scope. Popularly adopted by

Central and South American scholars in the 1990s, the term came to encompass all forms

of violence – physical, psychological, economic, symbolic, institutional, etc. – suffered

by women that may result in their death (Lagarde xxiii). As extreme expressions of male

hegemony, both femicides and feminicides are meant to assert dominance over women

by “punish[ing], blam[ing] and control[ling] [their] actions, emotions and behavior”

(Josie n.p.). When Dante and Sud Costa Occidentale devised Carnezzeria in 2001-2002,

the international community had already been aware of formalized ideas of femicide and

feminicide for a decade. Yet, Italian data on femicides and feminicides were not available

until 2012 when, following an unfulfilled 2011 request to the Italian government from the

CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against

Women), a group of volunteers from the non-profit, anti-violence center and women’s

shelter La casa delle donne per non subire violenza ONUS (The Women’s House To Stop

Violence ONUS) in Bologna independently collected statistics about femicide in Italy

from 2005 to 2012 by primarily analyzing press articles. Two news agencies, EURES and

ANSA soon joined their endeavor. The combined findings that emerged from these three

agencies joint effort are astonishing. The overall number of homicides in Italy has been

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decreasing since the 1990s, particularly due to a decline in large scale mafia-related

murders and other terrorist activities, which allowed it to sink to a forty year low in 2012.

However, the number of femicides has steadily increased (Femicide n.p.). Between 2000

and 2011, there were 2061 cases of femicide of which 70.6% occurred in the family. In

2011, femicides constituted 30.9% of all homicides committed in Italy (Femminicidio

n.p.). Publicized by the media and through the Internet, the data that emerged from Italian

studies on femicide quickly and justly gained public attention, although no concrete steps

were taken to address the issue. In this light, Carnezzeria, but also mPalermu and Vita

mia, pre-date and enlarge this national discourse on systemic gendered violence, gender

oppression and, in particular, the positioning of women within the domestic sphere – a

discourse that only truly gained a nation-wide audience starting in 2011.

Conclusion

La trilogia della famiglia siciliana is Dante’s first attempt at connecting the faces

and bodies of people of the south to an abstract, mythologized Questione Meridionale by

focusing on the social institution of the family, one that is later elaborated upon in Cani

di bancata. Through the stories of the Carollos, Cuore and Calafiore, Dante’s work

inevitably questions Italy’s larger oppression of Sicily, which in the Trilogy is made

evident through a national, hierarchical view of culture within the country that favors

Italian at the expenses of regional languages, as it does everything made or located on the

Italian mainland. Additionally, her work investigates larger issues of systemic oppression

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by (re)presenting the impact of poverty, unemployment and waste on the island as

expressions of the larger economic, political, and social oppression that Sicily and the

Mezzoggiorno continued to suffer during the Berlusconi Era. Dante’s theater stages

contemporary stories that are aimed at re-sensitizing audiences to the impact of the

Questione Meridionale on the people of the Italian South. In it, she puts their bodies and

voices on stage, in this way moving the Questione from the realm of abstract ideas to that

of everyday reality, a reality that, while foreign to many Italians, is all too familiar to

many others. Thus, in a sort of metatheatrical layering, a company that consists of

southern Italian theatre actors, prodded and encouraged by a Palermitan director,

incarnates the stories of these southern individuals and is able to embody them

throughout the country. In this process of regional border crossing, Dante’s company can

redirect attention toward the still large divide between the North and South of Italy as

well as toward the causes, such as institutional disinterest and corruption, that continue to

preserve, if not expand, this gap. By focusing on the disenfranchised of the South, Dante

also takes an important, closer look at the condition of women within Sicilian families,

connecting their plights to a troubling larger national, and international discourse on

gender roles and violence. The women of the Trilogy are consequently marked as

marginalized among the marginalized. They are depicted as economically dependent,

relegated to the domestic sphere and subordinated to men in family realities where the

appearance of normalcy and the satisfaction of male relatives are valued more than the

safety and well being of women. Silently endorsed by societal as well as religious norms,

this systemic oppression is ultimately held responsible for the perpetuation of traditional

gender roles and for providing fertile ground for femminicidio.

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Chapter 3: Cani di bancata

Four men stand on stage, their dimly lit bodies framed by a large proscenium

arch. One of them looks out to the audience from his downstage-right position. The

remaining three occupy center-stage and face upstage. Their heads are tilted upward,

raised toward a massive drawing of the Italian peninsula that depicts a dismembered

Italy: an upside-down patchwork of twenty-one disjointed regions floating in the

Mediterranean Sea with the easily recognizable shape of the Sicilian island towering

above all the other Italian regions. The bare backs of the three figures are freshly painted

with large, black letters that spell MA-FI-A. While they continue to stare upstage, their

grunts and growls fill the theatre as they perform a vigorous and sustained collective

masturbation. The fourth man, his hands tied behind his back, has been marked with the

word “IO” (“I”). Unlike the other three, he twists his torso downstage, trying to discern

what is written on his back. As he contorts his muscular frame, a woman approaches him

from upstage. She is dressed in mourning. A black veil hides her face. She lovingly

places a noose around his neck. She then unties the ballast connected to the rope around

the man’s neck and hangs him. The woman puts thick glasses on the man and she silently

recedes upstage, disappearing in shadow. As life slowly leaves the man’s body, a final

spasm twists his trunk downstage. His limbs stiffen, warping his figure into that of a

blasphemous martyr reminiscent of an incarnate exaggeration of Guido Reni’s San

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Sebastian. His face freezes in a Brechtian silent scream. His eyes widen and gaze at the

audience from behind bulky lenses as the stage fades to black.

The concluding movement sequence of Emma Dante’s 2006 full-length one-act

Cani di bancata (Market Dogs) evokes images that unequivocally bare her disillusion

with Sicily and the Italian nation. In a compressed timeframe, they aptly present the

audience with a male-dominated world that juxtaposes an undisturbed group of clearly

labeled mafia men to a single citizen who stands alone, cornered and isolated. His hands

are tied; his voice silenced. His body is rendered powerless against those who are, quite

literally, ‘screwing’ the whole country. As his life is taken away, he is unable – and even,

possibly, unwilling – to cry for help or, at the very least, to curse the spectacle unfolding

before him. At a first glance, the last instants of the hanged man’s life may be read as

defeatist in the context of the bleak, crass, and extremely violent world of the play. Yet

this complex scene constitutes the height of Dante’s antimafia struggle in the Berlusconi

Era, positioning her work as part of a larger antimafia social movement and within the

rich history of openly antimafia Italian plays.56 This chapter thus frames Cani di bancata

as a public act of resistance against the mafia.

Today the word mafia is used around the world to designate any organized

syndicate utilizing criminal methods or, colloquially, any closed group of individuals that

has a controlling influence in a particular field. However, in the analysis that follows, the

mafia is regarded as a Sicilian phenomenon with branches in other Italian regions as well 56 The 2011 volume Teatro e Mafia: 1861-2011 (Theatre and Mafia: 1861-2011) by Andrea Bisicchia is particularly useful in contextualizing Cani di bancata within the canon of antimafia plays. Bisicchia’s study is a historical survey of one hundred and fifty years of Italian theatre works portraying the Sicilian mafia. It samples scripts and stage productions, mapping how the theatre intervened in the regional and national discourse on the mafia, thus contributing to the larger Italian antimafia social movement.

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as in other countries (chiefly, the United States). It is seen as separate from other ‘mafia-

like’ groups, such as the ‘Ndrangheta, the Camorra, and the Sacra Corona Unita, which

principally operate in the southern regions of Calabria, Campania, and Apulia

respectively. Hence, the word mafia is here used interchangeably with the expression

Cosa Nostra (Our Thing), which is the nomenclature used by mafia affiliates (or mafiosi)

to refer to their organization.57 Further, this term is understood in the following analysis

as both an organization and a larger, almost mythological idea with deep roots in the

Italian popular conscience.

This chapter argues that, similarly to The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family, the play

utilizes an example of subjective violence suffered by an individual at the hands of the

Sicilian mafia to tackle larger issues of systemic and symbolic oppression within Italy in

the first decade of the twenty-first century. To do so, the chapter undertakes a four-fold

examination of Cani di bancata. Firstly, it investigates Dante’s predilection for utilizing

regional languages juxtaposed to the Italian language as a way to illustrate regional and

national socio-cultural power dynamics within Italy. Secondly, it analyzes Dante’s

stagings of grotesque bodies, physical violence and the witnessing of violence as

physicalizations of the widespread atteggiamento mafioso (mafioso-like attitude) and

omertà (the mafia law of silence) that thrive among people living in mafia-plagued

realities, thus facilitating the continuous flourishing of the mafia in such environments.

Thirdly, it dissects the play’s use of religious allegory to illustrate the changes in the

57 In 1984 pentito Tommaso Buscetta revealed that, among its Sicilian affiliates, the mafia was known as Cosa Nostra (Our Thing). Soon popularized by the press as the name of the Sicilian branch of the mafia, the term Cosa Nostra highlighted the way in which those who were intertwined in these networks saw them as their own ‘thing:’ a self-made, successful shadow government that had established itself as an omnipresent alternative to the wanting institutionalized governance of the Sicilian island.

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organization and aims of the contemporary mafia and to condemn the connections

between the mafia and the Catholic Church, exposing the direct and indirect complicity

of Italian religious institutions in allowing it to prosper. Lastly, it uses a feminist lens to

analyze the female imagery present in Cani di bancata, exploring how such imagery

denounces the gender bias inherent to the mafia and, more generally, to the gender

politics present in Italy during the Berlusconi Era.

A product of her company’s usual two-year long devising process, Cani di

bancata is the first among Dante’s original works to utilize a large cast.58 While in La

trilogia della famiglia siciliana Dante limits the number of cast members in each play to

four or five, in Cani di bancata she orchestrates an ensemble of eleven actors composed

of ten men and one woman. The increased number of characters on stage reflects a shift

in Dante’s own artistic research on the Sicilian family. Her first trilogy explores the

dynamics regulating the interactions among members of three small lower-class Sicilian

family units, which Dante depicts as fertile ground for the growth of a mafia-phile culture

conducive to silence, prejudices and violence. With its larger ensemble, Cani di bancata

expands and elaborates on the idea of family in the Sicilian context, framing the mafia as

a Grande Famiglia (Big Family). In so doing, it constructs the mafia as the sociological

counterpart of the families of mPalermu, Carnezzeria, and Vita mia. Like the Carollo,

Cuore, and Calafiore families, Dante’s Grande Famiglia is both bound together by blood

bonds that can only be broken in death and nurtured by a parental figure that gives it

guidance while enforcing its moral code of conduct.

58 Dante had previously used seven actors on stage in her 2004 adaptation of Medea.

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The story and plot of Cani di bancata are simple. Don Sasá, a man from the

Campania region, seeks to be admitted into the Casa Santa (Holy House) of the Sicilian

mafia. Liborio Paglino, a lower-class, early-middle-age man, accompanies him. Don Sasà

had requested his presence as a way for Liborio to repay his debt to him – a debt

contracted when the mafioso helped Liborio obtain employment as a stationmaster by

producing counterfeit documents that marked him as visually disabled. With these

documents, Liborio was given priority in obtaining a government job, albeit being forced

to wear thick glasses that impaired his vision while supposedly correcting a non-existent

disability. As the play begins, Don Sasá and Liborio come face to face with

Mammasantissima, the personification of the mafia that Dante names after the term

commonly used in Italian southern regions to refer to the heads of Sicilian Cosa Nostra

and Neapolitan Camorra clans. Don Sasá is initiated into the mafia through a blood ritual

as Liborio observes from a distance. Shortly thereafter, they witness a heated discussion

moderated by Mammasantissima on the future of the organization. Both men partake in

the establishment of a new mafia-governed order, and, eventually, Don Sasá becomes

Mammasantissima’s trusted right hand man, while Liborio is killed for the good and

prosperity of the organization.

One of only two known plays about the mafia both written and directed by

women,59 Cani di bancata is an allegorical and grotesque portrait of the Sicilian mafia in

the twenty-first century. Unlike other works with similar subjects staged in the late 1990s

and early 2000s, Dante’s play takes a different approach to the dramatization of Cosa

59 The other is Maria Pia Daniele’s monologue Il mio giudice (My Judge). In a footnote in his book Teatro e Mafia, Andrea Bisicchia mentions that in 2010 Dacia Maraini was commissioned by the Teatro Biondo in Palermo to write a play based on the homicide of Notarbartolo that would treat the contemporary mafia. The play was written but never staged.

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Nostra. It moves beyond memorializing antimafia heroes or providing insight into the

psyche of mafiosi, ex-mafiosi, and people interacting with the mafia. Instead, it relies on

regional languages and gendered bodies to expose the evolution, contemporary structure

and modus operandi of the Sicilian mafia. Simultaneously, it stresses the ease with which

ordinary people may become entangled in its web. Although the tales of corruption and

criminality present in the play are not new, Cani di bancata is instrumental in its own

historical context as a way to explore grey areas in the national discourse on the mafia

that had slowly fallen by the wayside at the end of the twentieth-century. In fact, after a

seemingly never-ending stream of spectacular and gruesome mafia-ordered assassinations

that took place in the early 1990s60 shook the peninsula, the majority of the Italian media

coverage of Cosa Nostra focused on framing Sicily as a region under a “mafia

emergency.” With its hierarchical society and blatant ferocity, Cosa Nostra was soon

depicted as something extraordinary: an evil organization populated by boorish and

vicious super-villains. Thus the struggle against the mafia became a polarized black-and-

white epic that often pitted Cosa Nostra bosses against heroes of nationwide importance

who incessantly fought against its supremacy. What was often left out of the news

coverage were less bloody but much more troubling stories that revealed connections

between Cosa Nostra, Italian political institutions, and well-known public figures –

including the Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. By

sensationalizing and prioritizing episodes of extreme violence over more mundane stories

60 Among them were the two explosions that took the lives of judges Falcone and Borsellino in 1992. Borsellino and his security detail lost their lives when a car bomb made with 220 pounds of TNT exploded near Borsellino’s mother’s home in D’Amelio St, Palermo. Falcone, his wife and the men of his security detail were killed on a motorway near Capaci, in the province of Palermo, using half a ton of TNT. Both these events left a deep mark on the Italian collective consciousness and became a favorite subject for playwrights.

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about the extensive reach of mafia and mafia-like organizations, news reports ultimately

succeeded in transforming the way in which the nation viewed Cosa Nostra. In this

climate, Dante aimed to bring back to the forefront issues of direct, widespread

connections between Italian politicians, business men, and mafiosi; the relationship

between the mafia and the Catholic Church; and gender politics within the mafia world.

Language and Power Dynamics

As had been the case for earlier works by Sud Costa Occidentale, the linguistic

make up of Cani di bancata is a fluid interlacing of languages that liberally mixes Italian

and Sicilian with a third southern Italian language: Neapolitan. Before Cani di bancata, a

third language had appeared only in mPalermu where Dante utilizes Sicilian and

Neapolitan in an absurd argument between two characters that ends with the

proclamation that everything located North of Sicily is better than anything on the island

– a pronouncement that is generalized, absolute, and independent from the actual

geographical distance from Sicily of the ‘every-thing’ in question. The presence of

Neapolitan in both plays could be viewed as a consequence of Dante’s predilection for

utilizing southern Italian actors in her works and encouraging them to bring their native

languages and dialects into Sud Costa’s devising room. Yet, as already exemplified in

mPalermu, the linguistic composition of both plays is more than a mere byproduct since

in Dante’s plays the interaction between languages is deliberately and carefully

orchestrated to construct meaning.

The intermingling of Neapolitan and Sicilian within the text of Cani di bancata

unavoidably points to the Camorra and Cosa Nostra, the two organized crime syndicates

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of Campania and Sicily. Immediately recognizable to Italian ears, the use of these

languages inevitably suggests the two criminal enterprises. For an Italian audience, when

the Neapolitan Don Sasà bows down to Mammasantissima, he also establishes a sort of

crossing of regional boundaries for the mafia, opening up the possibility of a ranking of

Italian organized crime. The play thus depicts Cosa Nostra as coveting a position of

absolute power among Italian criminal organizations. This idea is explicitly expressed at

the end of the play when Mammasantissima unveils the image of an upside-down Italy

with Sicily looming above the rest of the peninsula. Cosa Nostra’s desire for dominance

emblazoned in this representation is thus elaborated and expanded upon to show the

power of the Sicilian mafia over the entire peninsula.

Dante’s geographical relocation of the Sicilian island allows for a re-examination

of Cosa Nostra’s cultural influence on Italy. If, like in mPalermu, the sheer geographic

positioning of things North of Sicily mark them as superior to their Sicilian counterpart,

then placing Sicily itself in the North re-evaluates the value of the entire island. Situated

above all other Italian regions, the island depicted by Mammasantissima and its mafia is

then ideally positioned to “entrust [Cosa Nostra’s] conscience onto everyone” (Dante,

Cani 59), imposing the culture, codes, and rules of conduct of Cosa Nostra onto the rest

of the nation. The ranking of languages within the play thus reflects the final visual

representation of the mafia’s subversion of the canonical hierarchy of culture within Italy.

In Cani di bancata, Italian is the language spoken by persone perbene – decent

individuals untangled with criminal organizations who live a respectable life. Among the

play’s eleven characters, only two – Liborio, the stationmaster, and colonel Federico

Panunzio – consistently use a polished, neutral Italian.

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An outsider uninitiated into Cosa Nostra, Liborio is introduced at the beginning

of the play as the quintessential persona perbene: conscientious, helpful, diligently hard

working, and without a criminal record (Dante, Cani 4-6). It is only as his dialogue with

Panunzio progresses that the audience learns of Liborio’s fake disability and his

connection with Don Sasà. In a confidential confession to the colonel, Liborio reluctantly

acknowledges that he sought Don Sasà’s help. Mortified, he explains that it was his

desperate need to find employment that pushed him to take advantage of this sort of

patronage – something that he would have never done had he any other choice. Yet, even

after he learns of Liborio’s shortcomings, Panunzio assures the stationmaster that his

secret is safe with him. He seals Liborio’s confession with the sign of the cross, and thus

allows him to continue to appear as a persona perbene (Dante, Cani 11). In his role as

confessor, Panunzio is charged with becoming Liborio’s guide, taking on the guise of an

often silent, unsympathetic Virgil in the stationmaster’s descent into the world of the

mafia.61 He is the Italian-speaking sentinel at the gateway between Cosa Nostra and the

Italy of respectable people, a position which wins him the nickname of ‘u portiere (the

doorman) (Dante, Cani 28).

While all of Panunzio’s and Liborio’s lines are written and spoken in Italian,

throughout the play other characters deliberately alternate between a regional language

and the national one. Italian becomes the linguistic façade adopted by mafiosi to interact

with and camouflage themselves within the Italy of the persone perbene. For example,

when addressing Liborio, Mammasantissima and Don Sasà both opt to use Italian rather

61 Much like the Augustan Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) escorts the Italian Renaissance author Dante Alighieri in his fictional descent into Hell retold in Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, so Panunzio acts as Liborio’s guide as he enters the Holy House of the mafia.

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than Sicilian or Neapolitan. Liborio is thus treated almost like a foreigner who must be

addressed in a language he can understand. On the other hand, regional languages are

usually chosen when members of the organization speak among themselves. While in the

Italy of persone perbene, Italian is valued because it is a symbol of refinement and

education, in the world of Dante’s Cosa Nostra regional languages are held in higher

regard. In the contest of the Casa Santa, the two Italian-speaking characters are

effectively powerless.

Both Liborio and Panunzio exist at the margins of the organization, occupying the

lowest positions within it (Dante, Cani 20). Mammasantissima explicitly calls Panunzio

“the last among [her] servants” (Dante, Cani 31) in his role as an informant and mediator

for the organization. Whereas Panunzio’s rank and lack of influence within the mafia

render him powerless, it is fear and deference that strip Liborio of his power in his

interaction with the mafiosi. This is reflected in the dynamics between Liborio’s

obsequious Italian and the aggressive surges of regional languages that insidiously break

through the sporadic Italian of the mafiosi constantly overpowering Liborio’s speech.

One such example can be found in the way Don Sasà addresses the stationmaster.

In his dialogues with Liborio, the mafioso initially calls him by his full name,

approaching him under a friendly guise (Dante, Cani 52). Yet, when Don Sasà begins to

exerts his power over Liborio, demanding that he slap a disrespectful mafioso and crawl

on all four to retrieve the hat of another, he starts to address the stationmaster as “Libò,”

an informal Neapolitan contraction of his name (Dante, Cani 54). This mutilation of the

stationmaster’s name strips the relationship between the two of any courtesy, becoming

an ominous marker that immediately establishes hierarchy (Dante, Cani 54). As Don

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Sasà’s actions towards Liborio become more and more vicious, Neapolitan appears more

prominently in his speech, slipping within and pulling apart his civilized Italian. This

process becomes visually apparent in the text when physically underlining the Neapolitan

words and sentences in the exchange between the two characters:

DON SASÀ: Liborio, io sono meno importante di voi? LIBORIO: No! DON SASÀ: E allora perchè state seduto al posto mio? LIBORIO: (Indicando Mammasantissima) Me l’ha detto la signora! DON SASÀ: Giusto! Voi avete eseguito un ordine e avete fatto bene. Anche lui ce l’ha una dignità, è buono, fedele e si affeziona subito. È vero o no? LIBORIO: Sì. […] DON SASÀ: Libò, volete spiegare a tutti perchè siete diventato il mio migliore

amico? LIBORIO: Perchè mi avete aiutato a trovare un lavoro. DON SASÀ: Io so come aiutare gli amici e gli amici sanno che quando Don Sasà chiede gli si deve dare. Che cosa sareste disposto a fare per me, Libò? LIBORIO: Tutto. DON SASÀ: Tutto, tutto? LIBORIO: Senza problematica alcuna. DON SASÀ: Poco fa, Slim Fast ha fatto un gesto accanto alla sedia mia che non ho molto gradito. Gli volete spiegare che certi bisogni si fanno rintra 'o cess’? Chiavateci 'nu pacchero da parte mia. LIBORIO: E' fesseria, lo capirà da solo, col tempo... DON SASÀ: Libò, è una cortesia che vi sto chiedendo. […] DON SASÀ: Ma io vulissi sapè chi vi ha imparato a piglià a paccheri a gente! Ma non avete visto che in questo modo a Slim Fast non gli avete fatto niente? […] Chiste su paccheri! […] Libò, pigliateci 'o cappiello a Slim Fast che sinnò si mette a chiagnere... Ah, ah, ah!!!...Ah! […] A quattro zampe! […] Avete visto che bravo! Io sono molto orgoglioso di lui. Per questo gli ho ceduto il mio posto. Ma che vi credevate, che io glielo davo a chiunque? ------

DON SASÀ: Liborio, am I less important than you? LIBORIO: No! DON SASÀ: Then why are you sitting in my seat? […] LIBORIO: (Pointing at MAMMASANTISSIMA) The lady told me to!

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DON SASÀ: Right! You followed an order and you’ve done well. He also has a dignity of sorts, he’s good, loyal, and gets attached quickly. True or not true? LIBORIO: Yes. […] DON SASÀ: Libò, would you explain to everybody why you’ve become my best friend? LIBORIO: Because you helped me find a job. DON SASÀ: I know how to help my friends, it’s true, and my friends know that when Don Sasà asks, they have to give. What would you be willing to do for me, Libò? LIBORIO: Everything. DON SASÀ: Everything, Everything? LIBORIO: Without any problem whatsoever. DON SASÀ: A moment ago Slim Fast made a gesture near my chair I didn’t care much for. Would you explain to him that certain needs are to be relieved in the crapper? Give him a slap for me. LIBORIO: It was nothing… a joke… he’ll understand on his own… DON SASÀ: Libò, It’s a favor I’m asking. […] DON SASÀ: I want to know who taught you to slap people! Don’t you see that like that you didn’t even scratch Slim Fast? […] That’s a slap! […] Libò, pick up the hat for Slim Fast, otherwise he’ll start crying… ha, ha, ha!!! […] On all four! […] See how good he is? I’m very proud of him. That’s why I gave him my seat. What did you think, that I’d give it to anyone? (Dante, Cani 52-58)

An expression of violence and dominance, Don Sasá’s Neapolitan is strategically utilized

to keep the stationmaster in his place through fear. At the same time, the mafioso expertly

uses Italian to belittle and condescend to Liborio while providing positive reinforcement

for his actions, in a manner similar to the way one might talk to a child or to someone

they arrogantly deem less bright than themselves. His condescension and scorn are

further shown by his continuing to sarcastically use the “voi” – the peculiarly southern

Italian third person used to politely address someone – instead of passing to the more

familiar “tu” when he transitions to addressing the stationmaster as “Libò.” This kind of

linguistic power dynamic between regional languages and Italian resurface throughout

Cani di bancata.

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Another clear example appears in the dispute between the two mafiosi Spatuzza

(Dagger), a government undersecretary, and Slim Fast, a racketeer. Although beginning

his line in Sicilian – which is underlined below – the undersecretary soon switches to

Italian in hopes of gaining the upper hand in his conflict with Slim Fast:

SPATUZZA: Ma vuavutri ancora chi bustarelle cummattìti? Addio pizzo! ‘Un c'è cchiù bisogno chi pizzulìate tutta ‘a iurnata sutta ‘u pico d'u suli, Slim Fast: ormai l'economia siamo noi: agli imprenditori invece di chiedergli la percentuale, ci hamu a prestare i pìcciuli e quando loro non ce li possono restituire perchè gli interessi sono troppo alti, le imprese diventano nostre! Ora, Slim Fast, rispondetevi a questa domanda: se le imprese diventano nostre a chi lo chiedete il pizzo? A noi stessi? ----

DAGGER: Wait, are you all still dealing with bribes? Goodbye racket! You don’t need to roam around all day under the blazing sun anymore, Slim Fast. At this point, we are the economy: instead of asking businessmen for a percentage on their earnings, we should lend them money and when they can’t give it back because the interest rate is too high, their businesses become ours! Now, Slim Fast, answer me this question: if the businesses become ours, who will you ask for protection money? Ourselves? (Dante, Cani 40)

Spatuzza’s argument is the brainchild of an educated thinker who Dante describes as

pursuing a third university degree (Dante, Cani 24). His ideas are met with ridicule as

Slim Fast mocks his question by debasing him with scatology:

SLIM FAST: Big Jim! Spatuzza mi ha fatto una domanda... difficile... e io mi sto sforzando di rispondergli, ma dallo sforzo mi sta venendo di cacare! ----

SLIM FAST: Big Jim! Dagger asked me a question… a difficult one… and I’m pushing myself to answer, but I’m pushing so hard I’m going to shit myself! (Dante, Cani 40)

In his reply, Slim Fast purposefully opts for Italian instead of Sicilian, which is utilized in

the lines immediately following this exchange. Doing so, Slim Fast transforms his choice

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of language into a weapon. He puts Spatuzza in his place by belittling his pretentious,

educated attempts to lecture his fellow mafiosi. In Dagger’s eyes, Spatuzza is culpable of

thinking himself better than his mafia brothers, posing as a persona perbene who values

intellect over brute force.

The link that Dante establishes between being a persona perbene and the Italian

language is reinforced throughout the play. The more a character speaks Italian, the

closer they are to being – or successfully pretending to be – a persona perbene and thus

the more likely that they will encounter some form of violent verbal or physical

resistance from the rest of the mafiosi. Another example of Dante’s linguistic strategy in

portraying the national-regional dynamics within the mafia appears at the beginning of

the play in the scenes depicting Don Sasà’s initiation into the Holy House. During the

ceremony, he pronounces – as do the other mafiosi – the Our Mother prayer (a

modification of the Our Father prayer) and the initiation oath in Italian. Immediately

after, he joins his new sworn brothers in reciting the Ten Commandments of the Holy

House in a sort of call and response initiated by Mammasantissima to which the mafiosi

reply (sometimes chorally, sometimes individually) in Sicilian or Neapolitan (Dante,

Cani 14-16).

The prayer and the oath both have a veneer of sacrality and honor, which recalls

the narratives often constructed around the mafia depicting it as a society made up of

uomini d’onore (honorable men). Such narratives fictionalized and idealized in movies

such as Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 blockbuster The Godfather, portray bold, self-

assured men similar in their ironclad morality to the mafiosi first described a century

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earlier by ethnographer and Sicilian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè in 1898.62 On the other

hand, Dante’s Ten Commandments are fictional practical laws of violence that guide the

behavior of her mafiosi. Reminiscent of actual mafia crimes, they describe in gruesome

details the punishments that befall those who disregard them. For example, for those who

break omertà or become inconvenient witnesses of crimes, they outline a punishment

hyperbolic in its performative excess that includes having the culprits’ ears filled with

their own tongue, sewing their eyes shut, and shooting them seven times (Dante, Cani 16-

19). Thus, while more abstract, bombastic ideals regarding the organization are expressed

in Italian, practical instructions for its day-to-day usage are given in regional languages.

Mammasantissima’s monologue at the end of the play further elucidates the

connections that Dante draws between Italian and respectability and regional languages

and violence. In the monologue, Mammasantissima expresses in Italian her wish for all

mafiosi to follow in Liborio’s footsteps and learn how to disguise themselves as persone

perbene. She speaks of the riches to come through Cosa Nostra’s infiltration of the

national economy and political system. Sicilian sentences appear only when she

addresses behaviors and enterprises that, while once central to the organization, now need

62 In the second volume of his study study titled Usi e costume, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano (Practices and Customs, Beliefs and Prejudices of the Sicilian People), Pitrè writes that in the early 1800s the Palermitan working class commonly used mafiuso (and its feminine counterpart mafiusa) to classify an object as being of superior make or a woman as possessing exceptional beauty. In this sense, the noun mafia signified the idea of superior beauty, and men possessing mafia or mafiusi were those who were never boastful or arrogant, but rather full of integrity, put-togetherness, self-assuredness, moral strength and boldness (290). Thus Pitrè’s mafiuso is a “courageous and valiant man” who is “intolerant towards others’ arrogance” and who, if crossed, will give proof of his strength by taking matters into his own hands without recurring to the justice system (292). Pitrè explains that it was only after 1860, and the annexation of Sicily to the Italian Kingdom, that the word mafiuso permanently acquired a pejorative tenor by becoming associated with law-breaking (290). For the ethnographer, it was the play I mafiusi di la Vicaria (The Mafiosi of the Vicaria), written by Giuseppe Rizzotto with Gaspare Mosca and first performed in Palermo in 1863, that created a link between mafiusi and criminal elements. Pitrè believed that it was this play that permanently distorted the “original and primitive” (290) use of mafiuso, and facilitated the popularization of the word mafia as describing a sect or an association with rules and statutes (292).

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to be subtler and kept hidden from public view. In fact, she suddenly switches from a

rational Italian to a ferocious Sicilian when she mentions armed violence, bloody crimes,

the confined, insular nature of the organization, and the recognizable boorish and

folkloristic traits of mafiosi. In doing so, her speech creates a tension between languages

that matches the tension between the new and the old mafia in its transition from an

insular, folkloric, and stereotyped organization to an entrepreneurial, politically

supported, and widely-spread one. In this way, Mammasantissima chooses Italian as the

tongue with which to linguistically cloak her mafiosi. Italian then is invested with a

power that lies in its ability to serve as an eloquent smokescreen camouflaging a Sicilian

ready to explode in violent outbursts.

While Dante primarily uses Italian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan to illustrate power

relations between characters, she further utilizes it to underline the notion that speaking

southern regional languages does not mean holding a low socio-economic status or

possessing little education. Widely accepted by the Italian academic elite, particularly in

light of the rising interested in poetry in regional languages beginning in the 1980s, this

idea is still present within popular consciousness and often recurs in mediatized

stereotypes of southern Italians. Both Neapolitan and Sicilian are spoken liberally among

the mafiosi whose ranks include members from disparate socio-economic backgrounds,

including highly respected individuals such as the governor of Sicily, a cardinal, a doctor,

a newspaper editor, and an undersecretary of an Italian minister. Thus playing with the

pre-established cultural notions associated with regional languages, Dante manages to

challenge the common misconception that the mafia is a societal issue confined to a

specific social class. On the contrary, she portrays it as a malady that, although feeding

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on the desperation of those less fortunate, spreads across social strata. Unlike the use of

Sicilian in early antimafia works,63 in Cani di bancata regional languages transcend class.

Further, differently from the heightened, literary, highly poetic Italian language

commonly found in other antimafia plays of the Berlusconi Era, Dante’s hybrid, ever-

shifting, interconnected linguistic score succeeds in linking the play’s characters to a

specific Sicilian and Neapolitan context, without stereotyping them. Aiming for

complexity, Dante thus follows in the footsteps of Dario Fo and others who advocated

that if indeed a theatrical work aims to provoke social change, then it must be directly

and clearly linked to the lives it wishes to alter.

Violence, Witnessing, and Omertà

In Cani di bancata languages function, in both form and content, as tools to stage

the power dynamics at work within the mafia that reflect or subvert larger cultural

dynamics within Italy. By the end of the play, language ceases to be spoken, continuing

its presence in written form. In fact, words are no longer uttered on stage after

Mammasantissima concludes her final monologue. In the actions that follow, she paints a

sentence broken up into syllables on the naked backs of her mafiosi, trading volatile

speech for a permanent, written contract. Penned in thick black paint and all caps, the

syllables spell the phrase “IO MA-DRE VI AF-FI-DO L’ITA-LI-A” (“I, mother, deliver

Italy onto you”), expressing her intention to leave the Italian peninsula in the hands of her

affiliates (Dante, Cani 68). The sentence soon disintegrates as, one by one, six of the

63 Such as I mafiusi di la Vicaria (The mafiosi of the Vicaria) written in 1863 by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaspare Mosca, and Father Luigi Sturzo’s 1900 play titled La mafia (The mafia), in which Sicilian and Italian is strictly used to demarcate class.

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mafiosi fall to the ground. As previously mentioned, the remaining four bodies reveal two

words, “IO” (I) and “MAFIA,” which had been hidden within Mammasantissima’s

message. Already ranked in the positions they occupy on stage, these embodied signifiers

are further imbued with new meaning. While Mammasantissima kills Liborio, hanging

the singular “I” traced on his back, the collective “MA-FI-A” finds pleasurable sexual

satisfaction in an onanistic act carried out in front of the map of Italy re-imagined by

Cosa Nostra that can be read as both unproductive and selfish. In this way,

Mammasantissima’s plans of dominance openly outlined in her last monologue and

foreshadowed by the friction between languages present throughout the play are

physicalized in front of the audience as text transitions from spoken to written to

embodied.

Dante’s detailed stage directions articulate the type and quality of movement of

the actors and describe the visual imagery essential to the work’s storytelling power –

qualities that further set the play apart from other antimafia works of the Berlusconi Era.

Conceived through a series of long devising workshops, the images, gestures and

movement sequences recorded in the text are the result of a close collaboration between

Dante and Sud Costa Occidentale’s actors. These elements are further refined and

supplemented in Dante’s staging. For her, bodies and the objects with which they interact

are vehicles to expose the modus operandi of both the mafia as an organization and its

individuals who espouse what is referred to as an atteggiamento mafioso (a mafioso-like

attitude). Dante had already began to investigate what constitutes an atteggiamento

mafioso in her first trilogy, La trilogia della famiglia siciliana. By the time Cani di

bancata debuts, she defines it as a physical manifestation – walking, gesturing, speaking

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– particular to the Sicilian people (Dante, Nuovo Sito n.p.). Although it might not directly

imply a connection between an individual and the mafia as an organization, this

atteggiamento mafioso feeds on the same pride, arrogance, intimidation tactics,

animalistic ferocity, and laws of omertà that govern Cosa Nostra. Dante moves away

from the recent trend favored by historians to look at the mafia primarily as a

conglomerate of criminal organizations64 by intertwining such a view with a

consideration of mafia-culture and its civic and sociological ramifications. Her theatrical

strategy measures the cultural impact that nearly one hundred and fifty years of mafia

activity in southern Italy had on the Italian Mezzogiorno, and, in particular, on the people

of Sicily. For Dante, a mafioso-like attitude is not considered innate or fundamental for

Sicilian people. It is a learned behavior embraced by individuals in order to survive. It is

not surprising that, in Cani di bancata, all the characters display an atteggiamento

mafioso, although in varying degrees. In their diversity, they range from

Mammasantissima’s animal-like ferocity to Liborio’s submissive acceptance of illegality

and corruption in order to secure employment.

The actor Manuela Lo Sicco physicalizes Mammasantissima’s atteggiamento

mafioso with traits that recall a terrifying rabid dog. She is, after all, the head of a pack of

cani di bancata or market dogs as Dante calls her mafiosi: voracious stray animals who,

modeling their behavior on their leader’s terrifying persona, scavenge Sicily – the meat

market of Cosa Nostra – incessantly in the hunt for opportunities to safely devour that

which is not theirs. As the personification of the mafia, Mammasantissima’s body

spasmodically contracts with rage as if she were always ready to bite at an imaginary 64 See Salvatore Lupo in History of the Mafia (1993) and John Dickie in Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia (2004).

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offender’s jugular. Her arms are rigid, often outstretched; her hands curved into claws

that slash through space. They grab at the air, moved by a constant desire to injure and

maim. Here dark, curly hair is wild, unkempt and untamed. Her mouth is permanently

contorted into a monstrous grin that bares her teeth. Her lips are frothed by a stream of

pasty saliva mixed with red lipstick that stains her chin, bringing to mind the image of a

bloodthirsty beast that has just made a fresh kill. Her voice is husky and guttural,

commanding and demanding as she barks orders to her affiliates. Her behavior toward the

other characters is calculated and cruel, marked by spoken and unspoken threats of death.

She rewards or punishes them as she sees fit, without needing to provide coherent

explanations. A fitting example is her beating of Don Sasà, whom she merciless kicks,

slaps, punches and even spits on.

While Mammasantissima embodies the unbridled, extreme iteration of an

atteggiamento mafioso, her mafiosi/dogs are trained to hide their hunger and violence

under a fictitious code of honor and a halo of respectability. Initially, their appearance is

more human than that of the head of their pack. They wear impeccably pressed, similarly

colored suits and large-brimmed hats that cover their faces, providing them protection

through anonymity. Nonetheless, their gait and interactions with each other quickly

reveal both their atteggiamento mafioso and their affiliation with Mammasantissima.

When they take the stage for the first time, the mafiosi walk from upstage to downstage

and vice-versa with great bravado, stomping onto the floor in a sustained, repetitive

rhythm. As they pace, they form a straight line that moves in unison under a shower of

banknotes that they take out of their pockets and toss into the air. The alternate thrusting

of their iliac crests – the top part of their pelvic bone – quickly propels them forward,

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steering their bodies through lightening-fast contractions of their pelvis. This overtly

sexualized gesture exudes overconfidence, arrogance, and machismo. At the same time, it

encompasses a primal, aggressive, and animalistic quality that helps to link Dante’s dog-

like leader with her associates. The air of danger stemming from her wild grins and

clawing hands finds its counterpart in the defiant advances and retreats of her pack.

Menacingly moving as one, the bodies of the mafiosi become an extension of

Mammasantissima’s who, concealed by her men, marches side by side and in step with

them.

The movement sequence that immediately follows Don Sasà’s initiation into the

Holy House reprises the unsettling sense of violation that arises from the mafiosi’s pelvic

thrusts. The sequence begins with Mammasantissima kneeling center stage. As a

recording of Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2 from Suite for Variety Orchestra fills the

theatre, she gutturally hums the melody of the piece while she puts on a ballroom-style

wedding gown. Added during the staging of the play and not recorded in the script, this

ominous, celebratory music echoed by her rough vocalization perfectly accompanies her

preparations, highlighting an unceremonious yanking at the fabric of her dress. Her

followers, who had so far knelt at her side, slam shut the small plate display stands

located in front of them that had previously held images of the Virgin Mary. They then

bend these wooden stands over, holding them like drawn guns, and clasp the shoulders of

the mafiosi closest to them with their free hands. Working in couples, the mafiosi narrow

the gap between their bodies and point their weapons at each other’s faces. Eventually,

with a gesture charged with sexual violence, they slide the barrel of their fake guns into

their partners’ open mouths, forcing their cheeks to puff out because of the pressure of

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the gun’s tip against their flesh. The pairs then begin to twirl, following the traditional

waltz ¾ time signature. They hold each other tightly while they try to distance their heads

from the gun – a gesture embodying each individual’s struggle for survival. This pushing

away of their heads together with the pulling in of their partners’ shoulders turns each

duo’s swirling dance patterns into frantic rotations that increase in speed and strength as

the music swells and mounts in intensity. Finally, climatically, each couple breaks apart

as the mafiosi release each other and the music falls silent.

Both the mafiosi’s actions of shoving a gun into their partners’ mouths and their

gripping their companions in a struggle to dominate, subdue, and outlive them, are

physicalizations of the psychological threat that is an essential part of an atteggiamento

mafioso. Although capable of extreme physical violence – which, in Cani di bancata uses

punches, kicks, and head-butts to settle disputes within the organization – Dante’s mafiosi

thrive by perpetrating a psychological violence that is based on constant threats of

physical harm. This threat of violence thus becomes a more effective weapon than

violence itself in keeping the organization running smoothly and controlling both

affiliates and people outside its ranks. Those who do not accept this culture of oppression

are swiftly eliminated. Dante’s stage personification of these multitudes of disposable

individuals is Liborio Paglino.

Liborio is set apart from the cani di bancata because of his attire, language, and

behavior. Unlike the others, he does not wear a suit but a stationmaster’s uniform. As

previously mentioned, he speaks only in Italian, and does the bidding of the other

characters on stage obsequiously. He refrains from responding aggressively to their

provocations and tries to disappear into the background, hoping that no one will

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acknowledge his existence. When he is spoken to, his replies are stiffly formal and

nervously long-winded. His sentences are pressed into fast, chopped speech patterns that

utilize humor, humility, and the dejected downplaying of what has happened in order to

avoid dangerous situations.

While explicitly labeling him as a persona perbene at the beginning of the play,

Dante portrays Liborio as undeniably guilty of adopting an atteggiamento mafioso by

accepting a corrupt system for personal gain. In a 2014 interview released in connection

with the short antimafia film Sempre Vivi65 directed by Pierfrancesco Li Donni, Dante

shared her views regarding what she believes is a less violent, more widespread variation

of an atteggiamento mafioso:

We all know perfectly well what’s legal, but we have become accustomed to illegality. We let things roll right off our backs instead of being indignant and protesting. No one raises their voice and everyone does what’s best for themselves. (Dante, Sempre Vivi n.p.)

This live-and-let-live attitude and the daily, willful ignorance of legality that Dante

mentions are both embodied in Liborio and the uniform he proudly wears. The price he

ultimately pays for his actions is twofold: he kills and is killed. With his vision severely

impaired by his thick lenses, Liborio does not notice that one of his colleagues is at work

underneath a train and gives the all-clear to the conductor that decapitates his young

colleague. The eyeglasses Dante places on Liborio thus represent more than his inability

to see. Liborio’s willful blindness becomes a kind of visual omertà, the apathy and

65 Sempre Vivi features, among others, Dante and Sud Costa Occidentale actors intent in rehearsing the 2014 play Le Sorelle Macaluso (The Macaluso Sisters). The short film memorializes judges Falcone, and Borsellino, as well as the 1992 Palermo ‘revolt of the bed-sheets,’ the first time the city stood up to Cosa Nostra as a whole by hanging thousands of bed-sheets covered with antimafia slogans from balconies throughout the city.

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passivity it condones speaking to the larger issues of individual and societal omertà – a

core tenet of an atteggiamento mafioso.

Omertà is commonly understood as the law of silence by which one refrains from

telling anyone outside Cosa Nostra what he or she knows about the organization. In such

a context it is always preferable not to see, hear or speak about the mafia. It is always

safer not to know. In fact, in Cani di bancata Panunzio unambiguously assures Liborio

that his inability to see while wearing his spectacles is indeed a blessing that will keep

him safe (Dante, Cani 11). When the stationmaster first enters the Casa Santa, his glasses

function as a shield, protecting him from learning too much about Cosa Nostra. Hence, it

is particularly significant that in the precise instant in which he finally faces the fact of

the murder he has committed, Liborio takes off his glasses (Dante, Cani 63). With his

sight restored, he can no longer ignore the horrors perpetuated by those who surround

him or the consequences of his self-serving actions. Liborio’s self-awareness lays bare

the tragic reality of living in a mafia-ridden environment dominated by people who

display an atteggiamento mafioso. The stationmaster’s experience recalls the epigraph

that opens Cani di bancata:

The truth is at the bottom of a well: look inside a well and you see the sun or the moon; but if you throw yourself in, there’s no more sun or moon, just the truth. (102).

Taken from Leonardo Sciascia’s Il giorno della civetta (The Day of the Owl), the

epigraph functions as one of Dante’s inspirations for the play.66 For both authors, the

things one does not wish to or cannot see for lack of direct experience, one does not

know, and thus are non-existent. In this vein, people like Liborio who choose not to see

66 This idea is revisited in Dante’s second trilogy: La trilogia degli occhiali (The Eyeglasses Trilogy).

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but continue to stand at the top of the well, are able to convince themselves that the mafia

must not exist because it lies beyond their immediate experience. A central conceit in

director Pierfrancesco Diliberto (Pif)’s 2013 movie La mafia uccide solo d’estate (The

Mafia Kills Only in Summer), the idea of the possible nonexistence of Cosa Nostra due to

its acknowledged ‘invisibility’ is something that Mammasantissima endorses in her final

monologue where she twice repeats “I do not exist” as she seems to evaporate in the

blackness that envelops the upstage of the playing space (Dante, Cani 66).

For Liborio, small cracks in the fabric of his protective omertà begin to form as he

is ushered into the Casa Santa. In her 2009 book Messa in scena della mafia: Cani di

Bancata: Il metodo maieutico di Emma Dante (The mise-en-scene of the mafia: Cani di

Bancata and the maieutic method of Emma Dante) Lida Dalisi argues that the

stationmaster’s entrance into the Holy House of the Sicilian mafia positions him in a

liminal space that exists between “what has been seen and what has not, what has been

seen and what must not, and what has been seen but one must pretend it has not” (Dalisi

53). In this light, the entire play can be interpreted as an elaborate rite of passage created

to show that Liborio’s atteggiamento mafioso is sufficiently deep-set to render him useful

to Cosa Nostra. Portrayed as an anti-hero in his passivity, Liborio is worthy enough to sit

at Mammasantissima’s table. There, he is showcased as an example of the many persone

perbene who have become accustomed to omertá and are easily corrupted because they

live in a society in economic and political dismay. He becomes a specimen of an

expendable individual who, while not directly affiliated with mafia clans, helps preserve

and maintain an environment in which Cosa Nostra can prosper.

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What labels Liborio as unfit to inhabit a world dominated by the mafia is his

direct request to leave the Holy House (Dante, Cani 59). His sincere wish provides a brief

glimmer of hope in the otherwise bleak resolution of the play, although his connection

with Don Sasà and his witnessing of Cosa Nostra’s affairs turn his courageous appeal

into a potential hazard. Since he has seen, heard, and taken part in so many things, he

cannot be allowed to leave unharmed. Outnumbered, he is stripped naked – literally and

figuratively – and becomes a sacrificial lamb (Dante, Cani 67-68). His transformation

into a blood offering guarantees the continued prosperity of the organization. The black

“IO” (I) drawn on his back and the glasses that Mammasantissima carefully repositions

on his face after hanging him, become an admonition for those who might want to follow

the stationmaster’s example. Concurrently, as Liborio’s gazes towards the audience, his

twisted body contorting in its last moments of life, his body addresses those sitting in the

theatre, branding them as victims and accomplices. The “I” that marks Liborio’s back

speaks directly to each spectator as a singular entity, putting the individual on display

while depriving him or her of the comfortable anonymity provided by being part of an

audience in a dark theatre. It also allows Liborio to mirror and become a mirror for the

audience, who, like him, cannot ignore what they have just witnessed on stage. It asks

them to recognize themselves in the stationmaster and to acknowledge that the tacit

endorsement of a corrupt socio-economic and political system is equivalent to adopting

an atteggiamento mafioso. In the last moments of the play Dante, like Slavoj Žižek in his

book Violence, espouses the idea that “[s]ometimes doing nothing is the most violent

thing to do,” confronting the spectators with the notion of apathy as a form of violence

(217).

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For Dante to defeat the mafia it is necessary to first recognize such apathy and, at

the same time, to look at mafiosi and those who adopt a mafia-like attitude as individuals

just like any other. This point of view is similar to that held by antimafia judge Giovanni

Falcone67 who explains:

If we want to fight the mafia efficiently, we should not transform it into a monster, nor we should think of it as an octopus or a cancer. We should recognize that it resembles us. (Falcone 82-83)

This realization included in the 2001 book Cose di Cosa Nostra (Our Thing’s Things) is

not meant to condone the behavior of mafiosi, nor to excuse those who adopt an

atteggiamento mafioso. It is a way to re-scale the problem of the mafia in a historical

period when Cosa Nostra is no longer imagined as an invisible, unbeatable, omnipresent

force – such as the one depicted in the popular 1984 television short series La piovra (The

Octopus)68 that Falcone references in his quote – but rather as a tightly run syndicate, still

capable of unspeakable violence, yet primarily swayed by economic interests. This newly

framed mafia requires the efforts of both citizens and institutions for its success. The

audience is thus invited to shake off hundreds of years of atteggiamento mafioso, to

refuse to bow down to psychological and physical violence, and in this way reject a

corrupt system without regard for the consequences. This is an enterprise that, as in

Liborio’s case, can be very dangerous. Moreover, although Dante condemns Liborio for

adopting a mafioso-like attitude and associating himself with Cosa Nostra, the image of

the naked and blind stationmaster is extremely unsettling when realizing that he is left

completely alone to face the wrath of the mafia. The public officials in the play who

67 Together with judge Paolo Borsellino, Giovanni Falcone is considered one of the most important figures in the 1980s and early 1990s struggle against Cosa Nostra. As already mentioned, both judges were killed in gruesome mafia assassinations in 1992. 68 While first aired in 1984, La piovra had ten seasons, the last of which was released in 2001.

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should serve and protect citizens – colonel Panunzio, the governor of Sicily Totò

Siciliano or Zù Totò ‘u bisturi (Uncle Totò the scalpel), and undersecretary Bonanno or

Spatuzza (Dagger) – are indifferent to – if not delighted in – his plight. In this way,

Liborio’s death further asks the audience to consider how it could be possible for average

citizens living in the Italian Mezzogiorno to avoid the reach of the mafia and to renounce

an atteggiamento mafioso in the absence of a strong local and national support system. In

fact, even if he is free to choose his own destiny, Liborio’s fate is to be a pawn in the

game of Mafiopoli (Mafiopoly) in the absence of the Italian state’s providing concrete

alternatives other than approaching mafia organizations if he is to find employment.

A play on words referencing the game of Monopoly, the word Mafiopoli was

popularized by Peppino Impastato, a Sicilian antimafia activist assassinated on May 8,

1978, who used the term on his radio shows on the Sicilian independent radio station

Radio Aut. Dante’s Mafiopoli, like Impastato’s, is a game in which everything is

regulated by fictitious rules of honor, corruption, violence, and power relations. In Cani

di bancata, Dante’s Mafiopoli physically manifests itself on stage. The play’s set vaguely

resembles a board game with different areas clearly delineated and assigned for specific

purposes. For example, the playing area includes a body outline traced in white where a

mafioso, if tagged by another, must fall to the ground and play dead. It also includes

eleven high-backed chairs of different heights that are assigned to the mafiosi according

to their ranking, with Mammasantissima, who occupies the highest of them all. The rules

of the game are such that those who set foot into the Holy House become

Mammasantissima’s pawns. Like all Cosa Nostra initiates, those who enter the Casa

Santa cannot retrace their steps or exit the game midway. Once they begin to play, their

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only outlet is in death. Extending the embodiment of violence and omertà onto the set

design of Cani di bancata, Dante imbues the environment in which Liborio undertakes

his journey with the same violence and hierarchical tension the audience witnesses in the

actions of the mafiosi. Liborio’s demise in Mafiopoli thus becomes a bitter reminder of

all the not-so-illustrious deaths of expendable, ordinary citizens caused by

institutionalized and/or public indifference in mafia-controlled realities.69

The Theology of the Mafia and Allegorical Catholicism

In his 1999 article, Il Dio dei mafiosi: Esiste una teologia mafiosa? (The God of

Mafiosi: Does a Mafia Theology Exist?), Augusto Cavadi explains that mafia clans share

a theological belief system that has common core notions about God that originated from

individual mafiosi’s interpretation of Catholic doctrine. Over time, this system has

appropriated the symbols and language of Catholicism to create a faith compatible with –

if not supportive of – mafia activities. For Cavadi, Cosa Nostra re-fashioned the God of

the Catholic Church as an omnipotent entity that can morph without warning from an

understanding Heavenly Father to a strict, wrathful deity. More merciless than merciful,

this God has the indisputable right to impose his ever-changing will onto his servants. In

his absolute power, the God of the mafiosi is a “supporter of social hierarchies” who

justifyies the faithful mafioso’s blind following of orders given by clan or religious

authorities (Cavadi n.p.). These commands are then carried out without fear or hesitation

since those who give orders, rather than those who execute them, are the same as those

69 One such example is the death on August 29, 1991of small business owner Libero Grassi who was killed for publicly refusing to comply to Cosa Nostra’s extortion demands. Although given police protection, he was isolated in his fight, and even shunned by fellow Palermitan shopkeepers.

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who will be judged for carrying out God’s plan. As responsibility then lies with those in

charge (and, therefore, those who are in touch with the divine), the redemption of those

who materially commit crimes depends on their superiors’ correct interpretation of

celestial wishes. Thus Cosa Nostra bosses are added to the flock of earthly and heavenly

mediators (including Catholic Church officials, saints, and the Virgin Mary) through

which mafiosi can have access to God. In this light, the Catholic precept of common

people needing mediation to obtain access to the divine is used to justify the rigorous

hierarchies of mafia clans and the division of labor within them (Cavadi n.p.).

The theology of the mafia outlined by Cavadi also co-opts two larger Christian

tenets. The first is the notion of rebirth and eternal salvation through the establishment of

a covenant. According to this principle, those who join mafia organizations are ushered

into a new life under the protection of a ‘clannish’ deity who cares for his own to the

detriment of everyone else. The second is that of sacrificing innocent lives in order to

obtain reparations. Like the Catholic God who killed his son to redeem the sins of men,

so it becomes possible for mafia bosses to demand the blood of the innocent relatives of

their enemies to expunge any disrespect they might have caused (Cavadi n.p.).

Just as the Cosa Nostra appropriated Catholic precepts, bending them into a

theological view in harmony with its own interests, so Dante repurposed Catholic

imagery and rituals in Cani di bancata. In doing this she has two aims. The first is to

identify the changes in the structure and objectives of the mafia as an organization in the

Berlusconi Era. The second is to incriminate the Catholic Church for its atteggiamento

mafioso, its collusion with the Cosa Nostra, and its adhering to the law of omertà. In her

re-appropriation and manipulation of Catholic doctrine to explain how the mafia operates,

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Dante strives to construct meaning beyond that of a simplistic parallel equating the mafia

with God. To do so, she first inserts the Cosa Nostra into the Holy Trinity under the guise

of a celestial Mother, thus creating an Unholy Quartet in contrast to the standard trilogy

of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This reconstitution takes place early in the play when

Panunzio teaches Liborio a new version of the traditional catechism recited by Catholics

when making the sign of the cross. Dante’s revised text – “[i]n the Name of the Father,

the Son, the Mother, and the Holy Spirit,” – quickly renders the mafia divine (Dante,

Cani 10). Nonetheless, during the course of the play, Dante depicts the Mother mafia as a

despotic divinity who refuses to share her power. Instead, one by one, she displaces each

element in the Catholic Trinity.

Supplanting God the Father with Mammasantissima, Dante changes the Our

Father prayer to “Our Mother” (Dante, Cani 14). Her modification frames the Mother

mafia as a loving, Heavenly Parent who takes care of her own children by striking others

with the vindictive, violent, and unmerciful power of the Father-God often present in the

Old Testament. Reflecting the insular nature of Cosa Nostra, this particular notion is part

of both Don Sasá’s rite of initiation and the mafiosi’s recitation of the Ten

Commandments of the Holy House.

Mafia rites of initiation are much like the covenant of the Old Testament tying the

new mafiosi permanently together with the mafia clan in which they are accepted. In

Cani di bancata, Dante crafts Don Sasà’s ceremony of affiliation to resemble Cosa

Nostra’s induction ceremonies as recounted by pentiti di mafia: men who regretted their

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involvement with the mafia and began to collaborate with the justice system.70

Popularized in the media after pentiti di mafia described them to antimafia judges in the

mid-1980s, these initiation ceremonies quickly became one of the most widely

recognized folkloric rituals associated with Italian mafia-like syndicates. Immortalized in

cult movies and literature (Paoli 67) for their fascinating mysticism and use of sacred

symbols, Cosa Nostra’s secret rituals of induction incorporate a religious component to

underline the importance and finality of the oath linking the mafioso with the

organization. In Dante’s version of the ceremony, Don Sasá swears a pact of blood

together with the rest of the mafiosi who, mirroring Don Sasá’s actions, re-enact their

own initiation into the Casa Santa. The nine men kneel on the proscenium line, seizing

little images of the Virgin Mary from the plate display stands lined up, equidistantly, in

front of them. As Don Sasà utters the words “I enter with blood and I’ll leave in blood,”

they rub the pictures on their mouths in a ravenous, slobbering kiss that covers the

photographs with red lipstick (Dante, Cani 15). A substitute for the human blood

supposedly used in Cosa Nostra’s rituals, the lipstick had earlier been smeared onto the

lips of the mafiosi during an movement sequence named the vasavasa (kisskiss) (Dalisi

16). During the sequence, when the mafiosi ceremonially kiss Mammasantissima one by

one, her makeup is transferred onto them. In that moment, it is transformed from lipstick

into blood and serves to symbolize a blood bond between the mafia and her affiliates.

Smudging the images of the Virgin with lipstick/blood and lighting them on fire thus

70 For more information on pentiti di mafia, see Salvatore Lupo in History of the Mafia (1993) and John Dickie in Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia (2004).

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becomes a way for the men to cement their pact of devotion to Cosa Nostra and its

members.71 In the play, these actions are accompanied by Don Sasà’s declaration:

“I swear To be faithful to my brothers To never betray them To help them always And if so it weren’t May I burn and be scattered Like this image is scattered As it is consumed to ashes.” (Dante, Cani 16)

The new affiliate’s words, together with the ones he previously uttered, confirm the

impossibility of breaking the pact established in the ceremony without forfeiting one’s

life.

Like these lines included in Don Sasá’s ceremony of affiliation, the Ten

Commandments that Mammasantissima hands down to the mafiosi stress her position as

the spiteful divinity protecting those affiliated with Cosa Nostra who follow the rules of

the organization. Recited on stage as a call and response between Mammasantissima and

the mafiosi, the Ten Commandments of the Holy House outline a “two-eyes-for-an-eye”

mentality according to which amends for offenses to the Mother must be made in blood

and must be proportionally greater than the original offence (Dante, Cani 16).

While Mammasantissima embraces the traits of the Old Testament Father-God

powerfully present in Cavadi’s theology of the mafia, she also encompasses traits that are

reminiscent of those associated with the Son of God. In fact, like Jesus in the New

Testament, she demands that the old pacts between the divine mafia and its affiliates –

71 In addition to mirroring traditional Italian salutations, the sequence of the vasavasa in the play is also distantly reminiscent of the vasavasa that occurs every Easter Sunday in the Scilian city of Modica, although its tone and implications are significantly different. During the religious ceremony that takes place in Modica’s main square, a statue of the Virgin Mary embraces and kisses a statue of the resurrected Jesus after it has been carried across the city in search of her lost son.

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chiefly, the romanticized and folkloristic view of the mafia exemplified in Cosa Nostra’s

ceremonies of affiliation – be set aside in favor of a new covenant. This is presented to

the mafiosi as they gather to take part in a (re)-presentation of the Last Supper.

Mammasantissima’s disciples sit around a large table in hierarchical order, their

importance in the organization easily identifiable by the height of their chairs. As she

breaks a loaf of bread and shares an enormous bottle of wine with her devotees, the

Mother impersonates the Messiah. However, unlike Christ, she does not surrender her

body and blood in her Eucharistic offer to her disciples. Rather, she lets them devour

what scholar Andrea Bisicchia labels in his book Teatro e Mafia: 1861-2011 (Theatre

and Mafia: 1861-2011) “the body and blood […] of the community” (169), promising

them material, instead of spiritual, rewards from an even more bountiful and not-so-

distant future. During this Last Supper, Mammasantissima asks her children to renounce

their (more or less) open affiliation with her. She requests that they abstain from

traditional mafia practices, such as open violence and the flaunting of power, hiding the

societal status and the rights that being mafiosi bestowed upon them. Further, she asks her

most influential sons – the ones sitting closest to her on the highest chairs – to give up

their place of honor in order to physically, but also metaphorically, increase their distance

from the Mother. She explains that doing so will not diminish their importance in the

mafia’s hierarchical structure. On the contrary, it will allow Cosa Nostra to better protect

its most valuable members from being linked to the organization. In fact, by placing those

in the lowest ranks of the syndicate in the seats closest to her, Mammasantissima ensures

that only the most expendable pawns of Mafiopoli can become prey of the justice system.

This scheme then exposes only those who hold little knowledge of the inner workings of

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the organization and are willingly sacrificed to protect those in power. By doing so, she

safeguards the most important members of the organization through distance and

guarantees Cosa Nostra’s prosperity.

In this light, Mammasantissima’s request for a superficial subversion of the power

structure of the mafia reinterprets yet another precept of the Catholic doctrine. Like

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Mammasantissima’s vision of a new order guarantees that

those who appear to be the weakest and least important – those who are farthest away

from the Mother in the public eye – are the ones who will inherit the Earth. Although it is

supposed to be necessary, this change in the organization is not readily accepted by the

majority of the mafiosi who, not understanding the reasons behind the request, fight

among themselves in the hope of holding on to their original positions of power.

Fittingly, it is a cardinal, Don Sasà, who finally grasps the true nature of

Mammasantissima’s appeal and takes charge of explaining it to the others.

As in the New Testament, the mafia’s Last Supper precedes the resurrection of the

organization. Infinitely adaptable, Mammasantissima teaches her disciples how to insert

themselves into twenty-first century Italian society, urging them to concentrate their

efforts on concealing themselves and their true interests under a guise of legality. She

encourages her higher-ranking followers to counteract the popular idea of mafiosi as

ignorant and vulgar, asking them to leave physical violence to the most expendable

members of the organization. She pushes them to acquire respectability and university

degrees, which she sees as necessary for the success of the new mafia. She insists that

they infiltrate the highest positions in politics and in the public and private economic

sectors, disappearing among the persone perbene governing the socio-political and

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economic institutions of the Italian peninsula. As Mammasantissima preaches her new

order, the cani di bancata enact this transformation physically. They take off their clothes

and put on transparent masks painted with clownish smiling faces. Although the audience

can see through them, the masks function in a way that is similar to Liborio’s uniform,

camouflaging the mafiosi as persone perbene. Further, when the mafiosi turn away from

the audience to face upstage, they reposition their masks on the back of their heads, a

gesture that transforms them in two-faced Januses living at the threshold between an old

and a new version of Cosa Nostra. The side of their head covered by the mask is the only

one visible to the spectators. While blatantly artificial, this public, plastic smiling face is

easily acceptable as real by those who, like Liborio, decide not to see. Meanwhile, the

mafiosi’s other face, the one smeared with red and often contorted with animalistic

ferocity, is safely concealed. Naked yet masked, Mammasantissima’s dogs shed their old

identity to embrace their new, indiscernible selves.

It is her acolytes’ anonymity that ultimately renders Mammasantissima herself

invisible. In the closing moments of the play, Dante depicts on stage Mammasantissima’s

promise to lurk in the shadows. In fact, after taking off her wedding dress, this

personification of the mafia is left wearing a black gown that produces the illusion that

her face and hands are floating against the blackness filling the upstage portion of the

stage. Unlike Christ at his moment of ascension, in order to disappear the Mother

descends among her people. Then, in a final perversion, she embodies the last element in

the Trinity, taking on the guise of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. Like the Holy Spirit,

she anoints her disciples with black paint and charges them to spread her Gospel

throughout the Italian peninsula (Dante, Cani 59-60).

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By incarnating the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Mammasantissima becomes the

triune Catholic God. Yet, Dante goes a step further when, by the end of the play, Cosa

Nostra unapologetically places herself above almighty God declaring: “[w]ith my

consent: may God bless you” (Dante, Cani 67). She then removes herself from the Holy

Trinity, restoring it to its original core of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in this way

becomes the unstoppable, unrivaled, divine, invisible force that will continue to guide the

mafiosi while hiding in the dark (Dante, Cani 67).

Dante’s elaborate Catholic allegory showing the evolution of a divine

Mammasantissima from being part of the Trinity to dominating it, illustrates the changes

in Cosa Nostra during the 1990s and early 2000s. Following the massive mafia trials of

the 1980s, the Sicilian mafia had come to the forefront of the national consciousness

through a series of gruesome mass killings. Sensationalized for its violence by the media,

exposed in its rituals, and decimated in its ranks, by the late 1990s Cosa Nostra was

forced to turn over a new leaf. It abandoned large-scale terrorist attacks to focus on

infiltrating the Italian political, economic, and justice systems. Corruption was rampant,

so much so that even those who were convicted of white-collar mafia crimes, or were

proven to be affiliated with mafia organizations, were allowed to continue to serve as

public officials.72 In a time when uomini d’onore officially became indistinguishable

72 Maurizio Torrealta’s 2002 book La trattativa. Mafia e Stato: un dialogo a colpi di bombe (The negotiation. Mafia and State: a Dialogue Done with Explosions) and Sabina Guzzanti’s 2014 film La trattativa Stato Mafia (published in 2015), were instrumental in voicing concern about these often suspected but never officially corroborated ties. Utilizing archival research to spell out a tale of power, intrigue, and corruption, both authors argue that in order to put an end to the violence, at the beginning of the 1990s the Italian State opened a dialogue with the Sicilian mafia. This agreement between the government and Cosa Nostra traded a ceasefire for political favors, which ranged from biased assignment of public construction contracts – including a proposed bridge over the Messina Strait that would have connected Sicily to the mainland – to preferential treatment in the development of private healthcare

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from persone perbene, Dante successfully staged a play involving the transformation of

Cosa Nostra from the terrible Mother-God of the ‘90s into a Messianic mafia willing to

reinvent its violent stereotyped self in order to find a respectable, prosperous future.

Dante’s re-reading of Catholic theology reflects the changes occurring within

Cosa Nostra at the cusp of the twenty-first century while simultaneously accusing the

Catholic Church of complicity with the mafia. To question the century-old bonds

between Cosa Nostra and individual officials of the Church, Dante places Don Sasà

inside the Casa Santa. Revealed to be a cardinal in Mammasantissima’s final monologue,

Don Sasà is the person most devoted to the organization and the most brutal among the

cani di bancata (Dante, Cani 65). In the theocracy of Dante’s Mafiopoli, Don Sasà

functions as the mediator between the other mafiosi and Mammasantissima. He brings

Liborio into the mafia’s fold and unscrupulously uses him as an example for the rest of

the affiliates.

Contemporary historians and journalists have documented the mutually beneficial

relationships between mafia clans and clergy during the last century. John Dickie, among

others, cites the activities of Corleone priests at the turn of the twentieth century as

examples (140). In his 2014 New Yorker article “The Pope Excommunicates the Mafia,

Finally,” Alexander Stille provides more contemporary case studies such as that of the

marriage of mafia boss Salvatore (Totò) Riina in a Palermo church while he was a

fugitive from justice in the 1990s and the defrocking of Father Coppola who officiated at

the marriage when he was later found guilty of receiving a large kidnapping ransom.

However, in Cani di bancata Dante goes beyond accusing individual religious figures of facilities; to delayed or dropped investigations. To date, the trial of numerous political and military figures allegedly involved in La trattativa is ongoing.

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affiliation with the mafia. By entangling Catholic doctrine in every aspect of her intricate

allegory, Dante holds the whole institution of the Catholic Church accountable for

supporting Cosa Nostra and encouraging a culture of omertà.

In particular, she denounces a lack of direct condemnation of the mafia by the

Church. For Dante, this silence makes the religious institution as guilty of the mafia’s

success as those who participate directly in its activities. The 1993 assassination of Father

Puglisi, a Sicilian priest who worked with at-risk youths, prompted Pope John Paul II to

become the first Catholic leader to speak openly about the mafia,73 it was not until June

21, 2014 that a Pope took a clear stand against those involved with mafia-like

organizations. While visiting the region of Calabria after the January 2014 ‘Ndrangheta-

ordered killing of a three year-old boy who was shot and incinerated, Pope Francis

proclaimed that the mafia is:

the adoration of evil and contempt for the common good. This evil must be fought, it must be distanced, it must be told: no. The Church, which prides itself on educating consciences, should devote itself ever more to the triumph of good. Our youth demand this of us. […] [T]hose who in their lives have taken this evil road, this road of evil, such as the mafiosi, they are not in communion with God – they are excommunicated. (“Scomunica” np)

Dante wrote Cani di bancata during a period of silence between Pope John Paul’s

labeling of the Sicilian mafia a “civilization of death” that will be judged by divine

justice and Pope Francis’ decisive stance (“John” n.p.). Over the course of these twenty

years, the Church continued to be ambiguous with respect to the mafia and other mafia-

like syndicates. Many members of the clergy did not cut their ties to known mafiosi,

justifying their actions by interpreting Pope John Paul’s words to mean that only God can

judge men’s actions and that ministers of the Church should not discriminate among 73 He did so in his May 9, 1993 speech at Agrigento,

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believers. For example, in southern Italian towns it is still the norm for mafiosi to sponsor

and participate in religious festivals. It is also common for religious processions to stop in

front of the homes of local bosses to thank them for their patronage.74 Further, affiliates

of the mafia or other such groups are not barred from attending mass, or getting married

in churches, or being given last rites (Stille n.p.). Such ambiguity facilitated the

perpetuation of an established system entangling organized crime and the Catholic

Church in southern Italy during the 1990s and early 2000s. But through her re-

interpretation of the Catholic imagery and doctrine appropriated by the mafia, Dante calls

into question the lack of vocal, direct condemnation of the mafia by the Catholic Church

in the early 2000s. Doing so, she once again invites her audiences to think about the price

of silence and to judge whether omertá can ever be compatible with Catholic precepts.

Gendering the mafia: language and bodies

In Cani di bancata, Dante names Mammasantissima the character that embodies

the Sicilian mafia. According to major Italian dictionaries, including the Treccani,

Garzanti, and Internazionale, this term derives from the exclamation “mamma

santissima!” (“holy mother!”), words that were uttered as an expression of terror in

response to seeing something frightening. In the 1950s, this phrase was condensed into a

single word and quickly spread across the nation as the name given to the highest-ranking

male figures in the Sicilian mafia and Neapolitan Camorra. While the gender of the two

74 Some of the most recent cases in Sicily include the May 2016 “bow” in front of the home of Ninetta Bagarella (wife of convicted mafia boss Totò Riina and sister of mafioso Leoluca Bagarella) in Corleone; the December 2015 one in front of the house of the boss of the Santapaola mafia clan in Paternò, and the March 2016 one in San Michele di Ganzaria in front of the home of convicted mafia boss Francesco La Rocca.

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words mamma (mother) and santissima (holiest) is feminine, counter intuitively, the

compound term is masculine. This shift reflected the traditionalist power dynamics that

govern gender relations within Italian mafia-like criminal organizations. More widely, it

also reflected gender roles within the Italian nation in post-World War II Italy. With their

involvement in partisan organizations, being temporary heads of households while the

men were away, and doing emergency factory and agricultural work, Italian women’s

wartime experience had provided them with an opportunity – albeit one that was born out

of necessity – to hold more prominent roles in Italian society and to substantially

contribute to the country’s economy than in the years before the war. As World War II

came to an end, women were granted universal suffrage in 1945 and, at the same time,

they reverted to being mostly relegated to the private sphere and charged with protecting

religious and family values while men returned to being family providers and act as their

families’ public faces. In the 2004 article “The ‘average Housewife’ in Post-World War

II Italy,” Luisa Tasca’s points out that in the 1950s and 1960s Italian women see

domestic work become “a totalizing mission and a value in itself” which results in “the

exclusion of women from any large-scale participation and activity in the life of the

nation” (92). By choosing to cast a female performer to embody the mafia and naming

the character she portrays with a term from the 1950s traditionally used to describe Cosa

Nostra’s patriarchal structure, Dante creates a strong cognitive dissonance for her

audience that highlights the condition of women living in mafia realities.

In his book Teatro e Mafia Bisicchia interprets Mammasantissima as Dante’s

portrayal of modern, liberated mafia women who, by the early 2000s, had become

empowered enough to take on the role of bosses. For him, the character of

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Mammasantissima is the product of this process of emancipation (169-170). In his view,

a wave of female liberation swept over most mafia families in the 1990s as a

consequence of the mafia maxi-trials of the late 1980s. As mafia clans were decimated in

their ranks, they had to adapt by including women in the organization, even putting them

in positions of power. Since gender dynamics within Cosa Nostra are based on who holds

the power, it may appear plausible that, in the 1990s and 2000s, mafia women were no

longer submitting to men. Bisicchia’s analysis fits within a surge of popular interest

surrounding women’s roles within the mafia and other Italian organized crime groups

starting in the last decade of the twentieth century.

For example, Roberto Cavosi’s 1993 play Rosanero (Pinkblack) featured a

woman – Vannina – holding power in her own right within Cosa Nostra.75 In 1998, the

media sensationalized Giusy Vitale, the first woman charged with the crime of mafia

association and the first woman pentito, giving her the nickname of “lady mafia.” By

2001, journalists took to using the phrase “boss in gonnella” (skirt-wearing boss) to refer

to women associated with mafia clans, whether they were actually qualified to be called

clan-heads or not. In 2008, Edoardo Winspeare’s movie Galantuomini (Men of Honor)

featured a female protagonist, Lucia, as an emancipated woman-boss of the Sacra

Corona Unita, the Apulian equivalent to Cosa Nostra. Over a period of ten years, the

idea of a fictionalized Godmother as symbol of women’s liberation had taken root in the

Italian collective imagination.

Bisicchia’s thesis, however, remains unconvincing when put side by side with the

many 1990s and 2000s studies on women’s historic and contemporary roles within the

75 For more on Cavosi’s Rosanero, see Bisicchia (130-158).

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mafia and other mafia-like organizations. Among them we find Liliana Madeo’s book

Donne di mafia: Vittime, Complici e Protagoniste (Mafia Women: Victims, Accomplices,

and Protagonists, 1994), Teresa Principato and Alessandra Dino’s 1997 study Mafia

Donna: Vestali del sacro e dell’onore (Woman Mafia: Vestals of Sacrality and Honor),

Anna Puglisi’s 2005 Donne, Mafia e Antimafia (Women, Mafia, and Antimafia) and

Ombretta Ingrascí’s 2007 study Donne d’onore: storie di mafia al femminile (Honorable

Women: Women’s Mafia Stories). While admitting that there has been a shift in gender

roles in Italy over the last sixty years, these authors carefully discard the idea of a full

emancipation for mafia women. On the contrary, they see their condition as pseudo-

emancipated since mafia men are still in charge of granting them responsibilities and

power. Further, these scholars clearly label the positions of women within the mafia as

reflecting rather than replacing traditional gender roles. Such ‘change’ merely, underlines

the ongoing refusal of Cosa Nostra to accept female affiliates within their fold. In a mafia

context, men always usher women into their syndicate.

In Donne d’onore (which incidentally sports a production photo from Cani di

bancata on its cover), Ingrascí provides useful cases to illustrate this point. She sees the

appointment of a female boss as an unlikely event that only occurs in times of extreme

need. For example, the wife of an incarcerated mafia boss may be delegated power by her

husband, becoming his proxy for the length of his sentence. Or, for lack of better-suited

male alternatives, bosses may appoint women as bookkeepers. Whatever the case, it is

only by the consent of a male figure that women can take charge (Ingrascí 84). Despite

their concrete contributions to the economic prosperity and to the running of the clans,

women are no more than temporary proxies without official recognition.

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Despite Bisicchia’s speculations and in light of a large number of journalistic

articles claiming that Cani di bancata has, at its core, a female padrino, Dante took

particular care after the opening of the piece to clarify her intentions in creating

Mammasantissima. In a series of interviews, she stated that the character is not a fictional

“lady mafia,” but a symbolic figure. In an interview for the Italian newspaper La

Repubblica, she objects:

I know it may confuse people, it may bring to mind a godfather hiding a woman under his clothes. Not at all. Women are banned from mafia organizations. I use a reversal of male/female roles because in this figure I see an emblem, the allegory of the mafia, to which one may link himself by faith. It is an entity, not a skin-and-bones woman leader. (Emma Dante n.p.)

In creating this “entity,” Dante nonetheless makes use of the female gender of the word

mafia, of the imagery traditionally associated with the feminine in a patriarchal context,

and of female actor Manuela Lo Sicco’s unquestionably gendered body to dismember the

male term Mammasantissima. In doing so, Dante severs the name into its two root

components, mamma and santissima, framing Cosa Nostra as both the symbolic mother

at the head of the Grande Famiglia and an interceding divine Mother, with more power

than all the individual parts of the Catholic Trinity.

In depicting Mammasantissima as a mother, Dante has her character give birth to

an infinite number of criminals. Her progeny is connected to her through familial bonds

cemented by the blood of their initiations, which, as Laura Nobile notes, marks her

“children” as an extension of her self (18). As “the pregnant woman who empties her

womb to create another self,” Dante’s Mammasantissima-mother becomes an incarnation

of the Bakhtinian grotesque (Dalisi 104). Caught in an infinite cycle of death and rebirth,

she produces monstrous offspring just as ferocious as she is and that guarantee her

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regeneration. In exchange, she takes care of their needs, providing them with sustenance,

supervising their growth, and overseeing their education for the continued survival of her

Grande Famiglia. This earthly mother is also invested with heavenly significance during

Don Sasà induction ceremony. As previously mentioned, during the ceremony the

mafiosi burn religious icons of the Virgin Mary smeared with lipstick that has been

transmuted into blood. This places Mammasantissima in direct relation to the image of

the Madonna, superimposing the two. Since Mammasantissima is the only one materially

left on stage after the ceremony, she outlives the Celestial Mother, taking her role on

earth within Cosa Nostra. Like the Virgin Mary, she then becomes the interceder for

those in need; the holy gateway that everyone must go through if they hope to attain their

final reward.

This mother/Madonna image that Dante layers onto Mammasantissima is

complemented by a third element, which puts forward the mafia as the embodiment of a

sexually promiscuous spouse. As such, she is depicted as a sought after partner who has

no obligations towards her mates. Like the encounters of a sex-worker with her clients,

Mammasantissima’s relationships are simple business transactions: she gives only to

receive back. This is apparent during the ceremony of the vasavasa, a distortion of

traditional Italian salutation kisses. As the mafiosi kiss Mammasantissima on the mouth,

her red lipstick leaves a visible mark on their bodies of their physical relationship. Yet,

unlike socially acceptable sexual relations in a patriarchal context, ‘sleeping with Cosa

Nostra’ means to share her with all the others affiliated with the organization. It also

means to embrace all of its members personally since, after kissing Mammasantissima,

Dante’s mafiosi kiss each others as a sign of acceptance of and submission to the

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organizational structure of the mafia. The vasavasa then functions as a visualization of

the ties created among Cosa Nostra members, the red lipstick smears across the mafiosi’s

faces externalizing their collective acceptance of the mafia as their mistress as well as

their mother. Further, as the vasavasa occurs when Mammasantissima is cross-dressed as

one of the mafiosi, her polyamorous relationship with her affiliates does not fit within

traditional standards of accepted relationships. For this reason, Cosa Nostra attempts to

legitimize her ties with the mafiosi through a ceremony of affiliation. During this rite, the

mafiosi are married to the organization. This marriage is depicted on stage through

Mammasantissima’s enormous wedding dress with its cathedral-length train sewn to the

front of the gown. With its connotations of virginal purity and monogamy, the dress

symbolizes a union accepted by both Church and society. But through its symbolic

significance, the garment proves extremely difficult for Mammasantissima to put on and

she must wrestle with its heavy, multi-layered white fabric for a considerable amount of

time. Her struggle to put on her wedding dress resembles her inability to fit within

traditional beauty standards associated with women in general and brides in particular. In

a laborious and unnatural operation, she plasters on more lipstick and combs her hair

roughly with her hands, turning it into a wild mane. In the end, her attempt to beautify

herself while clawing and foaming at the mouth to fit preconceived societal notions of

legitimate sexual relations through marriage, is terrifying and forced.

As a whole, overlaying onto a woman actor a depiction of the mafia construed as

a promiscuous, rebellious spouse, a mother and a divinity is a problematic operation.

Because Lo Sicco is the only woman on stage, such imagery can be easily misconstrued

as contributing to downgrade womanhood in its use of sexual freedom and motherhood to

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describe a criminal organization. Yet, in light of women’s actual position within the

mafia and within Italy, the character of Mammasantissima demands a different

interpretation. Through the eyes of the mafiosi Dante’s depiction of Mammasantissima as

a promiscuous spouse, mother, and Madonna exemplifies an idealized version of the

perfect mafia woman. She is a highly desirable potential mate able to help affiliates

secure important family alliances through marriage. As a mother and an educator, she is

charged with perpetuating an atteggiamento mafioso by transmitting mafia values to her

children. Finally, as a bastion of Catholicism, she is the guardian of her family’s morality

and respectability (Principato and Dino 13-14). Unsurprisingly, the only words that the

mafiosi utilize when they talk about women in Cani di bancata are buttana (whore),

madre (mother), and Virgine (Virgin Mary).

The feminine ideal put forward by the mafiosi in this play is the product of a

traditionalist patriarchal mafia culture that favors the depiction of its women as virtuous,

motherly and subservient to men. Mammasantissima may look terrifying, with her

contorted features and rasping voice. She may try to transcend norms, struggle to comply

with the rules of monogamy and marriage. But in the end, she is overcome, relegated to

traditional gender roles and only given as much power as the men on stage grant her. For

example, when the mafiosi rebel against the organizational changes she proposes, she has

to rely on Don Sasà and Uncle Totò to bring the men’s scuffles to an end and convince

them to follow her plan. Although she appears emancipated, Mammasantissima is a

powerful invitation to reflect on gender politics within the male-dominated world of early

2000s Cosa Nostra.

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In addition, Dante utilizes the physical absence of women on stage among the

mafiosi to depict Sicilian women entangled in mafia culture as still not fully emancipated,

still stereotyped, still subordinated and yet indispensible as the backbone of Cosa Nostra.

Besides Mammasantissima’s wedding gown and red lipstick, the only other objects

connecting the organization with women are the distressed 1930s-inspired floppy hats

worn by the mafiosi. Originally meant to be worn by women, these large-brimmed

fashion accessories are essential in the play for the safeguarding of the anonymity of

Cosa Nostra affiliates. As such, these apparently insignificant wardrobe elements are a

reminder – even if only an unconscious one – of how women may be considered

“accessories” to men in a mafia context during the Berlusconi Era. As potential invisible

accomplices holding secondary importance, they are in a position to be forever

dominated. In this way, women living in mafia realities of the early 2000s find

themselves in a conundrum that, in many ways, is worse than Liborio’s dilemma of

seeing and not being able to see. In their role as accessories they are effectively denied

agency. Hence, unless a fundamental shift occurs in the way in which gender is viewed in

Southern Italy, women’s choice between actively participating in mafia activities, abiding

the laws of omertà, adopting an atteggiamento mafioso, or even rebelling against

corruption and siding with the justice system – their own choice between seeing and not

seeing – will always and inevitably be a corollary, second place to the choices of men.

Conclusion

With Cani di bancata, Dante commits an act of theatrical resistance against the

mafia that sets her work apart from other 1990s and early 2000s antimafia plays. The play

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abandons the heavy rhetoric and text-heavy scripts commonly found in similar works of

the same era for striking imagery and direct references to prominent contemporary news

items.76 With its use of national and regional languages, gendered bodies and complex

religious allegories, the play, rather than memorializing heroes of the antimafia,

constitutes a call for social change. To achieve this goal, it invites its audience to consider

the lives of forgotten lower-class Southern Italians who are left to face mafia clans alone.

Dante thus posits the importance of finding strength in numbers and calls for the Italian

state to publicly and consistently guarantee a stable system of support for people living in

economically challenged communities.77 In addition, she insists that each individual is

responsible for the perpetuation of an atteggiamento mafioso and for fostering a culture

of omertà by showing her audiences how inaction in a mafia context is always perilous

whether on the part of institutions or individuals. By the end of the play, Dante

challenges audience members to abandon their roles as passive spectators since they, like

Liborio, have witnessed the horrors produced by the mafia. Forcing them to identify with

the “IO” painted on Liborio’s back, Dante demands that audience members break away

from an indifference that she considers the “most powerful antagonist of democracy”

(Cavaliere 13). Unlike Liborio, whose destiny has already been decided by

Mammasantissima, those sitting in the audience have a choice. They can either become

players in the game of Mafiopoli, or they can actively contribute to eradicate an

76 Among those, two stand out in particular: the politically controversial project to construct a bridge over the Messina strait championed by Berlusconi’s government and favored by Cosa Nostra and the scandals regarding the involvement of mafia clans in the management of water in Sicily. 77 Such a system would include short and long term economic development plans for targeted areas and guaranteed police protection in case of mafia threats. Such a civic and ethical reform aspires to a Sicily-wide movement of resistance similar to the one that took place at Capo D’Orlando in 1990 when an entire town of 12,000 people took a stand against Cosa Nostra by refusing to pay racket demands and bringing to justice those who had attempted to control them.

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atteggiamento mafioso in their communities. Further, by appropriating and repurposing

traditional Catholic doctrine to reconstruct the evolution of Cosa Nostra’s structure and

reach in the Berlusconi Era, Dante reveals points of contact between the mafia and the

Church, implicating the latter as guilty of omertà. Finally, through the presence and

absence of gendered bodies and objects on stage, Dante depicts women who live in mafia

contexts and participate in mafia activities as still lacking agency since the power they

might hold is always and necessarily given to them by mafia men. Like

Mammasantissima, Dante challenges her audience to step out of anonymity and take

control of their often-proclaimed, never-satisfied desire for a different future without the

influence of the mafia and other mafia-like organizations. From her artistic pulpit she

then leaves the audience with an onerous charge, asking them not just to ponder what

people like Liborio could have done, but rather to imagine and then implement what they

must do.

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Chapter 4: Trilogia degli occhiali

Much like La trilogia della famiglia siciliana and Cani di bancata, Dante’s

Trilogia degli occhiali (The Eyeglasses Trilogy) is a denunciation of the hardships and

isolation suffered by those who live at the fringes of society within a regional reality (the

Sicilian one) that, as outlined in Chapter 2 and 3, is already in itself marginalized. In tune

with the stories highlighted by the Italian media during the Berlusconi Era, the three

chapters of Dante’s second Trilogy – Acquasanta (Holywater), Il castello della Zisa (The

Zisa Castle), and Ballarini (Dancers) – grapple with important social themes ranging

from the aging of the Italian population to homelessness to the responsibilities of

caretakers of mentally and physically ill patients to the horrors of abuse in institutions of

care. All the themes explored in the Trilogy are important in their own right since they

address the need for their visibility amidst widespread indifference. Yet, because this

study focuses on reading Dante’s writing and staging of the female body as an

investigation of and an act of resistance against larger attitudes towards women and

gender disparity in Sicily and Italy during the Berlusconi Era, this chapter limits its

analysis to the issue of ageism and, specifically, to gendered ageism. By zeroing in on

Dante’s representation of aging and of the elderly, it keeps women’s bodies at the center

of its examination. More specifically, the chapter closely analyzes Dante’s portrayal of

Lei (She), the older woman protagonist of Ballarini, the last play of the triptych. This

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analysis contends that, in Lei, Dante is criticizing gendered ageism in Italy by creating a

character whose representation is at odds with that of aging women in Italian media and

film. She does this by utilizing the intimate nature and structure of the play to upset the

audience’s perspective and thus reveal the bias that surrounds attitudes towards older

bodies. Further, she uses masks and the layering of clothes to depict old age not as fixed

but as part of a process of aging that shapes identity. Ultimately, Ballarini allows Dante

to render the representation of older women in the Berlusconi Era more complex.

Published in 2011,78 Dante’s Trilogia degli occhiali marked a shift in her

relationship with Sud Costa Occidentale that had already begun during Cani di bancata.

Clashing career goals and internal strife among company members split the original core

group of Sud Costa Occidentale performers and technical collaborators. Long term

company actors Sabino Civilleri and Manuela Lo Sicco,79 as well as lighting designer

Cristian Zucaro,80 temporarily distanced themselves from the group. Simultaneously, new

members joined the company. Among them we find actors who can now be considered

pillars of Sud Costa Occidentale, including Stéphanie Taillandier, Elena Borgogni, and

Carmine Maringola.81 These changes are pertinent to a consideration of Emma Dante as a

woman director in Italy in the Berlusconi Era since they raise questions regarding ideas

of fidelity and resistance that will be discussed in the conclusion of this dissertation. At

78 The first public workshops of Trilogia degli occhiali date to 2010. 79 At the time, the two actors established their own theatre company, Civilleri/Lo Sicco. As of 2016, they continue to occasionally perform with the company (in tours of Ballarini as well as in new productions, such as the 2017 Bestie di Scena at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan). They also became instructors at the theatre school of the Teatro Biondo in Palermo that Dante co-founded in 2014 with the Teatro Biondo current Artistic Director Roberto Alajmo. For more information on the Teatro Biondo’s theatre school, see http://www.teatrobiondo.it/scuola-di-teatro/. 80 Zucaro returned to be a stable member of the company in 2014, when he designed the lighting for Dante’s Feuersnot at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Operetta Burlesca (Operetta Burlesque), and Le sorelle Macaluso (The Macaluso Sisters). 81 Maringola holds a degree in architecture and often doubles as the company’s scenic designer.

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the same time, the instability resulting from this process of renewal of Sud Costa

Occidentale members coinciding with Dante’s return to Palermo and La Vicaria after her

engagement with Carmen at La Scala in Milan in 2009, provided the stimulus for her to

stage new plays that were compact characters studies with small casts.

The chapters of the Trilogy are named after a neighborhood in Palermo: the

Acquasanta port, the Zisa quarter with its Arab-Norman castle, and the old market of

Ballarò located at the heart of the Albergheria, the city’s oldest neighborhood. Relying as

they do on one, three, and two performers, each play emphasizes characters rather than

plot. They are crafted to render visible, both physically and metaphorically, the human

(or, possibly, inhuman) condition of its socially marginalized protagonists. Utilizing her

aesthetic signature of letting characters emerge from darkness onto the stage, Dante

conceives each chapter of the Trilogy to function as a spotlight for the disenfranchised

characters – or, as Dante calls them, the “fantasmini” (little ghosts) – that inhabit each of

the neighborhoods indicated in the plays titles (Dante, “La strada” 53). By doing so, she

allows these ghosts, who reside in the darkness until they are conjured on stage through

the bodies of the actors, to disclose their stories to the audience by recollecting events

from their own lives.

Although dissimilar in their content, structure, and quantity of dialogue, all three

works are tied together by a recurring object: eyeglasses. Emphasized by the name given

to the Trilogy and worn by all of its characters, eyeglasses take on symbolic importance

in the plays. In a continuation of the investigation into the relation between seeing and

knowing that began with Liborio in Cani di bancata, Dante’s second trilogy expands

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upon the metaphor of wearing eyeglasses as a tactic to filter, and often alter, one’s

perception of reality.

Acquasanta, Il castello della Zisa, and Ballarini dive deeper into the ways in

which people see and perceive the world around them. They expose the complex

relationship between what is seen and what one chooses to see, constructed notions of

otherness, and the interdependence between these notions and behaviors adopted when

interacting with ‘the other.’ If all of Dante’s works employ looking and seeing to force an

active, mutual witnessing between audience and actors, as both consciously hold and

react to the other’s gaze, in the Trilogia degli occhiali Dante goes one step further. She

crafts it as a series of short pieces, performed by small casts in small venues, in order to

establish a sense of intimacy with the audience as she briefly renders visible the play’s

unfamiliar worlds. Seated in physical proximity to the stage, the audience’s visual and

kinesthetic perception of the performances is then supplemented by auditory, tactile, and

olfactory inputs. In Acquasanta, for example, the protagonist gargles water in this mouth,

which he then sprays onto the stage and scenic elements through his teeth. Often, some of

this water ends up landing on (or appears to land on) the audience sitting closest to the

stage, which elicits visible reactions. In Il castello della Zisa, the audience catches whiffs

of the sweet-smelling carrot mush fed to one of the characters and hears the noises of

flesh smacking against flesh and the banging objects during hap-hazarded cleaning and

feeding routines. Another example can be found in Ballarini, where the darkness and

silence of the stage intensified the noise made by spilled pills, the cranking of a music

box, and the squeaking of old trunks. While not immersive, such an enhanced sensorial

experience nonetheless enables spectators to engage more fully with the characters’

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worlds. The result is akin to putting on the characters’ glasses to see the world as they do.

These sensory-induced perceptual shifts are further reinforced by the structure of the

Trilogy’s three chapters, which are designed to guide the audience into the characters’

memories and/or subconscious.

Dante structures both Acquasanta and Ballarini as a series of memories re-lived

in flashback. While these are linearly reenacted in the first play, in the second one they

are conceived as episodic events. Although unfolding forward in time within each

episode, each of these events ushers the characters and the audience towards earlier

memories, thus moving the whole play back in time. Unlike the first and last plays of the

Trilogy, the simple sequence of events unfolding in Il castello della Zisa (The Zisa

Castle) does not bring about the physical re-enactment and embodying of memories.

Rather, it stages the hypothetical internal thoughts and subconscious desire on the part of

the play’s main character, Nicola, to connect with others. Trapped in a catatonic state,

Nicola is briefly awakened in a moment of theatrical time distortion. The knocking over

of a large revolving musical doll by one of his caretakers miraculously pulls him out of

his unresponsive state. The young man then delivers a direct-address monologue in which

he remembers his past until this is abruptly interrupted by a blackout. When the stage is

again illuminated, Nicola has returned to his catatonic slumber. The audience hears the

dialogue between his two caretakers replicate the exact words they had uttered before the

blackout. They also watch as the caretakers repeat the same actions that had immediately

preceded the blackout, though they do not knock over the musical doll again. While the

doll continues to stand upright on stage, Nicola remains silent, which gives the spectators

the impression that his astonishing awakening never occurred.

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Dante’s bespectacled characters are peculiar fantasmini emerging from the dark

that face the audience as ‘the other’ in their representation of disenfranchised individuals

who live at the fringes of society. This allows Dante to confront those sitting in the

theatre during her productions with the characters’ ‘otherness.’ Although artificial, such

theatrical encounters become channels through which circulating affect and arousing

empathy is coupled with a request for introspection. In an enclosed environment that does

not allow them to distance themselves from the marginalized fantasmini they encounter

on stage, Dante puts audience members in a position to witness these characters’

everyday trials. At the same time, spectators are faced with uncouth, non-normalized

bodies and such bodily functions as excessive salivation in Acquasanta, realistically

staged defecation and masturbation in Il castello della Zisa, and choreographed sexual

activity in Ballarini. In addition to the unfiltered staging of bodies, Dante employs

sustained eye contact between audience members and performers, physical proximity and

speaking directly to the audience to encourage spectators, at the very least, to ponder their

own attitudes and positionality with respect to the characters and their ‘otherness.’ This

provides, in the best of cases, an invitation to the audience to acknowledge their

privileged status by considering the reasons behind these characters’ places in society.

Acquasanta, the first work of the Trilogia degli occhiali, employs all three of

these devices to connect the audience with its protagonist. In this thirty-five minute

monologue, Dante minimizes the divide between audience and performers prior to the

beginning of the play when Spicchiato,82 the Neapolitan protagonist of the play embodied

by Carmine Maringola, waits on stage while the audience files into the theatre. As he 82 The name of this character derives from a Neapolitan derogative term that designates a person who wears eyeglasses.

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completes his pre-show routine, Spicchiato furtively looks at the people entering the

space, awkwardly nodding his head to those who dare to meet his gaze. In some

instances, he even improvises pleasantries to say to them. Direct address to the audience

continues throughout the performance as Maringola transitions from the improvised to

the scripted. Even the makeshift construction he inhabits is designed to reduce the

audience/performer divide. Three hanging anchors and a mobile made of analog kitchen

timers are suspended from flies adjacent to the proscenium arch, while two large wooden

sheets pushed together to resemble the bow of a ship pierce the veil between the stage

and the house. A donations dish marked with a cardboard sign reading ‘thank you’ hangs

from the edge of the stage. All these devices further facilitate the intrusion of the world of

the play into the auditorium. The dish, the handwritten sign, the protagonist’s torn clothes

and unkempt appearance all point to Spicchiato’s condition of being unemployed and

homeless. During the course of the monologue, the audience learns that he used to work

as a cabin boy on a freighter but was forced off the boat and put ashore in Palermo’s

Porto dell’ Acquasanta (Holywater Port) after endangering both the vessel and its crew

by seizing the wheel of the ship and setting it on a collision route. Spicchiato’s multi-

character re-enactment of his last day onboard his beloved freighter also slowly reveals

his mental instability, which becomes more and more apparent as his story unfolds.

While emphasizing his exaggerated competence as a sailor and fantastic travels abroad,

his tales bring out both his deep longing for his life at sea – the cabin boy’s own holy

water – and the suffocating sense of helplessness and loneliness he feels when on land.

The isolation he experiences on land in the Acquasanta port is further magnified by the

indifference of other people, who, if not willingly entrapped just like an audience in a

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theatre, would probably pass him by without giving him a second thought. More than a

means to earn a little money, his unbelievable stories are a plea for attention and empathy

as Spicchiato hopes to connect with other human beings as he waits for a real, imaginary,

or even metaphorical ship to come back for him.

The sailor’s desire to create human connections with the audience is repeated and

revised in the shortest (and least performed) chapter of the Trilogy: Il castello della Zisa.

A thirty minute one-act, the play takes place in a religious care institute for the disabled.

Its protagonist, Nicola, is a catatonic young man whose daily needs are tended to by two

Catholic nuns: one young and Italian, the other older and originally from France. The

relationship between the sisters is tense. They constantly argue about the difficulty and

volume of their duties in the institution, the division of day-to-day work, and the best way

to care for the patients. They complain about bathing the patients and helping them with

their bathroom routines. They disagree on what to feed them and how to interact with

them best. Their angry rants often end in violence as the younger nun mercilessly beats

the older to vent her frustrations. Dante puts the nuns never-ending stream of

lamentations (one that they contend stems from their desire to provide the best quality of

life to the people in their care) at odds with their actions. The sisters routinely treat the

patients as objects placed in storage. They keep them sitting motionless in the dark,

covered by a large cloth that hides them from the world and keeps them out of their way

until they are ready to care for them. They habitually cut corners in their caregiving for

their own convenience, something that is made clear in their interactions with Nicola. His

daily maintenance routine involves being rubbed down with paper tissues and saliva

instead of being washed thoroughly, and being harassed in regards to his genitals (Dante,

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Trilogia 43-44). He is then fed a pureed food-like substance before being subjected to a

pointless exercise routine. The routine consists of the Sisters juggling balls in front of

him while encouraging him to grab them and spinning a hula-hoop around his extended

arms to which he is expected to provide momentum. The younger nun even puts Nicola

through a psychological treatment of her own (unqualified) devising, attempting to scare

him into alertness by jumping around in a dragon rubber mask while roaring and flailing

her limbs.

The inability of both nuns to communicate with each other except through

physical violence, and their failure to regard their patients as human beings, creates a

fractured world populated by disconnected individuals. It is only when Nicola is

miraculously brought out of his stupor that we witness a genuine attempt at

communication – one that occurs between Nicola and the audience. In a sudden shift in

perspective, the spectators seemingly enter a parallel world where the young man,

although still disabled, is now able to express his needs and desires openly. In his direct

address to the audience, they learn what his life was like before he was sent to the

religious institute, a time when he shared an apartment with his aunt near the Zisa castle

in the heart of Palermo. Nicola’s recollection of the moment when his aunt decided to

leave him at the institution because she could no longer take care of him is particularly

heart wrenching as the recalled separation is a violent moment that sees the young man

desperately pleading not to be abandoned.

In Nicola’s tales, slivers of daily life with his aunt are mixed with stories

stemming from his imagination and from his life at the institution. In the play, past and

present form a complex, intertwined story that hovers between reality and Nicola’s

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perception of reality. The audience is left to disentangle his words and evaluate them

against what they have experienced in observing the two nuns at work. For example, the

devils that appear in Nicola’s monologue seem to coincide perfectly with the nun wearing

the rubber dragon mask. Yet, the disparity between Nicola’s living conditions before and

after entering the institution become painfully apparent. While he was subjected to

physical violence and neglect even at home – his aunt, for instance would slap him and

leave him alone when going to work – at the institution his body is also neglected. He is

no longer bathed, fed his favorite foods, nor allowed to amuse himself freely. In his

catatonic state, he is entirely dehumanized. The nuns take off the piece of cloth that

covers him, roughly service him, and then shove him back in a corner, his caretaking

treated like an unpleasant chore involving an unsightly artifact.

Nicola’s sudden awakening is brief and the shift between him before and after the

blackout changes again the perspective of the audience, who now sees him through the

eyes of the two nuns. The play resumes its forward thrust, but, this time, no miracle

occurs. Nicola remains unresponsive and the nuns eventually move on to another patient

as the stage fades to black. The reality of life in the institution, coupled with a brief,

imaginary incursion into Nicola’s inner world, places its spectators in the middle of a

larger national debate regarding the caretaking of disabled people in professional

facilities.83

83 Such a debate raged throughout Italian media after a series of scandals on the mistreatment of disabled young people and school-aged children, some perpetrated by religious figures, which made headlines between 2006 and 2011. In 2013, the Italian Minister for Health, Beatrice Lorenzin, established a military police (Carabinieri) Task Force to investigate one thousand religious and lay institutions for the care of the elderly and the disabled across Italy. For more, see the blog post “Strutture per anziani e disabili, controlli dei Nas a quota mille” (“Institutions for the elderly and the disabled, inspections by the Nas hit a one thousand quota”) on the Italian Health Ministry website at:

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In Il castello della Zisa, Dante manipulates the action on stage to shift from the

Sister’s perspective to Nicola’s and vice-versa. By contrast, in Ballarini, Dante sticks to

the point of view of a single character: an old woman. A forty-five minute, movement-

driven one-act with very little dialogue, Ballarini depicts the woman’s memories of the

significant events that marked the life she shared with her deceased husband. The title of

the play itself is a play on words. Inspired by the old Ballarò market, the play stages an

elderly couple living near Ballarò who also happen to be two ‘ballerini:’ two dancers or

individuals who enjoy dancing. The play establishes a primarily non-verbal connection

between its two Sicilian characters, Lui (He) and Lei (She), and the audience. Such a

connection hinges on the silent, prolonged, uncomfortable stare both characters exchange

with the audience towards the end of the play (Dante, Trilogia 87) and the instilling of a

sense of collective nostalgia through music, which Dante accomplishes by including

well-known 1960s Italian pop tunes throughout the piece. With their lyrics integrated in

the script, these songs replace the missing dialogue between the characters and function

as a sort of background narration for the play. They also demarcate temporal shifts with

each new tune acting as a device to excavate memories and signal a further step back in

time.

Dante further develops this idea of resurfacing memories through her use of two

large trunks that, together with a canopy of suspended light bulbs, constitute the only

scenic elements of the piece. Characters emerge from these trunks and objects are pulled

from them, physicalizing the theme of the play. For instance, at one point Lei’s husband

crawls uncertainly out of the larger trunk (Dante, Trilogia 71). After his appearance, the http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/news/p3_2_1_1_1.jsp?lingua=italiano&menu=notizie&p=dalministero&id=1354

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couple begins to take items out of the trunks that either played a meaningful role in their

life as a couple, or symbolize an important moment they shared. One by one, they pull

out party hats, an infant’s toy, a bottle of spumante, a wedding veil, and a music box, all

of which will later reappear during the course of the play (Dante, Trilogia 73-74).

Arguably, the most important among these items is the old music box. While it is clear

that this object has deep sentimental value for the couple, the playing of the box itself

practically functions as the inciting incident that sets in motion the couple’s moving

backwards in time. Dante writes in the stage directions:

She leans over again and takes a small music box out of the trunk. it [the couple] stares at each other. She turns the crank and makes it play. He looks up, sighing. She begins to laugh and move her feet. He laughs too. Laughing and dancing it [the couple] enters into its memories and re-lives backwards its love story. She stretches her back, lengthening. He puts on glasses and becomes younger. A song begins to echo […]. (Dante, Trilogia 74-75)

The music box’s localized, diegetic jingle as played by Lei acts to draw the couple

together. Moved by the melody of the box, they begin to sway. Their initial dance steps

cue non-diegetic music that reverberates across the stage. As Italian hit songs from the

1960s start to fade into each other, the couple’s dance style quickly changes to match the

tunes played (Dante, Trilogia 74-75). Over time, their moves become more and more

daring, highlighting Lei’s longing for the past and, at the same time, emphasizing their

longing for a time when social dancing provided furtive opportunities for public

intimacy. The audience witnesses the pair’s old bodies regain youthfulness as, bit by bit,

their limbs stretch and lengthen, their muscles recovering their lost agility. The “oldies”

tunes filling the stage and the couple’s social dancing combine to peel off their years,

moving them from one stage of their life to an earlier one.

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In production, this stepping into the past and the rejuvenation of Lui and Lei’s

bodies is strengthened by the visual extension of the playable stage space. A single

spotlight confined Ballerini’s initial playing space to the smaller, downstage trunk. As the

canopy of lights suspended above the stage and the larger trunk become illuminated, the

stage slowly loses the claustrophobic feeling of the opening scene. As the couple’s

physical abilities are enhanced, the playable stage space enlarges, eating away at the

darkness that had initially surrounded the small trunk. The stage becomes progressively

more vibrant as light allows color to seep into the initially sepia-tinted world of the play.

In this constantly morphing and expanding reality, the audience watches the couple relive

their memories. They look on as they coo at their newborn baby, as they go through labor

together, as they engage in sexual activity, and as they return to their wedding day.

Finally, they watch Lui and Lei re-experience the moment when he gave her the music

box seen at the beginning of the play as an expression of his love at the time of their

engagement. The couple’s journey is interrupted only when Lei distances herself from her

past. No longer embodying her memories now, she watches them with an observer’s eye,

treating the items that lie scattered all over the stage – those same objects that helped the

couple bring their memories back to life – as mementos that she now collects and

deposits back into the trunks. By the end of the play, Lei has slowly, painfully cleaned

away the evidence of her past and, once again, is left alone in a shrunken, confined,

colorless world.

While at a first glance Ballarini may appear remarkably apolitical in its portrayal

of the closed world of a lifelong heterosexual relationship, in the context of the

Berlusconi Era the play is as socially invested as the other two works of the Trilogy.

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Considering the portrayal of the ageing population of Italy and, in particular, of older

women in media and film between 1994 and 2011, the play addresses two larger

problems. By presenting the struggle of an older woman to take care of her fading health

after the death of her life-long companion, Lei stresses the importance of the caretaking

responsibilities of an ageing nation towards its elder citizens as these citizens are faced

with loneliness and isolation. Additionally, through its depiction of Lei and Lui as both

their current and their younger selves, the play treats questions of ageism and gendered

ageism as it addresses the double standard toward the representation and perception of

older gendered and sexualized bodies.

Gendered Ageism in the Berlusconi Era

As context for Dante’s denunciation of ageism in Ballarini and before proceeding

to a detailed analysis of its texts and performance, it is important to paint a broader

picture illustrating depictions and descriptions of old age and older Italian women during

the Berlusconi Era. In a study published in 2012, Cristina Gagliardi and others analyzed

the statistical data provided by Istat (Italian National Institute of Statistics) to draw a

picture of Italy’s population. The portrait that emerges is that of a quickly aging country

where one fifth of the entire population is over 65 years of age, a figure that marks it as

the country with the second-oldest population in the world, second only to Japan (86).

The study explains that the data it provides are the result of a countrywide process of

aging without replacement. Beginning in the 1990s, Italy has had either a zero natural

growth in population or a negative one. By 2010, this meant a 9.3% birth rate, one of the

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lowest in the world (Gagliardi et. all, 88).84 The decline of births in Italy was

accompanied by a rapid increase in life expectancy at birth, which, according to statistics

reported by the World Bank, increased an average of 5 years between 1990 and 2011.85

The data collected by the World Bank further shows a disparity in life expectancy

between the sexes, with women living an average five years longer than men (Gagliardi

et. all, 88).

In her 2005 book, Women of a Certain Age: Contemporary Italian Fictions of

Female Aging, Rita C. Cavigioli points out that in the 1990s and early 2000s the

collective aging of the Italian population begins to have a considerable impact on Italian

society, culture, and the media. In her work, she presents statistical data and historical

investigations of changing trends connected to aging to help the reader raise their age-

consciousness. Cavigioli’s rich examination paints a picture of the larger economic and

societal implications of Italy’s aging population. In addition to providing statistics about

the matter, she considers portrayals of older men and women in cinema, advertising,

television, newspapers, and magazines during the 1990s. Her findings point to a palpable

gendered disparity in the representation of older individuals. Her research highlights that,

especially in popular entertainment and in advertising, old men, rather than old women,

84 While the influx of immigrants to the country in the first decade of the 2000s raised the general population growth slightly above zero, general trends of stagnation in birth rates have not changed (Gagliardi et. all, 86). 85 The World Bank reports statistics gathered from various agencies. For male and female life expectancy at birth, it utilized data from: the United Nations Population Division: World Population Prospects, census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, the United Nations Statistical Division: Population and Vital Statistics Report (various years), the U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.

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are typically portrayed as the protagonists of old age. Cavigioli writes that this notion is

one that appears to be transmitted from generation to generation:

Italian students, although in daily contact with a primarily female aging society, were much more likely to have male old age than female old age in mind when trying to articulate, possibly for the first time, their own age discourses, thus laying their foundations of their age consciousness. (67)

This apparently inherited cultural construct of old age as unique to men and not to

women is reflected in the Berlusconi Era media depiction of and the public discourse

surrounding older individuals. While, regardless of age, mediatized images of experts and

exceptional influential figures (including politicians) tend to be those of men,86 Cavigioli

contends that both the media and individual older intellectual figures tend to choose men

rather than women when discussing the merits of those she calls “i grandi vecchi:” the

“grand old” (58). Such gendered choices when discussing ‘greatness’ in old age display a

strong gender bias that reinforces a patriarchal perspective in the discourse on age in the

Italian peninsula. She provides an apt example documenting this trend citing the article

titled “La vita comincia a 80 anni” (“Life begins at 80”) which was published in 1998 in

the weekly magazine Il venerdì di Repubblica, a Friday supplement to the daily

newspaper La Repubblica. The article profiles thirty successful individuals aged eighty

and older, who hold prominent positions in a variety of fields. Among them, twenty-three

are men and seven are women. Such a gender distribution packages success and

relevance in old age as the domain of men (Cavigioli 58). She also gives a second

example that underlines how the exclusion of older women from discourses surrounding

86 For example, the media research group L’Osservatorio di Pavia, which in 2013 was commissioned by the RAI (the public Italian radio and television entity) to monitor Italian public television, has compiled gender-specific statistics on the subject. These show that among interviewees who functioned as representatives for companies, institutions, and political parties only 18.2% were women. Further, they highlight that, over the course of the 21.4% of women are interviewed as experts in a specific field.

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mature genius and success further contributes to a skewed, androcentric perception of old

age. She briefly discusses the 1998 book L’asso nella manica a brandelli (The Ace up the

Tattered Sleeve) written by esteemed Italian scientist and Nobel Prize winner for

Medicine Rita Levi-Montalcini. In her analysis of this book, she points out that, while it

does constitute an homage to old age that uses the neural plasticity of the brain as

evidence to explain the great practical and intellectual achievements of many artists,

philosophers and scientists in their final years, the then eighty-nine year old author did

not include a single woman among the five cases studies she presented in her writing

(Cavigioli 58).87 An expression of implicit bias, such an omission contributes to

undesirable stereotypes when put side by side with the portrayal of older women in

Italian movies and on television, which reinforce a male gendering of the Third and

Fourth Age by placing older women in minor supporting roles or depicting them as co-

protagonists: the largely passive half of a married couple led by the husband (Cavigioli

61).

For Cavigioli, advertisements continue this trend of gendered discrimination.

They portray older men in a favorable light, either framing them as playful, youthful,

complicit grandfathers, emphasizing the bond between them and male grandchildren, or

as active lively spirits still in touch with their sexuality. Older women, on the other hand,

are never depicted as sexualized beings and are either relegated to the role of wise

grandmothers passing on their household know-how to their daughters and

granddaughters, or portrayed as shrewd tricksters who will fool young people into giving

them what they want (Cavigioli 60-61). The portrayal of older women in the national and

87 Which included Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Bertrand Russell, David Ben-Gurion, and Pablo Picasso.

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local press also contributes to the larger, national narratives surrounding them.

Cavigioli’s findings in this field show that older women, unlike older men, are framed as

feeble, hypochondriac, and lonely. They are often the inadvertent subjects of violence or

the protagonists of unlikely scenarios. They are remarkable not because of their

intellectual or artistic abilities, but for their eccentricity, extraordinary longevity or, in

some cases, post-menopausal Third Age pregnancies (Cavigioli 63-64). These

pregnancies, which openly defy the canonical notion of procreation and fertility as

prerogatives of youth, are often considered uncanny scientific experiments rather than

miraculous (“A 57” n.p.). Their power to provoke unease rests in their ability to confront

readers with two challenging ideas. The first is the notion that the successful carrying to

term of controversial in-vitro initiated pregnancies of women in their late 50s and 60s

marked the beginning of the age of the media labeled mamma-nonna (mother-

grandmother). The second is a concern for the moral and social repercussion of such late

pregnancies on the child prompted by to the age of the parents and, in particular, the

mother (“A 57” n.p.).

When considering gendered stereotypes of the elderly and the preservation of

gender roles into old age, narratives constructed to expunge older women’s sexuality put

forth by women-targeted advertising and magazines that use mature women to sell

cosmetics and plastic surgery procedures of the sort Cavigioli analyzes, it becomes

apparent that much of the gendered thinking revolving around age is neither confined to

the Berlusconi Era nor to Italy. For example, the 2006 United States-centric volume

edited by Toni Calasanti and Kathleen Slevin titled Age Matters: Realigning Feminist

Thinking laments these same issues as a widespread phenomenon both in terms of

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geography and time period, in this way contextualizing the importance of talking about

age within intersectional feminist discourses. But, the specific media-led campaign

against aging and the drive to erase age from the bodies of women that took place on

Italian television during the Berlusconi Era seem to be a phenomenon more strictly

related to a particular historical time and place.

In the 2010 documentary-turned-book Il corpo delle donne (Women’s Body),

journalist Lorella Zanardo analyzes how the bodies of women have been televised in the

Bel Paese since the early 1980s. She strongly criticizes the predominant male gaze in the

writing, shooting and editing of Berlusconi Era television programs that frame women

and their bodies as voiceless objects of sexual pleasure, devoid of agency and

intelligence. Zanardo’s investigation highlights two particular trends in Berlusconi Era

media that support Cavigioli’s notion of old age as the age of men. The first is the

tendency to present articulate and dominant older men of high status alongside skimpily

clothed, beautiful young women who are never asked to express opinions or contribute to

the discussion at hand. Rather, through the use of skilled, often degrading, camera

angles88 they are turned into flesh and blood decorative elements. The second trend is the

propensity to display surgically altered bodies and faces as a viable, almost normative,

alternative to the aging female body. As Zanardo points out:

88 In her 2011 book, Senza chiedere il permesso (Without Asking for Permission), Zanardo explores the problem of utilizing point of view (POV) and camera angles in television to manipulated the ways in which men and women are perceived. Particularly, in the section “Nuovi occhi per i media” (“New Eyes for the Media”) she analyzes some of these tools, demystifying them for the public to expose bias. Examples are the propensity of the camera to linger on the breasts and legs of women while showcasing their bodies through a toe to head camera tilt that lands on the face, or what Zanardi calls riprese ginecologiche (gynecological filming), a propensity to frame women’s crotches from below, recreating a view analogous to peeping underneath skirts. This is often coupled with the propensity to ask women simple close-ended questions, instead of open-ended ones, which are often reserved for men (Zanardo, Senza 109-226), and the juxtaposition of semi-naked female bodies to that of fully clothed adult males.

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If the choice to undergo surgery remains a private affair the consequences of which would be appropriate to reflect on – but with regards to which everyone is certainly free to act in unconditional autonomy –, conversely the choice to offer almost exclusively unnaturally-young faces through an instrument of mass communication is not free of repercussions that should be urgently discussed. This is a phenomenon that can’t be ignored precisely because, may we like it or not, television creates models to follow. (Zanardo, Il corpo 85)

Framing television as a teaching tool, Zanardo sees the cosmetically altered bodies and

faces of older women as another symbol of the systemic oppression of women during the

Berlusconi Era. In their paralysis, they become what Zanardo calls “meat burkas” that

cement women’s expressions into “a permanent mask that makes feelings turn

gangrenous inside the body” (Zanardo, Il corpo 83). Through this gruesome metaphor,

Zanardo is pointing to a general stifling of emotive and informative communication

between older women and Italian television audiences, an endeavor that perpetuates the

role of televised women as silent objects. Further, she incriminates these faces and bodies

as visible attempts to create a never aging woman. Such unchanging beings, static in their

artificial youth and beauty, can easily continue to be eroticized and hence prolong their

usefulness as objects of the male gaze (Zanardo, Il corpo 80-85). If the only way for older

women to be considered worthy of appearing on television is to defy their age at all costs,

then women who do not want to or, worse, cannot afford to undergo such surgical erasure

of time are swiftly removed from the mediatized public eye – a practice that, in its

misogynistic ageism, also reinforces class discrimination.

Paolo Sorrentino’s 2013 Oscar-winning feature film La Grande Bellezza (The

Great Beauty)89 encapsulates the notion of a classist divide behind the idea of stopping

89 A reflection of larger power dynamics interlacing a cult of the self, with the value of the superficial and the struggle for notoriety and power, the movie juxtaposes the historical and romanticized beautiful surface of Italy with the mundane, rotten core of the Italian elite. Care for appearances, notoriety and a deep-set

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time’s signs from altering women’s bodies. In the movie’s infamous Botox scene, he

shows a celebrity-doctor injecting patients with botulin in the lavish-looking palace room

he uses as a studio. Almost like a god communing with believers, the doctor provides

injections costing between 700 and 1200 euros. Although there are men present at the

clinic, the majority of the customers who appear in a panoramic shot of the room are

women, who account for 19 out of the 26 people waiting to receive treatment. Some

among them talk to the doctor about their need to look younger. In exchange, he

reassures them, unflinchingly promising youth and happiness.

Women of a certain age, Il corpo delle donne and La grande bellezza make it

clear that in the Berlusconi Era the aging process is a special, gendered curse that women

must strive to fight against. In the media, a woman incapable of defying her age and its

progressive manifestation on her body is relegated to stereotypical categories. In this

capacity, women take on roles ranging from sweet mother-like grannies, to intolerant,

cynical spinsters, to unhealthy, inactive hypochondriacs – all of them asexualized. This

narrative depicting older women with imperfect bodies as asexual reappears in the 2011

documentary Mai senza: la sessualità alla terza età (Never Without: Sexuality in the

Third Age) by Alessandro Tamburini and Ciro Zecca who tackle the topic of heterosexual

sexuality in advanced age. The documentary attempts to paint a gender balanced portray

of the sexual activity of older Italians by interviewing twenty-eight men and twenty

women from central and northern Italy. While numerically striving for parity when

need to be revered become the guiding principles that govern the interactions of those belonging to the elite and, at the same time, are embraced by the rest of the country which aspires to become part of that close circle of the powerful. An important part of this process is the need to preserve one’s physical appearance, an endeavor that turns out to be particularly difficult for the women in the movie who are solely judged on the basis of their physical attributes.

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choosing individuals to interview, the documentary betrays a gendered bias in the ways in

which sexuality in the third age is perceived and talked about and in this way falls short

of its well-intentioned aims.

In the documentary, the age at which women are considered to be in their Third

Age is significantly different from that at which men are regarded as such. In fact, while

the youngest man interviewed is fifty-seven, eight years younger than the traditional

sixty-five years-old age cut off that marks the beginning of the Third Age, the youngest

woman interviewed is forty-seven, making her eighteen years too young to be a member

of the Third Age. Of the interviewees, six are well-known public figures or experts in the

field but only one of them is a woman, a gender distribution that reinforces Cavigioli’s

idea of an androcentric view of the “grand old.” This idea is further underlined by the

director’s choice of a male narrator whose voice, overlaid onto images of the daily life of

the elderly, fills the moments between interviews with lyrical reflections addressed to a

silent female companion.

Moreover, out of the 20 women interviewed, seven were questioned with their

male partners. In six of these seven couples, the men responded to their interlocutors

while the women, although physically present in the camera frame, spoke only briefly to

either confirm their husbands’ stories or to clarify them. Unlike the majority of the men

interviewed, the women mostly talked about love and companionship rather than sexual

intimacy. However, when they did talk about sex, they often approached the topic in a

roundabout way communicating in metaphors and euphemisms that made them seem

bashful or ashamed. Men were framed as taking the lead in seeking sexual contact while

many of the women interviewed saw intercourse as something that they must endure to

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make their partners happy. It is a “fastidio” (a bother): something annoying they must put

up with. In the few instances when the women were vocal about their desires, their

statements were incorporated in the final product as clipped sound bites rather then full,

articulated monologues. In final analysis, the documentary supports the generalization

that post-menopausal women have little interest in sexual activity.

When examined in conjunction with Cavigioli’s book, Zanardo’s documentary

and Sorrentino’s movie, the documentary film Mai senza contributes to frame the Third

and even the Fourth Age as the realm of men. Overall, these works depict the Berlusconi

Era as a time when Italian older women are stereotyped, asexualized, and rejected if they

are proven unable to erase signs of ageing from their bodies. In such a sociological and

cultural context, Dante’s choice in Ballarini to subvert some of the stereotypes used by

mass media and advertisements in order to reframe how old age, aging, and older women

are perceived and considered becomes a strong gesture of resistance. This is carried out,

first and foremost, by reimagining the Third and Fourth Age as the age of women. She

then juxtaposes younger and older bodies to expose bias in the ways in which aged

bodies are thought of, particularly in regard to intimacy and sexual activity. Finally, she

utilizes the idea of peeling away layers to uncover the past as a metaphor for looking at

the process of ageing as one that renders individuals more complex rather then reducing

them to stereotypes.

The Unmasking of the Aging Woman

Dante makes Lei the undisputed protagonist and driving character of Ballarini. As

her older self, she is the first and the last character the audience sees (Dante, Trilogia 71,

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90). It is Lei who decides when to get lost inside her memories and when to return to the

present (Dante, Trilogia 88). She is also the one who, at the beginning of the play,

conjures her husband on stage, willing him to come back to life and emerge from a trunk

(Dante, Trilogia 71). Moreover, her actions, such as periodically taking symbolic items

out of storage, are what move the play forward by prompting the re-enactment of

memories before the spectators (Dante, Trilogia 71, 74, 76, 79, 83, 87). A choice that

reflects the available statistical data about Italian demographics, Dante’s nod to women’s

documented longevity in Ballarini is hardly trivial. Rather, telling this specific story from

the point of view of a woman who outlives her husband, allows the playwright/director to

disrupt the larger, nationwide narrative that depicts men as the single protagonists of the

old age narrative.

Dante’s disruption of the received national narrative is carried forward by means

of the bodies of the middle-aged performers who embody Lei and Lui in Ballarini. The

malleability and specificity of their movements supplementing the detailed staged

directions allow the actors to perform both old age and the physical process of ageing.

Dante stages their ageing in reverse, utilizing it to create a contrast between the

characters’ aged bodies and those of their young selves when placing the couple in

similar situations at different moments in the play. By doing so, she urges her audience to

confront the bias involved in how these bodies are perceived.

A particularly fitting example of this strategy can be found in Dante’s crafting of

the two sexual encounters that occur in the play. The first takes place close to the

beginning of the action when the barely able bodies of the couple move slowly and

laboriously in a quasi-silence that, together with their measured movements, seems to

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dilate time. This sexual encounter between Lui and Lei occurs almost by chance. While

they embrace one another, their lips meet accidentally when an exaggerated snore forces

their heads to tilt backward, away from their slumbering bodies only to then fall forward,

until their mouths are on top of each other. Amid their snores, the two begin to kiss. Their

snoring turns to grunting and moaning as they start to fondle one another, their hands

wondering up and down their bodies. Passionately clinging to each other’s flesh, their

arousal mounts as they fight against the limitations of their bodies’ strength and restricted

range of motion. With great difficulty, the couple starts to rub their bodies together,

precariously counter-balancing one another. Finally, they climax together; then,

exhausted by the strenuous exercise, they immediately break apart as Lei gasps for air

(Dante, Trilogia 72).

Messy and crude in its ungraceful fumbling and groaning, Dante’s depiction of

this first act of physical intimacy differs significantly from one she stages in the middle

of the play when the characters have reverted to their youthful selves. During this second

sexual encounter, time seems to flow much more rapidly right along with the couple’s

movements and the Bossa nova-style Italian 1962 pop song Quando quando quando by

Tony Renis and Alberto Testa that accompanies the scene. A melodic variation of Samba,

the song’s upbeat playfulness and exuberance is reflected in the way Lui and Lei interact

with one another. Unimpaired by their bodies the way their older selves were, the couple

tears at each other’s clothing. Although their undressing is a functional action required to

prepare the couple for their next movement sequence, their stripping off of their clothes

also underscores their now unrestricted range of motion. In their youthful bodies, they

kiss deeply, quickly and easily transition from standing to sitting to standing again.

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Unlike at the beginning of the play, when Lei had to desperately grab onto her husband’s

body to stay upright, her newly found strength allows her to leap into Lui’s arms,

wrapping her legs around his waist as he holds her up without any difficulty.

This repetition and revision of the sex act inevitably invites the audience to

compare and contrast the two sequences. Although both are performed with the same

passionate intensity, the scenes elicit different responses from the spectators, responses

which are audibly captured in the recordings of the play. Whereas the older couple’s

lovemaking elicits laughter and a sense of discomfort in the audience, the moments of

intimacy shared by their younger selves are observed in silence. The different reception

of two sexual acts performed by the same couple in Ballarini emphasizes the influence

that the age displayed by these bodies has on audience perception. What then emerges is

the view that the sexuality of the younger, able-bodied characters is normative, while that

of the older characters is abnormal and grotesquely funny. By exposing this ageist bias,

Dante’s depiction of the older couple as sexually active also helps debunk the view of

older women as asexual beings. As opposed to the generalized picture of women

documented by Tamburini and Zecca in Mai senza, Dante’s Lei is neither uninterested in

sex nor a passive participant. She does not see sex as a “fastidio:” a burdensome act to be

endured for the happiness of her companion. Instead, she is a willingly participant who

shares the pleasures of this intimate encounter with her husband. Lei’s elderly, non-

retouched body shows a woman who has no desire to preserve her exterior youth in order

to retain sexual appeal. Rather, she is comfortable with being sexually active in her own

aged body, a construct that diverges from the ideals of youthful beauty predominant in

Berlusconi Era mass media.

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Even though the dramatic device employed in the play of reliving memories

guided by old songs makes Lei’s nostalgia for the past clear, her longing is not for her

lost beauty but for her deceased life-long mate. Dante crafts Ballarini in such a way as to

convey the magnitude of Lei’s loss through a layering of moments from the couple’s life

while the characters slowly bare themselves to the audience. In the beginning scenes of

the play, the pair’s inability to perfectly control their declining bodies results in (often

clichéd) farce and slapstick sketches. The audience watches as a sort of ‘old age

narcolepsy’ punctuated by loud snores that frighten Lei awake takes hold of the couple.

They follow the two characters’ attempts at catching a dangling pocket watch that slipped

from Lui’s hands. They see Lui blow the multicolored paper tongue of a party horn in

Lei’s eye and hold steady Lei’s body when she blows her nose, thus preventing her from

stumbling. They grimace as she shows him her snot-covered handkerchief that he ritually

examines, before reassuring her that she is healthy. Yet, as the play progresses, Dante

reframes this stereotypically amusing old couple with their eccentric behaviors through a

process of physical undressing.

Initially anonymous even in their names, Lui and Lei are unable to express

themselves through speech. Restricted in their movements by their fragility and lack of

flexibility and dwelling within a mostly color-less, confined world, these wordless bodies

are presented to the audience as physicalizations of age and gender. It is only by

following them back in time to the beginning of the their love story that the audience

begins to see the couple as individuals. When Lui and Lei start their journey back in time,

they take off their masks just before entering Lei’s memories and then, slowly, shed their

garments till they wear nothing but bathing suits. As each layer of clothes comes off, a

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new facet of the couple’s life together is revealed, rendering both Lui and Lei more and

more complex. Suit jackets, a skirt, a vest and a bow tie come off before the couple starts

playing with their newborn child. By the time Lei goes into labor, they have removed

their shoes and glasses, and have begun to exchange fully formed lines of dialogue that

mark them as Sicilian through the regional language they speak. They strip off their shirts

and Lui’s undershirt while engaging in sex. Their remaining clothes – Lei’s slip and Lui’s

pants – are removed before the audience sees the youngest version of the couple. This

scene, during which Lui confesses his love for Lei and asks her to marry him, contains the

longest dialogue in the entire play (Dante, Trilogia 83-86). It is also the scene that Dante

stages in a style closest to Realism, in this way allowing the characters to be more fully

fleshed out to convincingly resemble ‘real’ individuals. Purposefully, this is also the point

in the play when both characters wear the least amount of clothes. Thus, Dante’s device

of removing the characters’ old age masks and their clothes seems to aim at uncovering

the individuals hidden underneath their initial caricature-like appearance.

This taking off of accessories and attire to uncover the younger Lui and Lei helps

the audience collect and layer information that enrich their initial impression of the

couple. If at the beginning of the play they only saw a stereotyped, decrepit comic duo, in

its final moments, after following them through Lei’s memories, they are asked to

reconsider their earlier judgment. When they do so, they are faced once again with their

own preconceptions of old age that had not allowed them to see beyond Lui and Lei’s

masks until they were reminded of the characters’ past and thus required to imagine them

as much more complex.

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The audience is also confronted with the weight of these memories and their

importance for Lei when, towards the end of Ballarini, Lui disappears into one of the

trunks. When Lei is left alone on stage, she repeats a specific movement sequence that the

audience had already seen twice before, near the beginning of the play. This simple

sequence consists of Lei suffering from an asthma attack, taking a pill to calm her

breathing, losing balance while sneezing and checking her handkerchief to make sure

what is in it looks normal. While the first two times Lei goes through this routine with the

help of her husband who hands his wife her pills, supports her body to prevent her from

falling over, and double checks her handkerchief, the last repetition of this sequence is

performed by Lei alone. Without the help of her companion, she fumbles across the stage

looking for her medicine, then wrestles with the pill bottle, and eventually spills them all

over. After taking her medication and catching her breath, she blows her nose but,

without anyone to brace her, she loses her balance and almost falls to the ground. Since

she has no one who can check her handkerchief, she examines its contents herself and,

uncertain, merely puts it back in her pocket. Evoking differentness by juxtaposing this

last movement sequence with its earlier iterations enables Dante to frame Lei’s failing,

elderly body as no-longer amusing, but rather simply lonely.

Layering, uncovering, and juxtaposing through repetition, Dante renders the

immutable, plastic mask worn by Lei more than a mere device for an actor to perform

age. It becomes a vehicle to highlight the superficiality with which old age is often

related to and judged. Like Zanardo’s faces of old women on television in the Berlusconi

Era fixed into masks by plastic surgery in the hope of retaining their youth, Lei’s mask

also initially stifles her communication with the audience as it freezes her in a societal

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idea of ‘oldness.’ Yet, unlike Zanardo’s “meat burkas,” which aim to erase the signs of

ageing, Dante’s masks strive to reveal them. Easily removed and able to be worn again,

they show old age as an exterior marker of the physical process of living. As such, Dante

presents the physical marks of old age as embodying an individual’s history and

memories. These histories are there for everyone to see even if they do not provide details

about that individual’s past. In this sense, knowing details about someone’s past becomes

secondary to acknowledging, first and foremost, the intricacy of her or his identity. This

concept proves particularly powerful as a means of calling into question both the

stereotypical depictions of older women such as those collected in Cavigioli’s study, and

the process of public exclusion and the asexualization of older bodies in their popular

depictions.

Conclusion

Although Dante had already included older characters in previous works – such as

Nonna Citta in mPalermu or the father in Mishelle di Sant’Oliva – it was not until the

Trilogia degli occhiali that she systematically examined the depiction of older women.

She will continue to with this investigation in her 2013 film Via Castellana Bandiera

through the character of Samira. While all of the plays of the Trilogy ask the audience to

reposition themselves with respect to ‘the other’ in order to recognize their bias and

prejudices, Ballarini focuses on issues of ageism as it attempts to reframe the ways aging

women are represented and perceived in the Berlusconi Era. This play breaks out of the

conventional mediatized molds that either depict older women as constantly attempting to

erase age from their bodies in order to maintain their sexuality, or else relegates them to

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the asexual roles of domestic, wise grannies or lonely, wicked spinsters. It does this by

showing that older women can be seen as much more complex. Thus, in Dante’s portray

of Lei, her body is sexual no matter what her age. Her loneliness is neither inherent to old

age nor a direct consequence of her age, but has been conditioned by the relationship Lei

has had with her life partner. Further, the audience’s perception of Lei’s final moments

alone on stage as heartbreaking in their loneliness also reveals the spectators’ prejudice in

this regard, since Lei, even though she stumbles and breaths laboriously, she is still able

to tend to her own needs and maintain her individual autonomy.

At certain points in its investigation of ageism, Ballarini appears to undercut

Dante’s own message. This becomes particularly evident, for example, in the choice to

have old characters played by young actors, rather than casting older actors in Lui and

Lei’s roles. Visible in Sud Costa Occidentale’s production of Ballarini but not included in

the play’s script, this casting choice can be seen as an act that in itself reinforces the

marginalization of older bodies as it consolidates the notion that the young may play the

old, but not vice versa. Another example can perhaps be found when considering that the

climax of the play, the memory connected to the most important object on stage, and the

longest, most complex, and most endearing sequence of dialogue all coincide with the

scene portraying Lei as her youngest self. Jarring in its contrast with the last scene of the

play, which is once again dark and restricted to the smaller trunk, this moment creates an

uneasy tension between ‘what was’ and ‘what is.’ If societal expectations label beauty

and youth as superior to old age, then Lei’s own struggle to embrace her ageing and aged

self, while reminiscing about moments in her younger self’s life – her own struggle

against societal expectations – is imbedded in the play itself. Lei’s regression into a

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period when she was young and beautiful thus allows for a process of erasure and re-

inscription that renders visible for the audience how her complexity and struggle are

layered onto her body. While beauty and youth are, in the Berlusconi Era, something to

be statically preserved, in Ballarini they are a phase, a moment in time that, although

happily and nostalgically remembered, remain a memory. Lei’s going back in time, the

peeling off of age to reveal her as she once was, and her returning to her initial form as an

old woman breaks out of the young/old dichotomy to introduce the possibility of a

spectrum. In keeping with the larger theme of The Eyeglasses Trilogy, Ballarini then

alters audience perceptions of old age and elderly women by very poignantly allowing

them, if only briefly, to see these matters through different lenses

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Chapter 5: Expanding the Discourse

The three chapters that precede this conclusion specifically target works devised

between 2001 and 2011 to outline how Dante utilizes female bodies on stage to combat

the misogyny of the Berlusconi Era. Chapter 2 looked closely at the socio-economic

inequality and cultural disenfranchisement of lower-class Sicilian women. Chapter 3

focused on the marginalization of women in mafia environments and within mafia clans.

Lastly, Chapter 4 dissected gendered ageism and the presence/absence of older women’s

bodies in the national media discourse. Yet, an examination of Dante’s pointed critique of

gender politics within Italy transcends this narrow timeframe. Today, Italy – as well as

other countries – continues to deal with an improved, but not nearly egalitarian

representation of women in positions of power. The women of the Bel Paese still struggle

with economic marginalization,90 gendered violence and femminicidi,91 issues related to

abortion and women’s reproductive rights,92 and Catholic Church backed notions of the

90 The Gender Gap Reports outlines that in 2015 the overall rank of Italy rose to 41st place overall within the 145 countries included in the list. This increase in rank from the 69th of the previous year is attributed to an influx of women in the Italian parliament, which moved the country to the 24th place in the ‘political empowerment’ category. Yet, in the ‘economic participation and opportunity’ category, Italy remained below more than one hundred other nations, ranking 114th in 2014 and 111th in 2015. 91 A summary of Istat and Eures statistics published by La Repubblica on November 25, 2015 reveals continued concerns over gender violence in Italy. See http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2015/11/25/news/violenza_sulle_donne_femminicidi_in_italia_e_nel_mondo-128131159/. 92 In 2016, Beatrice Lorenzin, the Italian Minister for Health, organized a government-backed Fertility Day on September 22 to encourage Italians to have more babies. The sexist (and racist) adds to promote the campaign were strongly criticized and women took to the streets on September 22 to protest Fertility Day

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submission of women to men as well as the upholding of traditional gender roles within

patriarchal-normative family structures.93 In this context, it is not surprising that Dante’s

addressing of these issues continues beyond my timeframe. An apt example is the full-

length play Le sorelle Macaluso (The Macaluso Sisters, 2014), which premiered in

January 2014 at the Teatro Mercadante in Naples and, after a national and international

tour, was featured at the 2014 Festival d’Avignon to critical acclaim. The play spotlights

the life of seven economically marginalized Sicilian sisters who are reunited after many

years for the funeral of one of them. Continuing to explore ideas of death and family, the

play also describes how the sisters grew up in a patriarchal Sicily where, by virtue of

their gender they were a hindrance to their financially struggling father because they

could not contribute to the household income.

An expanded examination of how women are depicted in Dante’s works would

moreover transcend boundaries of theatrical genre. Studies that could emerge from such

exploration would include investigations of Dante’s opera directing and her adaptations

of fairytales. For instance, the former could highlight Dante’s departure from the

canonical representations of female characters in her stagings of Bizet’s Carmen (2009),

Daniel Auber’s La muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici, 2012 and 2014), and

and other gender related issues, such as governmental and employers’ support for women raising children. See Gaia Pianigiani New York Times September 13, 2016 article titled “Italy’s ‘Fertility Day’ Call to Make Babies Arouses Anger, Not Ardor” at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world/europe/italy-births-fertility-europe.html?_r=0. Further, stories that appeared in Italian news reports in October 2016 sparked controversy about the way in which the termination of a pregnancy is still seen in Italy. At the center of the controversy was a letter sent to a patient at the Fallacara-Di Venere Hospital in Bari, Apulia who had undergone an ivg (a voluntary interruption of pregnancy) asking her to reflect on the moral and psychological implications of her choice. See the article “Aborto, a Bari Asl consegna documento con rimprovero dopo l’intervento: ‘L’ivg ha implicazioni di ordine morale’” by F.Q. on the newspaper Il fatto quotidiano on October 23, 2016 at http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2016/10/23/aborto-a-bari-asl-consegna-documento-con-rimprovero-dopo-lintervento-livg-ha-implicazioni-di-ordine-morale/3116186/. 93 This was clear from the speeches given at the January 30, 2016 Family Day rally organized by the Catholic Church, which took place at the Circo Massimo in Rome.

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Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella, 2016). The latter could analyze how women are

depicted in Dante’s théâtre tout public (theatre for children and adults) adaptations of

European fairytales that have women or young girls as protagonists such as Anastasia,

Genoveffa, e Cenerentola (Anastasia, Genoveffa, and Cinderella, 2010); Gli Alti e Bassi

di Biancaneve (Snow White’s Highs and Lows, 2011); Cappuccetto rosso vs. Cappuccetto

rosso (Little Red Riding Hood vs Little Red Riding Hood, 2013); Tre favole per un addio

(Three Fairytales For a Goodbye, 2013), which is a collage of Hans Christian

Andersen’s The Little Match Girl, The Little Mermaid, and The Red Shoes; and La bella

Rosaspina addormentata (Sleeping Beauty Briar Rose, 2013). While Dante adheres to the

fairytales’ traditional storylines, these plays preserve the original social issues embedded

in the stories, such as the otherness of the disabled body, the marginalization of the poor,

an unhealthy obsession with exterior appearances, and the horrors of parental abuse.

Whereas some of Dante’s adaptations, such as those of Cinderella and Snow White,

portray the main characters as victims of evil women until a heroic man rescues them, her

reimagining of Sleeping Beauty diverges significantly from canonical versions. In her

treatment, the Sicilian director substitutes the traditional prince who wakes the sleeping

maiden with a princess, thus introducing a seven years-old and older audience to a

normalized same-sex love story. In fact, Rosaspina and her family’s acceptance of her

love for her savior allows the young audience to treat what they see simply as a love

story, regardless of the sexual orientation of its protagonists. An examination of Dante’s

plays for young audiences promises further insights into feminist reimaging of traditional

fables and her commitment to provide young audiences with alternative models of gender

and sexual diversity.

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Dante’s work also examines the role of trans women. Her activity in this area

began in 2005 with Mishelle di Sant’Oliva and continued in 2009 with Le Pulle (The

Whores) and in 2014 with Operetta Burlesca (Operetta Burlesque). As a vocal LGBT

ally, Dante pays particular attention to the tensions surrounding the Italian queer

community, especially in southern Italy where this community faces severe

discrimination. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Italy continues to

struggle with the notion of queer identities, often referring to ‘gender theory’ as a ‘gender

ideology.’ The Bel Paese also continues to lag behind with respect to other European

countries in recognizing same-sex marriage, although it finally legally recognized same-

sex civil unions on June 5, 201694 following the July 21, 2015 ruling by the European

Court of Human Rights in the Oliari and Others v. Italy case. The court sustained that

“Italian law regarding the legal status to be accorded same-sex unions has been left in a

state of unregulated uncertainty over an excessive period of time” thus violating the right

of same-sex couples “to respect of their private and family life” (Oliari n.p.).95 In this

context, Dante uses her theatre to broaden the national dialogue on transvestism and

transgenderism. She started with Mishelle di Sant’Oliva, a two character play that tells

the story of a transvestite prostitute and her relationship with her ageing father. Dante

elaborates this theme in Le Pulle, which she subtitles an “a-moral operetta.” This one-act

musical and dance revue with dialogue portrays the stories of a group of transvestite and

transgender prostitutes, shunned from mainstream society, who share a communal

94 Same-sex civil unions were finally legally recognized on June 5, 2016. The new law provided same-sex couples the same legal rights as heterosexual married couple with the exception of parenting (stepchild or joint adoption) and reproductive rights. This excluded the adoption of stepchildren, joint adoptions, and in vitro fertilization for lesbian couples. 95 For more, see the transcript of the Oliari and Others v. Italy case at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-156265#{"itemid":["001-156265"]}.

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dressing room where they get ready for work. These women pursue dreams of normalcy

that range from achieving an ideal of ‘feminine beauty,’ marriage, and acceptance by the

Church and by family. Their tragedy resides in their need to be recognized and accepted

by a hypocritical world that is willing to make use of their bodies, yet considers them

abominable in their chosen profession, gender identification, and sexual orientation.

Operetta Burlesca is Dante’s most recent investigation of these and similar topics. The

play stages the story of Pietro, a forty-years old trans individual from a small town near

Naples, who has to hide her desire to dress like a woman. Her dreams of escape find

realization when she finds a lover who gives her hope for a better future only to dash it

when Pietro’s lover chooses to return to his heterosexual life, though clearly at the cost of

suppressing his desires.

Investigating Dante’s operas, fairytales, and transgender-centric plays has the

potential to expand and elaborate on the findings of this dissertation, painting a broader

picture of her commitment to address the ongoing marginalization of women and the

LGBT community. These issues of difference and exclusion, so vividly present in her

work, also contribute to the development of her directorial persona. Because she sees

herself as a donna del sud, Dante has shaped her artistic role as someone who speaks out

on issues about the south of Italy to national and international audiences. She is vocal in

her numerous interviews about her tense relationship with the city of Palermo and its

artistic elite, whom she accuses of marginalizing those who try to create work outside the

usual norms (Cavaliere 13-14; De Simone 74-76). She describes her choice to remain in

her native city as a political act of resistance in the face of the challenges her company

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endured in its first decade, challenges that included their arduous quest for a permanent

space to house her theatre laboratory.

For Dante, her physical self within the geographical location that inspires her

plays allows her to establish relationships between her actors, her audience and the

‘others’ her characters portray. She views this as an ethical imperative to sustain her

effort to provoke political and social change. Thus, from the center of Palermo, she

constructed her directorial persona based on her desire for transparency, fairness, and

meritocracy. She advocated for embracing diversity in theatrical offerings and for giving

young theatre makers space – both literally and figuratively – to pursue their art. For a

decade, she (very publically) refused to bring her work to the Teatro Biondo – then the

Teatro Stabile96 of Palermo – because she deemed its then Artistic Director, Pietro

Carriglio,97 corrupt – the perpetuator of a pre-arranged, exchange-based national theatre

circuit (De Simone 89-92). Under such model, shows produced by Stabile theaters across

Italy would then tour from one Stabile to the next, allowing each theater to stage a very

limited number of productions and leaving no space for new artists. It was only in 2014,

when the Biondo acquired a new artistic director, that Dante accepted the invitation to

lead the theatre’s newly established acting school and to stage her productions there,

bringing with her the audience she had previously cultivated at La Vicaria.

As anyone who has observed Sud Costa Occidentale rehearsals can attest, Emma

Dante is, without a doubt, the strongest presence in the room. There is a violence in how 96 Teatri Stabili or Stable Theatres appeared in Italy after World War II. They were established with the aim to treat theatre arts as a public good and, for this reason, that were conceived as publically funded. 97 Born in 1938 in Trapani, Sicily, Carriglio was the Artistic Director of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo until 1978 when he became the director of the Teatro Biondo. He left that position in 1994 when he moved to Rome to become the Artistic Director of the Teatro Argentina. In 1998, Carriglio returned to Palermo and resumed his role as director of the Biondo. In 2013, he resigned from this position, which was occupied by the current Artistic Director of the Biondo, Roberto Alajmo.

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she approaches devising, writing her scripts, and dealing with actors and designers that

goes way beyond gently drawing out the contributions of her collaborators. It is not

uncommon to hear her scream in frustration at her actors after she has repeatedly given

them the same note, or when she feels they are not fully committing to their roles, or

when she decides they are not contributing to the progress of a piece. Nor is it uncommon

to see her, after these explosions, carrying on perfectly civil and relaxed heart-to-heart

conversations with those same actors about the stumbling blocks they encountered during

rehearsal. Such rehearsal room behavior has as much to do with Dante’s directing style as

it does with her personality.

The directorial models Dante encountered as an actor were such male figures

respected at the national and international level as the previously mentioned Lorenzo

Salveti, Luca Ronconi, and Cesare Ronconi. The former two are both notorious for being

as strict, vocal, and volatile in rehearsal as Dante is, yet their behavior was never used to

discredit their work. Instead, comments about it travel by word of mouth within the

Italian theatre community to warn future collaborators and prepare them for inevitable

clashes. On the other hand, Dante’s short temper in the rehearsal room has been used to

undermine her artistic merits. Criticism of her character and directorial model, as

someone who often violently drives the work forward, is used to undercut the importance

and success of her work as a woman director. The same personality traits that might have

labeled a male director perfectionist, assertive, eccentric, or even visionary, are used to

brand Dante as an ill-tempered (De Simone 46), irresponsible (“Emma Dante e la regia”

n.p), hysterical (Dante, “Un incontro” n.p.), suicidal, mentally unstable, and a closeted

lesbian. In 2009, on the opening night of Dante’s Carmen at La Scala Theatre in Milan,

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Franco Zeffirelli went so far as to describe her approach as the result of a “wrong culture”

(“Emma Dante e la regia” n.p.). I have gathered this abridged list of terms used to

describe both Dante and her directorial process over the years from many newspaper

reports, and also from personal conversations with Italian academic colleagues of both

sexes. The many, disparate sources of these negative comments point up the pervasive

double standard in the choice of discursive language when applied to individuals of

different genders. While not everyone can embrace Dante’s directorial approach – some

might even consider it abusive to her collaborators – the ways in which her personal

character faults are used to discredit her body of work – while similar flaws in male

directors are often treated as consequences of their genius – is symptomatic of larger

gender discrimination against women occupying positions of power.

Dante’s actors and collaborators choose to work with her and remain faithful to

her and the company despite the intense training and devising process because they value

the employment opportunities her company presents, but also because they believe in her

and respect her vision. While this does create a work environment that can appear

oppressive from the outside, that same environment is filled with artists who understand

the physical and mental demands of her process and are willing to consensually submit to

them with enthusiastic commitment and trust. A power dynamic that has been established

since the founding of Sud Costa Occidentale, Dante’s role in the rehearsal room and her

relationship with her collaborators can be compared to that between Elizabeth LeCompte

and members of the Wooster Group, Marianne Weems and The Builders Association, or

even to the bond between Anne Bogart and SITI Company. In the case of Bogart, while

her approach to devising and rehearsals is less controlling and extreme than Dante’s,

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similarities between the two practitioners can be found in their focus on the body, a

commitment to long rehearsal periods and ensemble work, and the creation of a

company-specific training method.

Outside the rehearsal room, Dante’s personal history, as well as the difficulties

she encountered in claiming a space for herself and her work as a woman director based

in Palermo, did contribute to harden her (De Simone 66-94). Her unwillingness to

compromise and refusal to give in into the status quo became a necessity. She is, after all,

a vastasa in life and in the rehearsal room: headstrong, subversive, aggressive,

confrontational, and often unpalatably frank. At the same time, she is neither

unreasonable, nor closed off to debate. On the contrary, she welcomes such dialogues

with a generous spirit, seeing them as a vital part of progress. In light of the submissive,

silent Berlusconian feminine, which is visible only to please men, these characteristics

are both intimidating and disorienting to many in Italy today. And so it is perhaps

unsurprising that Dante has been often labeled as a woman di malocarattere and a fodde

– a crazy woman with a bad personality (De Simone 70).

During the last seventeen years, Dante has loudly claimed her place as a

marginalized outsider who in this respect is similar in many ways to her local spectators.

Even though working from the margins, she conceived and toured more then twenty-five

productions for adult and young audiences, gradually becoming a prominent name

throughout Italy and abroad where she showcased work throughout continental Europe

and in Argentina, Mexico, and the United States. In 2014, Dante was appointed as the

Artistic Director of the Teatro Palladio di Vicenza where she curates the theatre’s yearly

season and often stages the works she devises in Palermo with her company.

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Additionally, she co-founded the theatre school of the Teatro Biondo in Palermo with

Roberto Alajmo, its current Artistic Director. To date, she has continued to receive

numerous national and international accolades for her work as a playwright, director, and

deviser. In 2014 she earned the National Music Critics Awards ‘Franco Abbiati’ for “Best

Director” for the opera La muette de Portici, which she remounted that year at the Teatro

Petruzzelli in Bari. She was the first woman to be so recognized since the founding of the

Abbiati Awards in 1980.98 That same year, Dante received the first UBU Award for “Best

Director” - the highest honor given to a theatre director in Italy – for Le sorelle

Macaluso. Although some Italian women artists had been recognized for their

playwriting or directing under the category of “Best Italian New Work,” since the

inception of the UBU Awards in 1979, no woman had ever won for “Best Director”

before Dante. Inflammatory and contradictory as her personality and directing practices

may be, over the course of her career Dante fashioned her public persona as a Palermitan

woman who is highly visible and unmistakably outspoken. She put forward an image of

herself as an unattached individual of uncompromising integrity with considerable artistic

talent who has struggled through misfortunes to rise to the top. In short, she provided one

model that other Italian women directors could follow, underscoring visibility and vocal

presence as ways for women directors to claim their rightful places within the national

public discourse.

Indeed the controversies surrounding the Sicilian director’s character and

professional career helped to make her and her work noticed throughout the Italian

98 Only two other women had been previously recognized for their opera directing. The first is Margherita Palli who in 1992 received the “Best Director” Award together with her co-director, Luca Ronconi, for their Damnation de Faust by Berlioz staged in Turin. The second is Liliana Cavani whose direction in 1993 of Jenufa by Janacek at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino was awarded as “Best Production.”

178

peninsula at a time when the visibility of women directors proved their existence. In a

July 13, 2015 interview titled “Il lavoro (im)possibile del teatro” (“Theatre’s (im)possible

job”) with Alma Daddario, Daniela Bortignoni, the current director of the Accademia

‘Silvio D’Amico’ and chair of its directing course, stressed that in Italy directing is still

seen as a man’s job. In describing the state of the field, she declares:

[…] The role of a director doesn’t only require artistic talent, but also charisma, people managing, and organizational skills. In both theatre and film they [directors] are the center that controls and determines each and every decision. How many women do we see in Italy in similar roles of power? We have few prominent individuals among successful women directors and, sadly, I don’t seem to notice any reversal of this tendency. We can count women directors on our finger tips: Liliana Cavani, Lina Wertmuller, Francesca Archibugi, Cristina Comencini, Antonietta De Lillo, Alina Marazzi, Esmeralda Calabri, Cinzia Th Torrini […] working in cinema, documentaries, and television, Andrè Ruth Shammah,99 and Emma Dante in the theatre, but how many more? (Bortignoni n.p.)

Despite Bortignoni’s skepticism, it is not the lack of women directors in Italy, but their

lack of visibility that renders them invisible to the theatrical community. As previously

mentioned in Chapter 1, the archival research I conducted in 2010, 2013, and 2014

produced astonishing results. I was able to collect the names of more than 135 Italian

women theatre directors active during the Berlusconi Era in Italian venues of national and

international significance. Many of these directors can be situated in the tradition of the

Italian actor-author – a self-directed actor who may also have written the text interpreted.

Others worked primarily as directors or co-directors, the latter often sharing the reins

with a long-standing male artistic and/or romantic partner. At least twenty among these

women are founding artistic directors or current artistic directors of theater companies,

and a handful of them manage, rent long term, or own a theater space. These spaces, 99 Shammah is the Artistic Director of the Teatro Franco Parenti in Milan and an established theatre director.

179

often selected for their availability and affordability, are frequently located in smaller

cities or at the periphery of large ones. In other cases, like that of Dante’s La Vicaria,

they are located in poor neighborhoods at the heart of old city centers. Clearly, it was the

geographical marginalization of their theaters that allowed many of these women artists

to carve a niche for themselves.

Operating outside the circuit of traditional Italian theatrical institutions, these

women directors produce work that critically engages with and celebrates their

communities. Their theatre spaces became sites enabling cultural conversations with local

people who rarely, if ever, attended the theater previouisly. Their outreach programs for

women, young adults, convicted minors, immigrants, and refugees continue to flourish.

The artistic content proposed by these directors reinforced their connections to the people

of the area. They initiated a re-evaluation and investigation into the micro-histories of

these locales, their existence and the lives of the inhabitants on the peripheries.

Among the most influential women directors who today own, manage, or rent

long term a theatrical space, we find Serena Sinigaglia, Veronica Cruciani, Laura

Sicignano, Teresa Ludovico, and Laura Angiulli. Sinigaglia is the director of ATIR,

Associazione Teatrale Indipendente per la Ricerca (Independent Association for Theatre

Research), housed at the Teatro Ringhiera in Milan. Her works are often overtly critical

of the Berlusconi Era and the socio-political and economic crises it stirred. Cruciani

directs the Compagnia Veronica Cruciani and is the Artistic Director of the Teatro

Biblioteca Quarticciolo located on the outskirts of Rome. She often collaborates with

Ascanio Celestini, a well-known Italian performer of Teatro di Narrazione (Narration

Theatre). In her directorial work she focuses on contemporary Italian and international

180

plays or new works. Like Sinigaglia’s, Cruciani’s work addresses economic inequality

and gender disparity. Sicignano too investigates gender roles in her collaborations with

actor-author Laura Curino. She directs the Teatro Cargo at the periphery of Genoa, where

she created permanent theatrical laboratories for young asylum-seeking refugees who

have come to Genoa from across the globe. The Teatro Cargo space provides refugees

and the people of Genoa with a place that fosters dialogue and cultural exchange, and is

slowly cultivating a regular audience. Ludovico, the director of the Teatro Kismet OperA

located on the outskirts of Bari, also favors the nurturing of new audiences. She has

worked extensively in Japan and in the United Kingdom. In her theatre, Ludovico

primarily creates works of théâtre tout public, focusing her attention on education

outreach programs, and work with young audiences. Outreach and engagement with

young people are of similar importance to Angiulli, the Artistic Director of Galleria

Toledo, a theatre situated in Naples’ infamous Spanish Quarter. Her work with the people

of the Quarter and with troubled youth significantly re-shaped the cultural landscape of

one of the most dangerous areas of Naples.

While less visible than Emma Dante and radically different in their aesthetic,

these women directors have all produced extremely important work acknowledged by

critics and audiences that warrants their recognition as professional directors of national

interest. Undoubtedly, much more research needs to be carried out on Italian women

directors. Such a study could begin at the turn of the twentieth century with an

investigation of Adelaide Ristori’s and Eleonora Duse’s activities as capocomiche -

managers and directors – of their own companies in addition to their roles as leading

181

actresses.100 It could even go further back in time, beginning with a re-evaluation of the

role of women in Commedia dell’Arte troupes since, in the seventeenth century, they

often took on the role of capocomiche and writers of canovacci in their own companies

(Wood, “Women” 86). Such an investigation would require a re-evaluation of what

directing means in the Italian context by moving beyond the traditional view of a director

as a solitary mastermind and considering more collaborative, less distinctive directorial

roles in the creative process as well as to examine the careers of self-directing actor-

authors.

For decades traditional power dynamics between genders have fashioned the

world of Italian directors – those in-charge of the mise-en-scène – as exclusively male

Maestri: men of directorial genius. While the word Maestro (Master), used to designate a

truly great director, sparks associations such as Giorgio Strehler and Luca Ronconi, that

of a maestra (mistress), the female version of the noun, evokes the image of a primary

school teacher. When the gender bias is so intrinsic to the language of a nation, in which

anyone might be a gender neutral, regista (the Italian word for director), but only a man

may be identified as a Maestro, it is not surprising to find women excluded from the

recorded canon and to often hear such omissions justified by either their apparent

absence, their lack of leadership abilities, or the pretense of a disparity in artistic abilities

that characterizes their talent as subordinate to that of their male counterparts, thus

making them undeserving of mention.

In this sense, both Dante’s case study and the lack of studies focusing on Italian

women directors challenge future scholars to analyze how women directors create their

100 For more, see the 2011 book by Francesca Simoncini Eleonora Duse Capocomica.

182

work, the content of their productions, and the fashioning of their directorial personas. It

also challenges academics to consider the ethics of gender representation on Italian stages

and within Italian theatrical institutions, including a consideration of the dangers of trying

to fill a historical void with a few ‘token’ women within a male dominated field. The

issue at hand, then, becomes the necessary re-evaluation of the linguistic and historical

narrative surrounding Italian women directors through a very rigorous, historiographical

approach that goes beyond excavating the names of past and present forgotten women but

that scrutinizes instead the causes, always intersectional, that prompted their omission

from history. For Emma Dante, beyond the weight of her gender in the official power

structures of Italian theater, these causes also include the complications created by her

scripts with hybrid language, the geographical location housing and informing her

theater, the subject matter of her plays and their aesthetic representation. In doing so, we

might open the possibility of one day finally regarding Italian women directors simply as

a part of the histor(ies) we tell, rather than exceptions.

183

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Appendix A: Translated Plays

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Translator’s Note Translating Dante’s Scrittura Scenica

When I first stumbled on the works of Emma Dante, I was in search of a unicorn.

Despite being born in Sicily and having grown up in a small village in Basilicata, as a

theatre artist and scholar I had primarily encountered Italian theatre through an

Anglophone lens. Yet, the sparks of nationalist pride I felt at every mention of Italy in

English language theatre history courses gradually led me to an unsettling realization.

The larger narrative surrounding Italian theatre was constructed as a series of

disconnected, mostly male, genius-driven spurts of activity occurring before the turn of

the twenty-first century. These instances fore fronted the important contributions of

commedia dell’arte, the Italian Futurists, Luigi Pirandello, Dario Fo, and, in rare cases,

the actor Eleonora Duse. I was discouraged by the lack of recorded contributions of

southern Italian artists and, in particular, of women directors, devisers, and playwrights.

Given the complexity of the cultural forces on the Italian peninsula and my

various encounters with them, I resisted what seemed to me to be a reductive approach to

history. So I started searching. First digitally, then physically through theatre and

university archives. I wanted to dig out what I knew had been omitted from the

international theatrical discourse. And then, almost by accident, I found Emma Dante and

her theatre company Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale. I was captivated. Beyond

speaking to my own aesthetic predilection for simple, visceral, physical storytelling, the

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plays conceived and staged by Dante told stories of resistance and revolt against the

social, political, and economic conditions of a familiar Sicily and southern Italy. They

spoke of disenfranchisement, of gender inequality and oppression, of economic disparity

between the North and South of the country, of deep-set bigotry, and religious hypocrisy.

Her stories undertake an irreverent subversion of the status quo akin to that of Dario Fo’s

plays. At the same time, they also possess beautiful, often unsettling imagery and extreme

physicality, much like the works of Romeo Castellucci’s company Societàs Raffaello

Sanzio. They successfully incorporate cultural and linguistic elements native to Sicily and

the South without ever becoming folkloric, much like the theatre of Eduardo De Filippo.

As a “civic theatre” that provides a point of entrance into the everyday life of Southern

Italy directed by a woman, Dante’s artistic presence manages to pull apart the narrative

that my English-based knowledge of Italian theatre had constructed in one fell swoop.

As Dante has often repeated in her interviews, she realized early in her life that

being a southern Italian woman – a Palermitan woman – meant that she could not afford

to grow up with the luxury of innocence. Although raised in a middle class family, like

many other Palermitans she negotiated a reality dominated by corruption, organized

crimes, poverty, and indolence. Together with her company, she chose to use her work to

tell the stories of those who live at the margins of society while residing at the fringes of

Italy. For her, to know, to understand, and to embody these southern Italian stories on

stage became a necessity. Her plays thus stem from a need to confront herself and her

audience with important questions regarding contemporary Sicily, and largely, the whole

Italian peninsula. In the Berlusconi Era (1994 -2011), she regarded the theatre as a site

for listening to those who are not given a voice anywhere else; for witnessing abject

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bodies and their stories while staring them in the eyes; for engaging performers and

audiences alike in a dialogue for change.

In her translator’s note to her volume of Juan Radrigán’s plays Finished from the

Start and Other Plays, Ana Elena Puga affirms that it is the translator’s moral obligation,

and, indeed, the moral duty of the whole production team tasked with bringing a work to

life outside of its source culture, to embrace authors’ indirect requests to “bear witness”

to the suffering and history of their culture (xi). With my own translations, I wanted to

bear witness to Dante’s Sicilian and Southern Italian culture and to the social engagement

at the heart of her work. Further, as a scholar of Italian theatre, I wanted to take

responsibility in providing playable scripts of contemporary Italian plays that would

render more visible in Anglophone scholarship and on English-speaking stages the work

of contemporary Italian women directors and playwrights.

Dante’s plays pose an interesting dilemma when it comes to the task of

translation. Partly because of the mixture of languages present in the text, but also due to

the physical gestures that are often codified within the language itself. My approach to

translating her Trilogia della famiglia siciliana, Cani di bancata, and Trilogia degli

occhiali relies on recent post-colonial translation theory. In addition to technical concerns

such as syntax, punctuation, and rhythm, this approach considers the geographical and

historical context of the original scripts. Protecting minority cultures is quite relevant

when undertaking translations of Dante’s plays since she permeates her work with the

culture of a historically marginalized part of the Italian peninsula. Sicily (and most of the

southern Italian peninsula as a whole) can be regarded as a post-colonial region in terms

of its political, economic, and cultural development and its historical, recurrent

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subjugation to foreign nations and other Italian kingdoms. In this respect, the translations

in my work make use of the theoretical ideas of Laurence Venuti, Kwame Anthony

Appiah, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Susan Bassnett in an attempt to identify the

differences found in Sicilian culture while at the same time making Dante’s plays

accessible in English.

In Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference (1998) – and, truly,

in all of his works – Venuti proposes a translation method bent on preserving what is

“foreign” in the translated text. This process of “foreignizing” in order to respect a

“minoratized” text is contrasted with the process of “domestication,” a method advocated

by translators such as Suzanne Jill Levine. In her 1991 book The Subversive Scribe:

Translating Latin American Fiction, Levine views the translator as in charge of

continuing the subversive work begun by authors in their own language. A well-

established novel translator, Levine believes that by subverting an author’s text, the

translator’s work ultimately becomes part of a deconstructionist continuum that “already

always alters the reality it intends to re-create” (Levine 8). This approach then justifies

radical changes to a source text in translation under the pretense of a semiotics based

perpetual process of differ(e/a)nce and deferral for which even the source text is an

adaptation is something that was already there.101 When it comes to translating texts for

the stage, this approach is often supported with the rationale that, in order for a

translation to be playable for the stage and enjoyable to its public, it must be palatable to

the taste of and easily understood by the target audience. What this means is that

translation is often sacrificed to adaptation. In this respect, the translation of Dario Fo’s

101 Also see Linda Hutcheon’s book A Theory of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2006.)

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plays into English provide an interesting case study. As Joseph Farrell argues in his

Modern Drama 1998 article "Variations on a Theme: Respecting Dario Fo," in order

adhere to this need to subvert the text to render Fo’s theatrical work more relevant to its

audience abroad, many translators transformed his plays into English scripts that are only

remotely related to the original text. Like with other authors, this produced two authorial

voices – an Italian one and a foreign one – shifting the importance of the work from

political concerns to preoccupations with the entertainment value of the plays in question.

Those plays unceremoniously crossed the line from translation to adaptation, ultimately

becoming very different from the original to the point that they altered the perception of

their author abroad.

Further, when the work translated has been conceived and written in a post-

colonial setting, such a domesticating approach could be seen as cultural appropriation.

To this end, Venuti suggests that translators must create a heterogeneous, hybrid

language of their own that would remind agents of the receiving culture that they are

dealing with a text in translation, originally written in another language and for another

audience. Such translation demands that the target audience meet the translation half-

way, moving the audience closer to the text instead of adapting the text to move it closer

to the audience. One way to achieve this goal is suggested by Appiah in his essay “Thick

Translation” (2012). For Appiah, creating a “thick translation” by selectively using literal

translation to challenge the audience (for example with proverbs and titles), means to

invite the audience to consider different views of the world and to challenge them to

understand another culture’s complex ways of communication. In her essay “The Politics

of Translation,” Spivak also makes clear that helping an audience through translation to

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come closer to the source culture is necessary in order to protect and maintain the

differences found in minority cultures. Similarly, in “Of Colonies, Cannibals and

Vernaculars” (1999) and Translation Studies (2002), Susan Bassnett argues that it is

necessary to account for the power dynamics that surround the translation into English of

works coming from marginalized cultures, languages, and/or social groups from post-

colonial regions. Thus Venuti’s ‘foreignization’ becomes a way to subvert the language-

power relationships that necessarily emerge when the works of minority cultures or

minorities are translated into another (often colonialist or neo-colonialist) language. For

Spivak, Bassnett, and Appiah, the risk in negotiating these power relationships is in the

homogenization of minority cultures into a unified, indistinct field of Otherness

subjugated to a central, chiefly Western and Anglophone, Subject which does not account

for gender and cultural differentiation.

In order to create translations that could allow future Anglophone scholars to

access this selection of Dante’s texts and could provide English-speaking companies with

playable scripts, I undertook an in-depth textual and cultural analysis of the original

plays. I wanted to create texts that, while still being accessible and engaging to the target

Anglophone audience, also respected the political and sociological implications that

surround a post-colonial theory sensitive translation process. In doing so, I took an

eclectic and pragmatic approach to Dante’s trilogy, adopting different strategies to favor

a ‘foreignizing’ translation while contemplate the ‘totality’ of her work as presented on

the page, treating stage directions and descriptions in the text with as much attention as

the dialogue itself.

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Working always with a mise-en-scène in view, as David Johnston suggests in his

introduction to the book Stages of Translation, I aimed to preserve the plays’ own

cultural identity and their political connotations by setting them in Sicily. In an attempt to

be true to the character’s regional identity, I took care of not generalizing them as Italians

or Italian-Americans, opting not to adopt traditional Italian-Americanisms or linguistic

idiosyncrasies usually associated with stereotypes of Italian immigrants. To this end, I

kept proper names of characters and places in their original Italian, Sicilian or

Neapolitan, without Anglicizing them. Further, I included in the translation text the

original manipulations of characters’ proper names to express endearment. One such

example can be found in The Butchery, where the brothers use the diminutive Ninuzza to

address their sister Nina. Adding ‘uzza’ or ‘uzzo’ to a noun (proper or otherwise) is a

Sicilian convention to express affection for something or someone lovely. In the case of

an individual, it also has a diminishing connotation, marking them as young or even

childish. In The Butchery, the brothers often use Ninuzza to patronize and control their

sister. I believe that preserving the shift from ‘Nina’ to ‘Ninuzza’ would signal and

linguistically complement the brothers’ behavioral shifts that are central to the play.

A particularly conscious decision was that of translating the title of Carnezzeria,

the second play of the trilogy as The Butchery. Here I took literally Venuti’s injunction of

inventing a new language to suit translation needs. The word ‘carnezzeria’ is a word that

is only used in the dialect of the Sicilian language spoken in Palermo and can be roughly

translated as ‘meat shop.’ Significantly, Dante elected to use ‘carnezzeria’ instead of the

Italian word ‘macelleria,’ in order to underline the fundamental themes of the play. In

fact, by using a word that incorporates carne (meat), attention is immediately redirected

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to the body, as meat and the body with its primal, animalistic instincts and desires, such

as violence and sex. Focus is also drawn to another Italian word: ‘carneficina’ (slaughter)

with its bloody, raw implications much less neat and sterile than those implied the word

‘macelleria.’ In translating the Palermitan word ‘carnezzeria,’ I opted to preserve such

connotations by electing to use ‘butchery’ (meaning slaughterhouse). Of British origin,

thus already unfamiliar to American ears, this word helps establish a sense of ‘foreigness’

before the beginning of the play. ‘Butchery’ retains connotations of a ‘wanton,

indiscriminate, and cruel killing,’ ‘slaughter,’ or ‘carnage.’ Further, the word is used in

slang to signify something ‘botched’ or ‘handled badly.’ While it does trade the emphasis

on meat with a focus on those who carry out its butchering, it retains the word retains a

double connotation that strays away from a specific physical location (a meat shop, a

butcher shop, or a slaughterhouse) to point at the locale of a possible ‘badly handled

slaughter,’ thus capitalizing on the raw feeling given out by the word ‘carnezzeria.’

Further, the relative dimensions of a butchery as compared to a slaughterhouse helped to

keep the play confined to the original contained domestic sphere of Dante’s play.

Whereas ‘butchery’ may evoke the image of a mom-and-pop’s shop, ‘slaughterhouse’

could also evoke a large, industrial establishment where systematic killing occurs.

Ultimately, translating Carnezzeria into The Butchery allows for a much stronger

political commentary in the context of the gender politics of the play. At the same time, it

steers clear from reminding the audience of slasher films or unintentional references to

the novel Slaughterhouse Five and its many adaptations.

When it came to stylistically address the entirety of Dante’s complex and hybrid

language beyond individual words or turn of phrases, it did not seem appropriate to use

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English as a base language and English dialects, such as an Italian-American

standardized dialect, to signal regional color and class. Specifically, I opted not to adopt

traditional Italian-Americanisms or linguistic idiosyncrasies usually associated with

Italian immigrants for two reasons. Firstly, I felt that it would have conflated these very

Sicilian characters with the existing stereotypical images of Italian immigrants to the

United States. Secondly, I resisted the notion of relocating these characters onto

American soil. Thus, like Dante, I strived as much as possible to create a hybrid language

to let the audience encounter foreign words and concepts expressed in Sicilian,

Neapolitan, and Italian. In Holywater, this presents itself in the word ‘ppocundria.’ As

untranslatable as the Portuguese word ‘saudade,’ the Neapolitan ‘ppocundria’ expresses

a lethargic, apathetic helplessness. As the audience can piece the meaning of the word

together from the context in which it is used, it seemed appropriate to leave it – and the

aloofness of its exact meaning – in its original language. Sicilian, Neapolitan, and Italian

were then mixed within an American English that was often subverted in its syntactic

structure (often making it grammatically incorrect) to follow, for example, the rhythm

and the cadence of regional speech. This strategy allowed me to preserve some of the

tension created by Dante in juxtaposing the languages present in the original scripts.

For instance, in the third play of The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family, the Mother

refers to her son as ‘vita mia,’ ending a large number of her sentences with this very

Sicilian construct that can be literally translated as ‘my life.’ In Dante’s work, using the

regional ‘‘a vita mia’ instead of the Italian ‘la mia vita,’ underlines the word ‘life’ to

express the dependence of the Mother’s life on that of her children. To retain ‘life’ as the

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powerful, central focus of this phrase’s English translation and to preserve the poetic tone

of the original Sicilian, I then elected to utilized the “thick” translation ‘life of mine.’

Register and power shifts in the dialogue encountered in the text when the

characters switch from a regional language to Italian were also preserved in the English

version. Sometimes, as in Market Dogs, these shifts are signaled by dialectal words left

translated in the text, while, other times, an overly polite, formal, and even stiff English

stands in for Dante’s use of Italian to express an affected cultural superiority or to mock

characters.

In the seven translations that follow, I resisted the urge to add too many

explanatory footnotes since, as Johnston makes clear in Stages of Translation, a play

should stand on its own when staged. I provided footnote translations of the words,

phrases, and larger portions of text that were left in their original language – such parts of

Zia Lucia’s monologue about “going out in Italian” in mPalermu or the monologue that

the older nun delivers in French in The Zisa Castle. Additionally, footnotes attempted to

provide the necessary dramaturgical context to understand obscure cultural references

such as those to the songs included in Holywater and Dancers, or to a particular soccer

teams or players in mPalermu and Life of Mine. In the latter case, although the explicit

references made in both plays would be unfamiliar to most people in the United States,

the specific actions that Dante’s stage directions call for, in conjunction with the dialogue

associated with those references, would contextualize them for the audience.

Lastly, particular attention was devoted to preserving implicit references to

gestures and the body that, although easily understood by both Italian actors and the

original target audience, needed to be decoded for Anglophone actors and a foreign

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audience. The word ‘‘Nzuú’ found in mPalermu is one such example. ‘‘Nzuú’ is an

onomatopoeic word pronounced as a palatoalveolar click that functions as a signifier for

both ‘no’ and a gesture. This gestures accompanies the sound and quickly brings the

tongue to the hard palate while the top of the head inclines backwards and the chin is

brought forward before being restored to a neutral position. Decoding this word in a

footnote allows for the specificity of the meaning and movement associated with it to be

preserved and reproduced in performance.

As Patrice Pavis asserts in “Towards Specifying Theatre Translation,” the sixth

chapter of his book Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, all the steps in the

concretization of the reception of a play in translation are only fully realized when the

play is received as a performance by an audience in the target culture (138-139). This is

especially important when it comes to translations of Dante’s plays because they are the

result of a long devising process that relies on the body and its physicality as an essential

component to express the socio-political connotations of her work. Hence, the plays

included in this appendix were subject to a series of staged readings at The Ohio State

University to test the translations. Further, due to the nature of its script, which mostly

includes movement-heavy staged directions and song lyrics with very little dialogue, the

play Dancers also received a workshop production in May 2014 directed by Shelby

Brewster and performed by Sifiso Mazibuko and Sarah Ware. The play was later fully

produced in May 2015 under my direction, with the same performers, and the lighting of

Alex Kyle Dipietropaolo. Dancers had its English language premier in July 2015 at The

Courtyard Theatre in London through Palindrome Productions and in August of that same

year it was remounted for the New Work Fringe Festival.

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Works Cited

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Thick Translation.” The Translation Studies Reader. 3rd ed. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. New York: Routledge, 2012. (331-343). Print.

Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print. ---, and Harish Trivedi. “Of colonies, cannibals and vernaculars.” Post-colonial

Translation: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 1999. Print. Farrell, Joseph. "Variations on a Theme: Respecting Dario Fo." Modern Drama. 41.1

(1998). Print. Johnston, David. Stages of Translation. Bath, England: Absolute Classics, 1996. Print. Levine, Suzanne J. The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction. Saint

Paul, Minn: Graywolf Press, 1991. Print. Pavis, Patrice. “Towards Specifying Theatre Translation.”Theatre at the Crossroads of

Culture. London: Routledge, 1992. 131-154. Print. Puga, Ana Elena. “Translator’s Note.” Finished from the Start and Other Plays. Juan

Radrigán, Trans. Ana E. Puga with Mónica Núñez-Parra. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 2007. xi-xxvi. Print.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “The Politics of Translation.” The Translation Studies

Reader. 3rd ed. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. New York: Routledge, 2012. 312-330. Print.

Venuti, Lawrence. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference.

London: Routledge, 1998. Print.

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The Trilogy of the Sicilian Family by Emma Dante

Translation by

Francesca Spedalieri March 2016

209

mPalermu

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“There are moments when the truth reveals itself completely to our eyes, without our having to make a gesture, take a step, move an eyelash. I saw that sea now illuminated by a winter sun, a sea blue and remote among sparse and motionless boats; I saw, as if I were not in that carriage, but in another place, in the air – I saw what was in their eyes; now that the ship rested empty in the harbor, and far, almost hopeless, appeared the hour of a new voyage – the deaf regret of having already consumed almost all one’s existence, having unwound the yarn up to the last piece of thread.”

ANNA MARIA ORTESE From Arrivo a Palermo in Il Mormorio di Parigi

translation by Francesca Spedalieri

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Palermo. If it had a body, it’d use it to dodge. What? Everything. To not be hit, identified. The emblem, the crest on the shield is silence. mPalermu speaks of this silence, of this immobility that is, from a close distance, familial. Of indoors and outdoors divided by a threshold that is impossible to cross. Of gestures that are perfectly formed in the mind, but that can’t get through to the muscles, the blood, like children eternally nourished by ever-pregnant mothers but never birthed. mPalermu means inside Palermo. It is a fertile womb, where too many children huddle in the dark alleys of its deformed abdomen, and while they suck lymph from a tangle of umbilical cords, they kick, they push but they don’t want to get out. In Palermo no actions are taken, rather ceremonies are staged; no dialogues take place, rather people operate rhetorically, citing, winking, alluding… it is a city of waste and the superfluous, of magnificent decorations crowning dilapidation. This theater of the impossible, which makes of Palermo a kind of symbolic representation of the soul of the world, incessantly busy and incessantly dying, is our comedy.

EMMA DANTE introduction to mPalermu

mPalermu, winner of the 2001 Scenario Prize and the 2002 UBU Award, was first staged in Parma at the Teatro del Parco in November 2001, in a production by Compagnia Sud Costa Occidentale directed by Emma Dante. The people who have staged this comedy are Gaetano Bruno (Mimmo), Tania Garribba (Grandma Citta), Sabino Civilleri (Giammarco), Italia Carroccio (the first Aunt Lucia), Ersilia Lombardo (the last Aunt Lucia), and Manuela Lo Sicco (Rosalia). Without them this story would have never been written.

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CHARACTERS:

The CAROLLO Family lined up on the proscenium line.

From left to right: MIMMO

GRANDMA CITTA102 GIAMMARCO AUNT LUCIA

ROSALIA

From right to left: ROSALIA

AUNT LUCIA GIAMMARCO

GRANDMA CITTA MIMMO

102 Note: Grandma Citta speaks in Neapolitan throughout the play, while everyone else speaks in Sicilian unless otherwise noted.

213

The Awakening

From darkness to light, in slow progression, during the giaculatorias.103

VOICES

Hey, are we opening up this window? Hey, can’t you see? It’s daybreak! Rosalia, hey, can’t you hear me calling you? Rosalia? Hey, can’t you hear? It hurts! Even grandma woke up! I can’t find my shirt with the white collar! Father, son, and the holy ghost, it’s daybreak! Hey, are you getting me my shirt or not? Mimmo? It hurts! Outside there’re really amaaaazing things! Open the window and look: the sun’s out! It’s real beautiful… Taste it! Taste it!

Five actors on stage. Five related relatives, all obedient to this law marked onto them. A family: Mimmo the most authoritative, Grandma Citta the old woman from Pollena Trocchia (in the province of Naples) who emigrated south, Giammarco the distantly related parasite, Aunt Lucia an unmarried young mother, and Rosalia married to Alfonso who works up north. Five actors who are a family, and we who watch them.

103 Giaculatorias are short prayers recited from memory in a continuous, often monotonous litany.

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It’s Sunday morning. The Carollo family is lined up at the front door and is getting ready to go out. A few rays of sun filter in through the blinds. The five relatives, excited, toss each other clothes while they chatter. They’re poor and, apart from the rags they gaily put on, they own a large plastic container filled to the brim with water and the individually gift-wrapped pastry they each clutch in their hands. Mimmo whistles, happy, and, together with the others has one task: to act. To cross the threshold, to put one foot in front of the other and go. Outside. In the streets. To walk with a head held high. To stuff one’s soul so that it won’t fly away right when the door opens wide. To invent lies to screw the feeling of senselessness that overcomes us when facing every gesture. Everything is ready, in a bit we’ll go out and the hell with whoever lowers his gaze: there’s no shame, no guilt. The dignity of the Carollos is the crown of kings. The relatives sneer, mock each other, but also, they admire each other proudly.

ROSALIA

Come on, shouldn’t we go?

MIMMO E certo che dobbiamo uscire!104

AUNT LUCIA (Whispering to Rosalia)

He said it in Italian!

MIMMO Why, what is it? 104 Trans.: We absolutely must go out!

215

AUNT LUCIA Nothing…

MIMMO Hah. Seemed like you’re making fun of me!

AUNT LUCIA Would I ever…?

ROSALIA Let’s go out!

MIMMO But not with those slippers, Rosalia!

Everyone stares at Rosalia’s light blue slippers and, blushing, they turn towards us. Silence falls. Rosalia, all dressed up, has kept on her slippers. Mimmo, bothered by the gaze of the audience, glues his eyes onto Rosalia.

ROSALIA What have they got to do with anything?

MIMMO Precisely, they’ve got nothing to do with it. Take off those slippers and put on a pair of shoes like everyone else, let’s go!

He nervously whistles while he waits.

ROSALIA Why should I take them off? I’m not barefoot!

MIMMO You’re not barefoot, true, but you’ve got to take those slippers off, now! I don’t want to argue, Rosalia.

ROSALIA (Suddenly turning towards an audience member)

What are you looking at?

Pause

216

GRANDMA CITTA It hurts!

MIMMO Whore of an Eve, Rosalia, why do you have to make me angry?

ROSALIA Why, are you dressed?

MIMMO (Suddenly turning towards an audience member)

What are you looking at?

Pause

AUNT LUCIA Come on, Rosalia, put on your shoes!

GIAMMARCO (To Mimmo)

Did you see your pants?

Suddenly everyone turns towards Mimmo to focus on a detail: his pants are so rundown that a beggar wouldn’t take them even if they were a present. From the corner of his eye, Giammarco examines Mimmo. He keeps close guard. He senses in the air the usual quiet before the storm.

MIMMO

(To Grandma Citta who stands between him and Giammarco) Grandma Citta, move over a bit!

Grandma Citta moves.

MIMMO (cont.) Giammarco can’t really see me yet, grandma, move another little bit!

Grandma Citta takes another little step backwards.

MIMMO (cont.)

217

Thank you!!! (To Giammarco, challenging) Giammarco, now that you can see me fully, tell me: what’s wrong with these pants?

GIAMMARCO They’re short!

ROSALIA Short!

MIMMO How are they? I didn’t quite hear you!

GIAMMARCO Tight!

ROSALIA Tight!

MIMMO But, who asked you?

GIAMMARCO (Pointing at Rosalia)

I’m her brother-in-law!

ROSALIA My husband’s brother!

MIMMO And who are you to me?

GIAMMARCO

(Pointing at Rosalia) I’m still her brother-in-law, right?

MIMMO Quite right!

GIAMMARCO And he, her husband, who then is also my brother, blood of my blood, requested nothing else from me: fight tooth and nail to defend Rosalia…

MIMMO (Referring to the pastry in his hand)

218

You see this pastry?

GIAMMARCO

Ya.

MIMMO As soon as I put this pastry on the floor and finally free my hands, I’ll take off my belt and break it over your head. You got anything else to add?

GIAMMARCO You even have pink socks that make you look like a piece of candy.

ROSALIA Candy!

MIMMO (Puts the pastry on the floor)

And, in the meanwhile, l’ll put this down!

GIAMMARCO (Shivering, he puts down his pastry, accepting the challenge)

And I’ll put it down too, let’s go! You think I’m scared of you?

MIMMO (Taking off the belt from his trousers)

And, in the meanwhile, I’ll take this off!

AUNT LUCIA No, Mimmo, leave him be!!!

MIMMO Silence! I’ve got plenty for everyone, you lousy bunch! I’ll pound you! Useless things! You’re one worse than the other. You don’t deserve anything!

AUNT LUCIA

(Screaming) No! Mimmo!!!

Mimmo is furious. He doesn’t feel pity for anyone and, cracking his whip, he marks out a path for Aunt Lucia, Giammarco, Rosalia, and Grandma Citta who, biting the

219

bullet, perform their circus numbers. Standing in the middle of the ring, Mimmo is the circus tamer who makes his animals jump. He hunts them, wounds them, and, lost in a delirium of hate and love, asks for their forgiveness.

220

Lashes of Love

MIMMO (While he whips them)

I’ll kill you, son of bitches, I’ll slaughter you! Don’t look at me, you bastards, don’t criticize me. Ever! (With tenderness) Is this how you thank me, Rosalia? Give me a kiss, come on! What would that cost you? Don’t make me angry! A kiss, Rosalia, and everything is fixed! Grandma Citta, let me rest my head in your lap, and hold me! Tight, though! Aunt Lucia, you tell them! I love you! What, when you tell me to do something, don’t I do it? I do everything for you, everything! Come on, Aunt Lucia, that I care for you. I love all of you. Even you Giammarco, come here! Don’t leave me alone like a dog, that I love you. I swear it’s true! (Aggressively) But why do you look at me like that, son of a cocksucker? Don’t look at me, you bastards, don’t criticize me. Ever! Because otherwise I’ll kill you, I’ll slaughter you! Rotters, I’ll crush you into dust…

Mimmo cracks the whip with all the strength he has until, exhausted, he falls to the ground. Aunt Lucia fixes her dress and, as per a rite that keeps repeating itself, always the same, she helps him stand up. Then, as if nothing had happened, with a head-movement, she invites the others to go back in line in front of the door. Mimmo comes forward, menacing, and, whistling, puts the belt back on.

MIMMO

Come on, let’s go out! Come on!

Pause

AUNT LUCIA (Pointing at Rosalia’s slippers, terrified)

With those slippers?

Pause

221

MIMMO Yes, with those slippers!

Pause

GIAMMARCO (Pointing at Mimmo’s trousers, terrified)

With those short pants?

ROSALIA Shorts?

Pause

MIMMO (Trying to keep calm)

My pants are not short!

GIAMMARCO They’re short, Mimmo! Look closely and see for yourself.

AUNT LUCIA Don’t get mad, Mimmo, there’s nothing wrong with them! They fit you well, listen to me!

MIMMO (To Grandma Citta)

Are they short?

GRANDMA CITTA A little bit!

GIAMMARCO More than a little!

MIMMO First off, she said a little!

GIAMMARCO And, meanwhile, I tell you it’s more than a little!

Grandma Citta laughs quietly and smacks her purse against her legs, so to be noticed by Mimmo.

222

GIAMMARCO (Pointing at Grandma Citta)

Do you see how she’s laughing?

MIMMO Leave her alone, she’s not laughing.

GIAMMARCO But she’s fucking dying laughing!

MIMMO Grandma, don’t you start too!

Grandma Citta laughs louder and involves Mimmo. The tension fades. Everyone laughs, returning to the happy and lively selves they were at the beginning.

GIAMMARCO It’s right for grandma to laugh, Mimmuzzo,105 what: first you raised stinking hell, and now we have to go out with these short pants and with these slippers? But where are we going, Mimmo? You’re ridiculous dressed like that!

MIMMO (Laughing at Giammarco’s line)

Why, did you take a look at your jacket for the Great War?

GIAMMARCO So what? Aren’t we still in the postwar era?

MIMMO

Yes, but not of the first. We’ve already had a second.

GIAMMARCO And if they do a third?

MIMMO We’ll hear a boom!!!

They almost split their sides with laughter.

105 Dear little Mimmo. A term or endearment.

223

AUNT LUCIA Handsome you are, both of you! Did you have to do this charade? Always leaving me to worry myself sick!

MIMMO What, was it all my fault, Aunt Lucia?

Rosalia bursts into a hysteric laugh.

224

Rosalia of the Slippers

ROSALIA No, it’s my fault! Because I don’t have shoes! (She hands her purse to Aunt Lucia) Sorry, can you pass it to Giammarco? Giammarco, can you pass it to Grandma? Grandma, can you hand it to your grandson? Mimmo can you hold it for me? (Mimmo takes the purse) There’s nothing inside, I don’t need it. And besides, what am I going to do with a purse if I don’t have shoes? (Accusing Mimmo) You didn’t want to buy me shoes! I told him I needed them, but he didn’t want to buy them for me! And now I’m going to show you how one goes out into the streets wearing slippers! I’ll do a demonstration for you: this is the street! (She walks back and forth, swaying her hips and dragging the slippers) This is how you go out into the streets with slippers! Dancing, dancing! Are they looking at me? (She points at the slippers) They light up! You can see them even in the dark! Wait, I’ll ask them: (To an audience member) you mister, pardon me, good man, do you think the blue of my slippers goes well with the pink of my blouse? Careful! For me, it doesn’t! It doesn’t! I’ve got to change to go out! (She starts to undress) I’ve got to put on something that matches these slippers! I don’t know, fuchsia panties! I’ve got to fix myself up to go out, right? It’s not like I can go out like this! I’ve to make myself beautiful, elegant, like all the others. (She pulls up her slip and points to her panties) Do these go? Do these match the slippers, huh? Can we go out like this? Let’s go! I’m ready! (She walks back and forth, sashaying with her slip pulled up) I’m Mimmo’s cousin!

Rosalia takes off her slip and unhooks her bra with the intention of provoking a scandal. Mimmo and Aunt Lucia fling themselves onto her to cover her up. Giammarco drags Grandma Citta to the font of the stage and, to hide his shame, tells her and the audience of an incident from his one and only trip outside Palermo.

225

The Cities of Foni and Pollena Trocchia Or

Giammarco and Grandma Citta on the Road

GIAMMARCO (Embarrassed, to the audience)

I once went on a trip to a city called Foni. I don’t remember where it is, but I remember that, to go there, I had to take the train… and that’s it! When I got to the station, my brother Alfonso’s old pal who works up north was waiting for me. He had a small house in Foni but very airy, because it had nice big windows and you’d breathe in nice fresh air… Oh!... Foni is really beautiful, folks! Do you want to know why? Because it has a square so big that when you walk through it your heart lifts, because the pavement is nice and smooth and you don’t have to watch where you put your feet, am I right? No tripping. It’s good for you, Grandma Citta, who always wear stiletto heals… what was I telling you? Oh! Foni’s square! In the middle of this big square there’s a long pole and what’s on top of this long pole? The statue of a fellow with a beard who laughs and holds a hand in front of him scrunched in a fist. I asked some kid who was passing by: “Excuse me but, what did this statue have in its hand before: a flower? A candle? Or an ice-cream cone?” “Nossir,” he answered: “This statue held power in its hand!” Look at that, power! Could it ever be that it holds power in its hand? Who’s he, the Almighty? Then I looked at him closely and he looked like Mimmo, and a lot too. The precise, identical, spitting image of that beanpole of our Mimmo.

Mimmo gets back in line

GIAMMARCO (cont.) He was your spitting image, Mimmuzzo! But don’t get mad. Listen here, while I was looking at him, I saw that a tiny dove flapping, and flapping, sat on top of his fist and crapped on it and I almost died laughing! There were a lot of pigeons in that square that went to shit inside that statue’s fist. People gave them food: bread, cookies, chocolates, and the little pigeons crapped. I gave them food too: bread, little cookies, chocolates, I even gave them ice-cream and the pigeons pecked at it a bunch. They pecked, Grandma Citta, I gave them food and they pecked... then I looked at my watch and I saw it was late and I had to leave, am I right Rosalia?

226

Rosalia, dressed like in the beginning, goes back in line accompanied by Aunt Lucia.

GIAMMARCO (cont.)

I started to walk, handsome, elegant, and smug as I am. But, while I walked something really strange happened, folks: the pigeons began to chase me and pecked at my head, and I ran and they pecked… they pecked… and I thought: see? If only Mimmo was here! If Mimmo was there, that day, we’d have eaten pigeons!

MIMMO (Laughs)

If I was there I’d have beaten them to death!

GIAMMARCO You’d crack their heads and we’d have roasted and eaten them!

MIMMO For sure! Do you think I don’t like roasted pigeons?

Pause They all look at each other, full of hope, waiting for Mimmo’s word.

MIMMO

Now, can we go out?

Pause

GIAMMARCO Let’s go out!

MIMMO Give this bag to Rosalia!

GIAMMARCO There, scum. You almost gave me a heart attack!

GRANDMA CITTA (To an audience member)

When I was young, I was beautiful!

MIMMO What, are you ugly now?

227

MIMMO (cont.) (To Aunt Lucia) As soon as she feels overlooked because we’re focusing on something else, she instantly livens up. (To Grandma Citta) You’re beautiful even now, Grandma Citta. You hear? Beautiful! I’d kiss her all over this one, mark my words! (He kisses her on the head).

GRANDMA CITTA I walked, and walked, and everyone looked at me…

MIMMO Ya ok!

GRANMA CITTA I lived very far away.

MIMMO Take that suitcase and let’s go out, Grandma Citta! Let’s go!

GRANMA CITTA I lived on the mainland…

GIAMMARCO She’s starting up…

GRANMA CITTA I lived in a big city called Pollena Trocchia.

MIMMO Of course!

GRANMA CITTA It’s called Pollena Trocchia, ‘cause it’s two villages…

EVERYONE (Chorus-like)

…but just one church.

MIMMO We know it by heart, right?

GIAMMARCO You’ve told us this story a thousand times, Grandma Citta! It’s going to get dark this way! We have to go out…

228

GRANMA CITTA When I was little…

GIAMMARCO Stop her, folks, otherwise she’ll go off like a rocket…

GRANMA CITTA … I always used to go to that church and I also went to the sanctuary that’s close by.

MIMMO Stop, grandma, we’ve got to go out…

GRANMA CITTA A huge sanctuary…

GIAMMARCO The FIAT 500’s off!

GRANDMA CITTA … huge, huge, huge…

GIAMMARCO She’s going to do a heel-to-toe, watch! Take away her license!

GRANMA CITTA … even bigger than the cathedral of Palermo…

Pause

GIAMMARCO What did you say?

GRANMA CITTA The sanctuary of Pollena Trocchia is bigger than the cathedral of Palermo!

Pause

GIAMMARCO That’s new! Who told her that bullshit?

They all look at each other in silence.

229

GIAMMARCO It can’t be, dear granny! It must be a mistake. Because Palermo’s cathedral is bigger than the sanctuary of Polly an’ a Troyka, right? Go on…

GRANMA CITTA The sanctuary of Pollena Trocchia…

Pause

GRANMA CITTA …which is not smaller than the cathedral of Palermo…

GIAMMARCO Then you don’t hear well, dear granny, let me explain it again. Turn on your hearing aid ‘cause I’m giving you the headline: THE CATHEDRAL OF PALERMO IS BIGGER THAN THE SANCTUARY OF POLLY AN’ A TROYKA. Understood?

MIMMO But what the fuck do you care? Tell her yes! Put your head down, so we’ll get out!

GIAMMARCO Ah, I should be shitty sludge like you, right? Grandma Citta, listen to me: that pretty face of your nephew, Mimmo, told me to pretend you’re right!

MIMMO I didn’t say anything, you’re nothing but a liar…

ROSALIA Let’s do this!

GIAMMARCO What?

ROSALIA They’re the same size!

Pause

GIAMMARCO

Whore of an Eve, Rosalia, they’re not the same! Why? Because it’s common knowledge all over the world that the cathedral of Palermo is bigger than the sanctuary of Pollyanatroyka. (To Grandma Citta) Go on…

GRANMA CITTA It’s bigger because it’s up North!

230

ROSALIA It could be that Grandma Citta’s right, because when my husband writes me from up North, he always tells me: Rosalia, here everything is much bigger!

GRANMA CITTA Big, big, huge, the sanctuary of Pollena Trocchia is so big, but so big that it contains all the cathedrals in the world…

GIAMMARCO Hold on! You’re right, dear granny! It’s true: the cathedral of Palermo is the same size as the sanctuary of Pollyanatroyka, right? But… Palermo is in Serie A! (To Mimmo, excited) Isn’t it right, sludge?

MIMMO Right, wimp!

GIAMMARCO Do you remember the last match?

MIMMO Why, wasn’t I sitting in the Curva Nord?

GIAMMARCO Palermo vs Triestina

MIMMO And who was it that passed the ball?

GIAMMARCO Gasbarroni?

ROSALIA Filippini!

GIAMMARCO Right, Filippini!

MIMMO And who scored?

GIAMMARCO Uncle Toni!

MIMMO I remember that play: Filippini took the ball and crossed it to him…

231

Mimmo, shouting like a madman, retells the Palermo vs Triestina soccer game that immortalized the Palermo soccer team in Serie A.

MIMMO

Toni stops the ball, puts it on his head, and he looks at it with both eyes so much so that he almost becomes a little cross-eyed. He was so fabulous he looked like a seal… He was so good they called him Cabubi106. (He imitates a seal) Arf, arf, arf!!! He puts the ball on his shoulders, he puts it on his belly, he lets it slip onto his feet and moves it here, there, up, and down… Down on the right and on the left, on the right and on the left, he stops it, he passes it to this, passes it to this other guy, nutmegs the opponent, he looses his marker, he stops the ball and passes it to another guy…

106 Luca Toni was lovingly nicknamed Cabubi after the magic flying camel Kaboobie, which appeared in the 1967 American cartoon Shazzan and was broadcasted in Italy in the early 1980s by few private TV channels. This nickname was given to Toni because his head-plays were legendary.

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The Ball’s Dance

Everyone seems to have gone mad: they lay their pastries on the ground and, while in a line, they start to mime the game like real football-fanatics, kicking an imaginary ball. The dribbles, the crosses, the feints, and the goals of the Carollos make eyes turn. The ball bounces and all hell breaks loose.

MIMMO

(Throwing Rosalia the ball) Boom! He didn’t understand anything anymore because he had a thick layer of dust all over his face and he remembered when he was little and his father used to say: “Look, if you don’t study I won’t let you go play at Sunday School.” But he, in that moment thought: “I don’t give a shit, now I make the rules.” And passed the ball to another guy…

Rosalia passes the ball to Aunt Lucia.

MIMMO (cont.)

He was phenomenal! They called him Maradona, because with all his footwork he’d never let you understand where the ball was.

Aunt Lucia bounces the ball with her hands and Mimmo, angry, addresses Giammarco

MIMMO (cont.)

What the fuck is she doing? Take that ball away from her!!!! Take that ball away, Giammarco!!!

Aunt Lucia, amused, passes the ball from one hand to the other.

233

MIMMO (cont.) Aunt Lucia, not like that, that’s basketball… No, but what are you doing, it’s insulting! Pass the ball to Giammarco, come on! This game is not for girls, Aunt Lucia!

Aunt Lucia throws the ball to Giammarco

MIMMO (cont.)

Giammarco, pass me that ball! Pass me that ball or I’ll slaughter you! Now I’ll show you how to play… And pass me that fucking ball Giammarco!!!

Still in a row, the team backs up following the trajectory of the ball. Mimmo winds up to kick and clobbers the ball: the ball bounces off Giammarco’s butt and hits the forehead of Grandma Citta who stretches up and pulls down to head-butt it and the ball can’t be stopped, not even with grenades: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine… the whole thing looks like a pinball machine. The three players exchange spots and attack in midfield. Aunt Lucia sings the national anthem while Rosalia, wearing her slippers, tries to catch the ball to keep it from going into the goal and scoring a goooal. They’re possessed, these world champions. The ball is alive and, crazy with happiness, it bounces, it falls down, it goes up, it slides along their backs, it rolls between their legs, it twirls, it takes off, it glides… the ball dances, it spins on their bodies and when it flies off a window, the players go back to form a line along the proscenium, and, lifting their gaze to the sky, they notice the full moon.

ROSALIA

Look, it flew away!

234

Pause

AUNT LUCIA It’s late!

Pause

MIMMO Should we go out?

GIAMMARCO Let’s go out!

Quickly, at the front of the stage, everyone picks up their pastry.

MIMMO

(Noticing that Giammarco has his package) Give me my pastry, Giammarco!

GIAMMARCO (Pointing at the package in Mimmo’s hands)

Isn’t that your pastry, Mimmuzzo?

MIMMO No. (Pointing at the package in Giammarco’s hands with his finger) It’s this one!

GIAMMARCO You’re wrong: that’s your pastry and this is my pastry! Rosalia, spruce up that Luis XIV bow and let’s go, it’s getting late!

MIMMO Hold up, Rosa! Giammarco, I’m telling you that the pastry you’ve got in your hands is mine!

GIAMMARCO No, Mimmo, you idiot: this is my pastry and that one you have in your hands is your pastry. Rosalia, activate that four-wheel-drive and let’s clear out!

MIMMO You move, I’ll slaughter you! First off: you’re the idiot. Second item: where did you get this pastry?

235

GIAMMARCO (Pointing at a point near Mimmo’s slippers)

Here!

MIMMO And my slippers, the ones I took off before, when I put on my shoes, they are here, aren’t they?

GIAMMARCO Ya, that’s right!

MIMMO So, you now find yourself in my spot, correct? And therefore the pastry is mine!

GIAMMARCO No, Mimmuzzo, the slippers are yours, but the pastry is mine. Rosalia, gang, let’s move!

MIMMO Stop there, Rosa! What, Giammarco, you, before, where you standing here? (Referring to the spot where Giammarco is standing at the moment)

GIAMMARCO I don’t remember!

MIMMO Ah, you don’t remember! Let’s see if Rosalia remembers it: Rosalia, your brother-in-law, before the soccer game, was he standing here?

ROSALIA ‘Nzuú!107

MIMMO ‘Nzuú! Did you hear Rosalia? And where was he standing?

ROSALIA (Signals, with her head, the place that is currently occupied by Grandma Citta)

In grandma’s place!

107 This is a combination of a noise and a movement meaning “no,” a gesture commonly found in Sicily. The noise is a palatoalveolar click, described by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as a double barred pipe (ǂ). This is a type of click in the non-pulmonic consonants family as described in the Interactive IPA App by Paul Meier. The movement accompanying the sound quickly brings the tongue to the hard palate while the top of the head inclines backwards and the chin is brought forward before restoring to a neutral position.

236

MIMMO In grandma’s place, right! And where was grandma?

ROSALIA

In your place!

MIMMO In my place! There! Now everything’s accounted for: Giammarco, you stuck yourself in my place and Grandma Citta took yours. That’s why you’ve got my pastry now, because I, before, had put it on the floor near my slippers.

GIAMMARCO Should we change places, Mimmuzzo?

MIMMO Ya!

GIAMMARCO It was that crazy ball’s fault! When I ran after Uncle Toni’s ball I swerved off and got lost on the way, Mimmuzzo!

MIMMO See, you got it! Now, to get back on the right path, you have to shift this side and Grandma Citta has to shift that way. (To Grandma Citta, who is slow to move) Grandma Citta, let’s go, move!

Giammarco, Mimmo, and Grandma Citta go back to their initial positions.

GIAMMARCO Yes, now I remember: I was between Grandma Citta and Aunt Lucia.

MIMMO See you’re smart after all!

GIAMMARCO There! Finally the misunderstanding is solved, can we go out? Come on, Rosalia, show us the way!

MIMMO

Nooo! What show us the way? Stop there Rosa, ‘cause your brother-in-law still acts like he knows nothing! We can’t go out, Giammarco, because you must give me my pastry first!

237

GIAMMARCO What, are you accusing me of stealing your pastry?

ROSALIA

I’ve got an idea: let’s do this!

MIMMO and GIAMMARCO What?

ROSALIA Let’s put all the pastries on the floor again!

MIMMO Right! Now I’ll give a demonstration!

Everyone puts his or her pastry on the ground.

MIMMO

(To Giammarco) Let’s recap: what did I say before?

GIAMMARCO Should we go?

MIMMO And what did you answer?

GIAMMARCO Let’s go!

MIMMO And we all picked up our pastries, right?

They bend down to get their pastries. Pause

ROSALIA (Looking sadly at the floor)

There are no more pastries on the floor…

MIMMO And so?

238

ROSALIA There wasn’t a mistake, Mimmo, we all have pastries in our hands; no one’s left without!

MIMMO What does this have to do with anything, Rosalia? Even you don’t get this demonstration: it’s been half an hour that I’ve been telling you this pastry is not mine…

GRANDMA CITTA (Indicating the package in Mimmo’s hands)

It’s mine!

Pause

MIMMO (Suddenly turning to an audience member)

What are you looking at?

GIAMMARCO (To Mimmo, indignant)

You stole grandma’s pastry! Shame on you!

MIMMO What? I stole the pas… I didn’t steal pastries from anyone, half-wit! Grandma Citta, is this pastry yours?

GRANDMA CITTA Yes.

MIMMO I took it by mistake, grandma, when, earlier, I was in your spot, you understand? Come on, take your pastry, here!

Mimmo returns the pastry to grandma and, in exchange, he receives the package she took from the floor when, immediately after the soccer game, she found herself in Giammarco’s spot. Now Mimmo has Giammarco’s package in his hands and he doesn’t know what’s inside it. None of them know what’s in the parcels belonging to the others, also because the pastries are wrapped in the same kind of paper and they are all tied with the same bow.

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GIAMMARCO (To Mimmo)

There! Now you’ve got your blessed pastry. We can go out, folks!

MIMMO (With a scream of desperation)

Nooo!!! This is not mine, do you get it or not? Grandma Citta has her pastry, Rosalia has her pastry, Aunt Lucia has her pastry…

GIAMMARCO … Giammarco has his pastry…

MIMMO Giammarco doesn’t have his pastry! (Exhausted) He’s making my skull explode and blood is rising up to my cerebellum! With him we have to try a different approach, because he’s too idiotic. (In the calm voice one uses to talk to crazy people) Giammarco, listen, speak to me: the pastry you hold tight in your fist is yours, right?

GIAMMARCO Ya.

MIMMO Then, satisfy my curiosity: what’s inside there?

Pause

GIAMMARCO (Gambling on the answer)

A profiterole!

Pause

MIMMO (Taken aback)

And satisfy me another one: what flavor is this profiterole?

Pause

GIAMMARCO (Gambling on the answer)

Coffee!

MIMMO What?

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Pause

GIAMMARCO Coffee!

MIMMO Coffee! (He laughs, satisfied) Unwrap the pastry and show me what’s inside!

Giammarco starts to unwrap the package.

MIMMO

Wait! Are you in a hurry? Say it again: what flavor is this profiterole?

GIAMMARCO Coffee!

MIMMO Coffee! (Extremely serious) Giammarco, listen: as soon as this profiterole turns out to be non coffee-flavored, I’ll unscrew your head, put it under my feet, and dance on top of it. Understood? (Pause) Open it!

Giammarco opens the parcel: inside there’s a chocolate profiterole.

MIMMO (Satisfied)

Show it to everyone!

Giammarco shows the profiterole to everyone.

MIMMO

So, what flavor is this profiterole?

GIAMMARCO Coffee!

MIMMO And why is it so dark?

GIAMMARCO Because there’s chocolate mousse on the outside and, inside, there’s coffee!

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MIMMO Then, since you insist, let’s do something else: take a piece of profiterole, put it in your mouth and tell us all what flavor it is!

Giammarco takes a piece of profiterole and contently chews on it.

MIMMO

What flavor is it?

GIAMMARCO Coffee!

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The Little Binge

Mimmo has been trumped and takes it in as if the roof of the house had fallen on his head. He doesn’t react. Stupefied, he watches as Giammarco destroys his profiterole and one by one swallows one chunk after the other. The bastard feeds, eying his relatives, while chocolate dribbles from his mouth like the slobber of a dog gnawing on a bone. Rosalia livens up and, tiptoeing on her slippers, unwraps the package and begins to peck at a little “cassata” pastry covered in icing; Aunt Lucia undresses a “sfinge di San Giuseppe” pastry; Grandma Citta licks a cannoli; Mimmo apathetically unties the bow and unwraps a squashed croissant without any filling. Ashamed, he’s about to hide that misery in his mouth when Giammarco tears the croissant from his hands and quickly steals all the other pastries. He amasses them, mixes them, squashes them into a single soggy mass and gets ready to devour them: he loosens his tie, stretches his legs, throws his butt out to not dirty his suit and dives face first into the amalgam of custard ricotta cinnamon chocolate hard crust candied fruits. Then he throws up and cries.

GIAMMARCO

I’m thirsty!

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In a corner, stands a big plastic water container. Everyone looks at it with a sense of guilt for fear of damaging it with their eyes.

GIAMMARCO

I’m thirsty!

Pause

ROSALIA Today isn’t a water day!108

GIAMMARCO But tomorrow is!

GRANDMA CITTA I’m thirsty too!

AUNT LUCIA Me too!

ROSALIA Let’s drink!

Mimmo unscrews the cap of the container, fills the cap with water and gives it to his relatives.

MIMMO

(A concession and a plea) Only one cap!

108 In Sicily, water is often rationed due to shortages. During water emergencies, “water days” alternate with non-water days. During water days, a steady water supply reaches citizens’ homes, and allowing them to stock up on water for use during non-water days. In extreme drought, a water day could occur every three days.

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The Water Miracle

In religious silence, Grandma Citta, Rosalia, Giammarco, and Aunt Lucia get in a line and, without wasting even a drop, drink that little bit of water that Mimmo gives them. As if it were blessed by the Holy Ghost. It’s sacred and in short supply because there’s a drought. But they are thirsty, poor devils: Grandma Citta stretches her back, Rosalia takes off her slippers, Giammarco undoes his tie and Mimmo, overexcited and rebellious, in the blink of an eye tosses the cap aside and sprays water everywhere as if it were champagne. It’s a celebration. They don’t give a damn about their squandering and they joke around: the women splash water under their skirts and the men spit it in each other’s face. From the container a waterfall spouts that pours on a heap of drunken bodies. The water comes out in spurts. It gushes out. It penetrates the pores of their skin, it caresses them and it slaps them, it undresses them and it plunges them into the sea. They are naked and worn out. Without any more deadweight, the relieved relatives float on waves. Our gaze desecrates their naked bodies but Aunt Lucia is not ashamed as she advances towards us with drenched skin and bones.

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Lucia of the Sun

AUNT LUCIA

Sono pronta! Usciamo. Rosalia? La mamma è pronta! Sbrigati! Mimmo? Mi? Let’s go, I’m ready! Mi senti? Giammarco, prendi Grandma Citta che la portiamo al mare.109 (Dying with laughter) Jee Mimmo, I said it in Italian! Let’s go out in Italian! The sun’s outside! Don’t you see how beautiful this sun is? It’s big, the sun! It’s yellow! Come on! Rosalia come here immediately! Come on, I’ll even put on some lipstick, red! (Mimmo wrings out his wet undershirt and puts it on) Like this, Mimmo, all wet, yes, what the fuck do we care if they’re looking at us, let them look, we’re going out as we are, all wet! (Rosalia puts her slippers back on) In any case the wind outside will dry us up! Jee… wind! Mimmo you hear? Jee… wind!

Aunt Lucia dresses quickly and encourages the others to do the same.

AUNT LUCIA (cont.) Come on, be quick, that the sun’s setting! It’s waiting for us. You hear me? (To the audience) And you don’t go away - we’re coming. (To the relatives) Open the doors, open the windows, open everything up - we’ve got to go out, now! Not tomorrow! Tomorrow is too late. We can’t miss this train. We have to go out now because I can’t stand being in here anymore…

109 Trans.: “I’m ready! Let’s go out. Rosalia? Mom’s ready! Hurry up! Mimmo? Mi? Let’s go, I’m ready! You hear? Giammarco, get Grandma Citta, we’ll bring her to the beach.”

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AUNT LUCIA (cont.) We’ve got to leave this harbor full of stone ships. The sun’s out! Don’t you see how beautiful this sun is? (To the audience) The Carollo family is coming!!! Dancing dancing: the mambo mambo!

This time the Carollos are determined to cross the border and taken by a frantic coming and going, they jump on puddles as they pick up their rags drenched in water and quickly get dressed.

MIMMO

Aunt Lucia, where are we going?

AUNT LUCIA Mimmo, don’t you see how beautiful this sun is?

MIMMO (To the audience)

This is my aunt and I love her with all my heart!

AUNT LUCIA Because I’m not mute. I can speak, I can speak in Italian. Listen, Giammarco: usciamo110?

GIAMMARCO Right, Aunt Lucia. You are the best!

AUNT LUCIA Run Rosalia, and I’ll buy you a pair of red heels! And for Giammarco we’ll buy a mountain of pastries with whipped cream, with chocolate ricotta…

GIAMMARCO The sea, Aunt Lucia! It’s blue, the sea! Buy me the sea - I want to eat it!

AUNT LUCIA We’ll bring Grandma Citta to the beach. And we’ll buy her a big lifesaver, because she doesn’t know how to swim! Come on, I’ll even put on lipstick! You hear? 110 Translation: “should we go out”?

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MIMMO I love you with all my heart!

AUNT LUCIA I’m leaving! Hurry up - I’m leaving! Open the doors, open the windows. We have to get out now, not tomorrow! I can’t stand being in here anymore. The sun’s outside! It’s yellow, the sun! We can’t miss this train! Let’s go! Giammarco? Get Grandma Citta! We have to buy the lifesaver. The sea is big! It’s blue! We have to get water! Did we run out of water, Mimmo? We have to buy pastries for Giammarco and red heels for Rosalia. We’ve run out of everything. Come on, hurry up… Usciamo. Let’s go out in Italian!

Aunt Lucia, Rosalia, Giammarco and Mimmo, lined up and drenched, are ready to go out. The only one missing is Grandma Citta. She stays in the back, half dressed and unable to move forward. She is tiny, grandma, a luminescent dot in the middle of the sea.

MIMMO

Grandma Citta, it’s you we’re waiting for. Move a little, come on!

Suddenly, grandma doubles over in pain and contorts her mouth without making a sound. The others, frightened, run towards her.

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The Big Sleep

VOICES What’s the matter, Grandma Citta? What happened? But why is she acting like this? Hey, are we opening up this window? She’s gasping for air, Mimmo! Come on, Grandma Citta, we’ve got to go out! Call her, Aunt Lucia! Hey, don’t you see it got dark? Grandma Citta! Hey, can’t you hear me? It hurts! We’ve got to go out, grandma, get moving - it’s dark! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it’s dark! Fan her, Giammarco! Well, should I fan her with my shirt or not? She can’t breathe… Mimmo? It hurts! Outside there are really amaaaazing things! Grandma Citta! Fan her so she can breathe! Grandma Citta! Call her, Aunt Lucia? Grandma Citta! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it’s dark… Grandma Citta?! Grandma Citta?!

Grandma Citta dies standing up. She hunches over while breathing her last breath, but does not fall. Hers is a death in dialect: absurd and vulgar.

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The four survivors, swerving, come towards us. The sun has now set and the threshold where they stand unperturbed is the proscenium of the theatre holding them prisoners. They open their mouths wide but their scream is a silent one. Or, rather, a yawn.

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The Butchery

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“When your dog has served you for many years and must die; when you want to dispose of him or he has sinned; when his skin is covered with scabs and tiny animals, his ears frayed and bleeding, his nose always dry, and he drags his hind legs, abandoned at his side, like a dead thing; or when his sight has become intolerable to you – do not entrust this being, who was your friend, to a stranger’s hands; not even to your brother’s hands: he does not know him as well as you; don’t let him sense death is coming; save a last gesture of respect for him and give him death yourself; call him to a corner of the garden, give him a last bone to gnaw, stroke his head with one hand and, with the other, without his noticing…”

TOMMASO LANDOLFI from Le Due Zitelle

translation by Francesca Spedalieri

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In people’s faces, I’ve seen eyes semi-hidden under lids like lizards’ eyes; eyes veined with blood like horses’ eyes; and eyes bright and wet like cows’ eyes, filled with heart-clenching intrinsic sweetness. They were humans ripped from themselves, slaughtered by an inane life. Scared and dangerous animals slowly losing their kinship to humanity because of their profound ability to partake in suffering. The Butchery is the story of one of these families of slaughter meat, with its morbid ties, its hysteric and paralyzing flights, its stagnant air smelling of smoke. The atmosphere is festive, seemingly joyous, it is a ceremony staged to absolve a woman from sin: to clean a stain; to fix the damage; to take away dishonor from her bastard child. Nina is pregnant. Her heart is lost inside an enormous body deformed by pain and sin. Nina bears the mark. She is infected, branded. Her swollen belly is the epicenter around which her destiny unfolds, the thing against which her three brothers, unable to understand, unleash the rage of losers. Their existence rests in their appearance. Sex, the body, territory, and property are the only motives that generate, through terrific bestiality, their full nature of fangs and claws. How to turn towards their world of beasts? How to enter the head of a dog without catching rabies? How to enter inside a pig and see things in the mud the way he sees them? Three brothers and one sister wait for a ritual to take place; to wipe away an unbearable stench of filth. The wedding is ready: the priest, the church, the guests, the refreshments, the band, the flowers, the son of a bitch…

EMMA DANTE

introduction to The Butchery Carnezzeria premiered in November 2002 at the Teatro dell’Arte in Milan. It was produced by the CRT Centro di Ricerca per il Teatro. The production won the 2003 UBU Award. The play was written for and performed by Manuela Lo Sicco (Nina), Gaetano Bruno (Paride), Sabino Civilleri (Toruccio), and Vincenzo Di Michele (Ignazio).

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CHARACTERS:

NINA

PARIDE, the eldest brother TORUCCIO, the middle brother IGNAZIO, the youngest brother

254

An altar in the dark. As in a religious procession, TORUCCIO and IGNAZIO enter on stage with NINA sitting on their shoulders. PARIDE follows the three. NINA is wearing a wedding dress, a sash with a black cross wrapped around her pregnant belly. Her hands clasp a bouquet of white daisies. She seems dead. They walk in religious silence as PARIDE, holding her veil outstretched, lights the way with a torch. NINA’s corpse is lowered to the ground. Her upright, hardened body looks like a mannequin made of meat. The three brothers/priests prepare the altar that is framed by the stage like a religious shrine. They wear heavy fur coats and Sicilian flat caps (coppolas). They move in jerks like animals in a cage. As the brothers cautiously decorate the sacred place with luminarie,111 the bride slowly slumps to the ground. She collapses three times and each time one of her brothers lifts her back up. The curious eyes of the audience/wedding guests begin to catch details of the set that slowly emerge from the dark. A canopy of shining fairy lights frames the whole shrine. A white cross hangs in mid-air. A beautiful floral arrangement becomes visible in the background.

111 Metallic street illuminations used during Italian folk and religious festivals.

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A strip of cemetery candles delineates the proscenium line. On one side, mid-stage, a throne-like chair appears, its lavishness befitting an arrogant Sicilian matron. Above it, a suspended half-crown made of interwoven lights and flowers. A fragile and helpless child, NINA the idiot will sit on this throne after her enchanted awakening worthy of a fairytale princess. The altar is ready, the ceremony begins. The three brothers take off their hats as a sign of respect.

PARIDE

(His voice high and joyous) Wake up, Nina, we’re here!

NINA opens her eyes and lets out a big yawn, then she looks around in amazement.

NINA

Ooooh!

PARIDE You like it?

NINA Ooooh!

TORUCCIO See how pretty?

PARIDE Sit down!

IGNAZIO Look what we’ve hung over the chair!

TORUCCIO Fresh flowers there, Ninuzza112, freshly picked! 112 Diminutive: little Nina. A term of endearment.

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NINA (Sniffing the flowers in the air)

Geee!!!

TORUCCIO So you can rest smelling all sweet.

PARIDE Aren’t you tired?

TORUCCIO Sit down Nina - we’re here!

PARIDE Nina, did you hear Toruccio?

Pause

PARIDE Sit down, nicuzza mia,113 - we’re finally here!

NINA Is it here, the meeting?

Fascinated by the audience, she dashes towards the proscenium.

PARIDE

(He blocks Nina, pulling her by the veil) Where are you going? Sit down!

NINA responds to the command and sits.

NINA

(Referring to the spectators-intruders) Are they all here for me?

The three brothers exchange glances without replying. Pause

113 Nicuzza mia: “my little darling.” Endearing.

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With a smile on their lips, they put their hats back on.

PARIDE We’re coming right back!

The three start to leave but NINA follows them.

PARIDE (To Nina)

Where are you going?

NINA I’m coming with you!

PARIDE You can’t come with us. You sit here! Rest. What, aren’t you tired?

The three try to leave, but NINA follows them.

TORUCCIO What if your husband comes and doesn’t find anyone, what would we do, huh? You have to tell him we’re coming right back!

IGNAZIO Wait here like a good girl!

The three are about to run away, but Nina follows them.

TORUCCIO Careful! You’re stepping on the veil! What, you want him to find you with a wrinkled veil? No, right? Go on, sit down!

TORUCCIO wraps the bride in her veil like a sausage and throws her on the chair. NINA starts to suffocate inside the tulle casing. She pushes. She wants to get out. She hits her knees violently with the bouquet of white daisies which drop their petals all at once. The petals fall to her feet

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and NINA frees herself from the white net.

NINA (Whining)

I want to go home!

The brothers look at the audience and they see them return their look. The three exchange worried glances. PARIDE mutters something in TORUCCIO’s ear. TORUCCIO whispers something in NINA’s ear.

NINA

(To TORUCCIO) I don’t care! I don’t want to stay here, period!

TORUCCIO What do you mean you don’t want to stay here! We’ve done so much to make you happy: look at all these people! Look at all the lights! We had to hook up the place with high voltage current. It cost us a fortune. What, are we going to waste all this electricity and show nothing to your guests? They’re all here for you, do you get it or not that we’re only waiting for him to begin? And then: the flowers, the guests, the ceremony, the wedding cake, the fireworks, the honeymoon… Be a good girl, Nina, don’t make us look bad!

NINA I want to go back home! I don’t want to stay here. I don’t like this place. Why didn’t we meet him at the village? There there’s sheep, and strawberries, and clean air, and mountains… Where did you bring me? (Indicating the spectators-intruders) Who are these people? Why are they looking at me? What do they want? (Hysterically) Take me back home!!!

NINA hits TORUCCIO on the head with her bouquet. Furious, he moves away and reciprocates IGNAZIO’s complicit glance that invites him to keep calm. TORUCCIO whispers something in PARIDE’s ear. The brothers plot animatedly. Without letting NINA or the audience understand their designs, they improvise a little piece of theatre to amuse her.

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PARIDE snatches the hats from his brother’s heads and, together NINA with his own, he begins to juggle them. Initially, NINA laughs, following the rotating hats with her eyes, but after a while the game tires her and she starts whining again. Their second act consists of organizing another escape attempt: an imaginary motorcycle ride. From his pocket, TORUCCIO takes out a kazoo, NINA’s favorite instrument. He blows into it, imitating the sound of a motorcycle engine starting. NINA chuckles, and when the three brothers mount the motorcycle, ready to speed away, NINA also straddles the seat of an invisible motorcycle, complacently following them. The engines shut off and the three brothers, exhausted, wipe away their sweat. NINA inches closer to the audience, curiously observing the people sitting in front of her. They are so different from her brothers these guests. She’s ecstatic. She’d like to talk to them, to touch them…

NINA

Is the meeting here for sure?

She looks around and for a moment she hops upstage, turning her back to everyone. She raises her eyes towards the ceiling and deeply inhales the smell of the flowers.

NINA What beautiful colored lights! What beautiful sweet-smelling flowers you brought! (To her brothers, talking about the audience) Are they all here for me?

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As she turns to talk to them, she notices that her brothers are about to sneak away.

NINA

(To her brothers) Well, why don’t you take off your coats? It’s hot! Sweet Lord, it’s burning! Maybe if I take this synthetic thing off my head… (She takes off her wedding veil) They make them all with plasticky fabric these wedding veils. While we wait for him, we can make ourselves at home, right? Paride, Toruccio…take off your coats and put them here on the chair. Oh! This chair is all dusty. Wait, I’ll dust it off, so your furs won’t get dirty, there!

While she dusts the chair with her wedding veil, NINA sings a strophe from Luigi Tenco’s song “Amore, amore mio.”

NINA “Amore, amore, amore… io non ho niente al mondo altro che mille ore da dedicare a te…” “My love, my love, my love… I have nothing in this world except a thousand hours to dedicate to you…”

Resigned to their plight, the three brothers take off their coats. NINA plucks up her courage and runs to the edge of the proscenium line to speak directly to her guests.

NINA

We’re from Roccapalumba, near Palermo.

She takes a picture out of a hidden pocket sewn inside the sash marked with a black cross that wraps around her waist and protects her nine-month pregnant belly.

NINA

(Indicating the picture) This is our home, perched on this chunk of mountain! The village is nearby; (Still indicating the picture) it’s this dot you see behind the house… In winter, the air is cool, effervescent and when it’s really cold we light the wood stove. It’s spring in this picture and everything is bright. We went on a long journey to come all the way here and I don’t

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NINA (cont.) really know how to take the same road backwards. We took the ferry. The ferry went through the Messina Strait and I waved to the little Madonna of the pier that became smaller and smaller as we moved away. From the ferry I saw the fish that swim and breathe in the water. But how can they breathe in water? Ha ha ha! (She shrugs) And there were seagulls too! Geee….how many seagulls! They flew above the sea and above our heads and they cried and cried… How did they sound, Paride? (Paride imitates the seagulls and Nina laughs) Ha ha ha! My brothers arranged this wedding! They take care of me! It’s true!

NINA begins to take out the stack of photographs she holds inside the sash.

NINA

My mom, the day of her wedding! This dress I’m wearing was my mom’s. But the thing is, when I put it on the zipper didn’t close because I keep getting fatter. Ha ha ha! Maybe it’s the pasta! I like my pasta with tomato sauce. When I make it, Paride cleans his plate and then licks it too. Ha ha ha! What a pig!!! (Another picture) Grandma Carmela! Geee… how mean she was! If you’d take something from the pantry: bam! She’d whack your fingers. She’d lock up candies, shortbread cookies, chocolate… (Another picture) Our grandparents at the produce market: they had a fruits and vegetables stand in Palermo. (Another picture) Mom and dad dancing! (She thinks) They are all dead. That’s why I brought them. So we’re all here!

Nina attempts something like a dance step while she cradles the pictures she’s just taken out of her sash.

NINA

(Another picture) Paride, when he was little. Wasn’t he cute? Here he’s wearing his school uniform. The sleeves are too short for him, because Paride’s arms are too long. Always a problem to dress him, because blazers, coats, fur coats… they all made him look like a scarecrow! Ha ha ha!

PARIDE What are you saying, Nina?

NINA Don’t get mad, Paride dear! I’m joking! Look how cute you were holding your favorite book. (To the audience) He liked math, he always studied it! (In a serious tone) Paride knows everything! Ask him anything, he knows it. Paride, how much is four times four?

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PARIDE Forty-four?

The brothers laugh

NINA (Another picture)

Ignazio and Toruccio holding hands: Ignazio is the smaller one, next to the Christmas tree. Toruccio was missing his front teeth and since he was ashamed, he held a hand in front of his mouth!

The brothers come closer. They are curious. NINA, excited, shows them the pictures.

PARIDE

Where did you get these pictures, Nina? We haven’t seen them in years.

TORUCCIO Centuries, Paride!

NINA There’s so many of them.

PARIDE And why aren’t you showing us all of them?

PARIDE, TORUCCIO, and Ignazio take possession of the pictures, grabbing them from their sister’s hands.

NINA

I wasn’t in these pictures. I wasn’t born yet. But I’ve become attached to them because, even if I wasn’t there, my mom and my dad were…

PARIDE Good girl, Ninuzza, you brought them all! Even the ones from that Carnival party… (To TORUCCIO) Talè ccà! 114

TORUCCIO It’s me, dressed up like Pierrot. Won a trophy, I did. You remember, Paride? 114 IPA: tʌlɛ’ ka! Meaning: Look here!.

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PARIDE Se115, a big one! (Mocking him) A big, hard one you won!!!

IGNAZIO Look: it’s grandpa, bless his soul! He always wore his hair pulled back with Linetti pomade, do you remember?

PARIDE Grandpa Paride! I’m his namesake.

TORUCCIO Look what I found, Paride! Our cousins from Germany. What were their names?

PARIDE Hans, Raus and the other one, what’s his name Ignazio?

IGNAZIO Ugo Von de Bruggenstein.

The brothers look at each other and almost die laughing.

TORUCCIO and PARIDE

Ugo Von de Bruggenstein.

PARIDE Right: with the long last name! Good memory Ignazieddu:116 “The group’s historian”!

IGNAZIO Paride, look, aunt Nunù… your favorite!

TORUCCIO The loony!

PARIDE (Speaking directly to the audience)

My aunt Nunù had very confused ideas about life, except when it came to: breakfast. She always said that anything can be absurd when it comes to eating, except for breakfast that has to be rich, nutritious, and abundant. In fact I remember that every morning at six thirty sharp, because she was punctual my aunt, truth be told…

115 IPA: ‘se Meaning: Yeah; uh-uh; right. 116 Little Ignazio. A term of endearment.

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TORUCCIO A Swiss clock!

PARIDE …. at six thirty, she would round us all up and she’d bring us to the chicken shed. She’d line us up and selected freshly laid eggs. She’d put an egg in our left hand, a toothpick in the right hand, tum tum tum: tiny pirtùsu,117 and suck it up! Every morning at six thirty… I hated my aunt!

TORUCCIO Don’t get mad, Paride, the crazy bat’s dead!

IGNAZIO Look: mom and dad on their wedding day when they had their picture taken under the Garibaldi statue.

NINA How beautiful mom was! Do I look like her, Paride? Am I as pretty as she?

PARIDE

You’re prettier!

NINA Se!118 But you always tell me I look like a monkey!

PARIDE And who said monkeys are ugly?

PARIDE strokes her cheek.

TORUCCIO bursts out laughing uncontrollably while he waves a picture in the air. PARIDE and IGNAZIO cannot see the picture clearly.

PARIDE

(Trying to stop the picture in TORUCCIO’s hands from moving) Quit moving it! If you don’t, I can’t see what it is, you idiot! Stop moving it, I said! (He rips it from his hands and studies it) And who’s this?

117 IPA pronunciation: pirtu:’soɚ Meaning: a hole. 118 IPA: ‘se Meaning: Yeah; uh-uh; right.

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TORUCCIO What you mean “who’s this”? You don’t recognize it: Ignazio dressed like a girl!! With a little pink dress and a bow in his hair! Take that picture away, Paride, I can’t look at it, it’s obscene!

TORUCCIO continues to laugh. PARIDE looks at the picture more intently.

PARIDE

You’re wrong, Toruccio, that’s your cousin Graziella on our hobby horse!

TORUCCIO It’s Ignazio!

PARIDE It’s Graziella!

IGNAZIO grabs the picture from PARIDE and, after examining it, grins and laughs in satisfaction. His laughter sounds like a combustion engine. Everyone stares at him, shocked.

TORUCCIO

What’s happening to him?

PARIDE He’s warming up the chopper!

TORUCCIO He’s about to take off…

PARIDE Talé…

TORUCCIO He’s gaining altitude!

PARIDE Now that the engine’s going, Ignazio, let us come on board: what do you see up there?

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IGNAZIO (Showing the picture to the audience)

It’s Toruccio!

No one laughs anymore, except for IGNAZIO who continues to wave the picture in the faces of the audience.

PARIDE

Wow! You keep us hanging, Ignazio, you make us believe that you know God knows what, and after half an hour you spit out this gigantic pile of shit?

He grabs the picture from his hands and shows it to NINA in a threatening way.

PARIDE Nina, who is this?

NINA Ignazio?

TORUCCIO (Feeling relieved, with hilarity)

You see, it’s Ignazio!

PARIDE Shut it down, you know your sister’s half retarded!

TORUCCIO Idiots always speak the truth, Paride!

PARIDE I’m telling you it’s Graziella!

IGNAZIO (Taking the picture from PARIDE’s hands, he turns to the audience and speaks

confidently) This here is Toruccio, dressed like a girl, with a little pink dress and a little bow!

PARIDE Didn’t you get it you have to drop it?

IGNAZIO Now I can drop it!

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PARIDE And put that photo away!

IGNAZIO (He hides it behind his back)

I’m putting it away.

PARIDE When we get home, you’ve just got to burn it, do you understand me jackass?

IGNAZIO Sure I understand, Paride, do you think I’m deaf like him there? As soon as we get home, I’ll burn this fucking picture and we’re not going to talk about it anymore, all right?

TORUCCIO No! What do you mean we’re not going to talk about it anymore? You can’t just get out of it like this, Ignazieddu! Paride, sorry, would you please hold these lovely family pictures for me, since they’ve all ended up in my hands for no reason? (He gives the pictures to Paride) Thank you. Ignazio! You’ve already come to the prologue and I haven’t even given an introduction! Relax! I’m going to speak first and then, after I’m done, you wrap it up with a nice postlude, huh?

IGNAZIO

And who taught that word?

TORUCCIO I read it in a textbook. (To PARIDE) Does he think I’m ignorant, Paride?

PARIDE How could he, Toruccio? We all drank from the same fountain! Textbooks are all the same. Can’t really forget them…

TORUCCIO Right! Especially since mom used wooden spoons to help us study.

NINA Gee, how many spoons did she break on your back, Paride? Ha ha ha!!

PARIDE Shut up, you! Amuní,119 Toruccio. Just make peace with your brother and let’s not talk about it anymore! 119 IPA pronunciation: ʌmu:ni’ Meaning: Come on.

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TORUCCIO Oh, no! I’ve promised him a prologue and I can’t refuse now! After all, he’s still my brother even if he’s been insulting me for the past half hour, right?

PARIDE

Amuní, Toruccio, let it go! What the fuck do you care? Let him stew in his own juice!

TORUCCIO I’m not ignorant, Ignazio, and I’m not deaf either, not from the right and not from the left. Because, it’s not like, all of a sudden, I got struck by a lightening ear infection and I suddenly turned deaf right and left, isn’t that right Paride? And, as far as I can historically remember, I don’t recall there being in the genealogical tree of the Cuore family any surprising episodes of Parkinson disease, and, if I am shaking right now it’s just to show you that my hand is usually steady as a leaf waiting for fall. All these things said and wrapped up with Easter bows, Saint Joseph and all the damned Saints, Ignazio, you, who don’t know how to read and write, you told me that I’m wearing a little pink dress, a bow in my hair and that I am dressed like a girl. Therefore, logic would have it that you called me a “fag”!

Pause

IGNAZIO No. I didn’t say you’re a fag, Toruccio!

Pause

TORUCCIO No, huh?

IGNAZIO No.

PARIDE He didn’t call you a fag, Toruccio!

Pause

TORUCCIO Ignazio, give me that picture and let’s show everyone who’s in it, amuní!

IGNAZIO offers him the picture but he doesn’t allow TORUCCIO to take it.

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PARIDE (To TORUCCIO)

But, if he gives it to you, you have to take it, isn’t that right?

PARIDE tries to break the ice and to get TORUCCIO involved in IGNAZIO’s game. They joke around but the atmosphere is charged.

TORUCCIO

Ignazio I don’t like this game… Stop it, you’re getting on my nerves…

PARIDE Why are you getting mad, Toruccio? We’re just messing around!

TORUCCIO I said: give me the picture, Ignazio!

PARIDE Amuní, give him the photo otherwise he’s going to cry!

IGNAZIO I want to give it to him, but he doesn’t want it. Otherwise he’d have already taken it, right? It means he doesn’t deserve it.

NINA (To IGNAZIO)

Put it between his legs, Ignazio! Come on Toruccio, bend down to get it…. Ha ha ha!

NINA laughs and jokes around without understanding the gravity of the situation.

TORUCCIO

This game won’t end well, Ignazio! I keep calm, keep calm until…

IGNAZIO There, you almost had it. Gee, you’re so easily distracted!

PARIDE You’re not paying attention, Toruccio! Amuní, relax! Don’t think about it. Give me a pretty smile!

PARIDE pinches TORUCCIO’s cheek.

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TORUCCIO (Aggressively)

Take your hands off my face! Pause The three brothers suddenly become very serious. PARIDE stares at TORUCCIO first, then at IGNAZIO as if he were reproaching them. Not a sound. IGNAZIO takes courage and, clicking his tongue, makes a strange sound with his mouth. It is like a slap directed at TORUCCIO.

IGNAZIO

Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop! “Toruccio let’s play horsey!”

PARIDE Ignazio, stop it. Are you crazy?

IGNAZIO “Toruccio let’s play horsey!”

PARIDE Stop it Ignazio!

NINA “Let’s play horsey,” clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop…

PARIDE Ignazio, make your sister stop!

IGNAZIO Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

PARIDE brutally slaps IGNAZIO in the head and IGNAZIO’s hat flies off.

PARIDE

(To IGNAZIO, in a threatening voice) Get your hat!

IGNAZIO picks up the hat and puts it on. He makes the sound of a horse’s

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trot with his mouth and again directs it at TORUCCIO. NINA mechanically repeats the same sound. PARIDE slaps IGNAZIO multiple times and covers NINA’s mouth, but it is too late. Everyone, slowly, enters TORUCCIO’s memories, reliving their childhood harassments and abuses. PARIDE and IGNAZIO dance. NINA sits down, uncovers one of her breasts, and breast-feeds her still unborn child. TORUCCIO stands, alone. He clicks his tongue, suggesting the sound of his hobby horse. A time-shift chills the atmosphere. The first secret of the Cuore family emerges from an auditory tangle of voices and noises evoking the childhood home where the four young siblings lived with their parents.

NINA

“Toruccio, let’s play horsey!” Toruccio! Toruccio!

IGNAZIO “Come! Come!”

PARIDE (Imitating the voice of their father)

“Toruccio?”

TORUCCIO My name is Salvatore120!

PARIDE “Come to me!”

IGNAZIO Where’s daddy? 120 Toto’ is a shortened form for Salvatore. Toruccio is a form of endearment for Toto’.

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TORUCCIO I really loved my dad! He always used to tell me: Toruccio, you are the man of the house!

NINA

“We are both men!”

TORUCCIO “Men have beards”

IGNAZIO AND PARIDE “Toruccio, dressed like a girl!”

TORUCCIO (Imitating the voice of his father)

“Toruccio, put on your mother’s shoes!”

IGNAZIO Walk my little dancer!

TORUCCIO (Uncovering his legs)

They’re real thin, daddy!

NINA Beautiful, beautiful, you’re so beautiful!

IGNAZIO and PARIDE “Fags are beautiful!”

TORUCCIO Like Jesus who’s no longer with us!

PARIDE (Imitating his father’s voice)

“Daddy loves you with all his heart.”

NINA Toruccio, dressed like a girl!

PARIDE My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of your just punishments, but most of all, because they offend you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love…

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TORUCCIO (Imitating his father’s voice)

“Give me your hands. I’ll warm them for you!”

ALL Want to see what happens if you don’t quit crying?

TORUCCIO puts one hand behind his back and begins to move it. He’s masturbating his father who is standing behind him.

TORUCCIO

Geee daddy!!! It sticks out and goes back in! (Imitating the voice of his father) “Shut up!”

ALL Boom!!! The door!

TORUCCIO It sticks out and goes back in, daddy!

NINA “Let me in!”

PARIDE Go away, Nina!

IGNAZIO Paride, close the windows!

PARIDE Where is daddy?

NINA Mom went out.

IGNAZIO Come here, come here….

NINA “Beautiful, beautiful, you’re so beautiful!”

IGNAZIO and PARIDE “Fags are so beautiful!”

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NINA Like Jesus who’s no longer with us!

PARIDE (Imitating his father’s voice)

“Give me your hands. I’ll warm them for you!”

TORUCCIO (Imitating his father’s voice)

“Toruccio, let’s play horsey!”

Toruccio moves in jerks, a movement that is halfway between that of a trotting horse and a rape. He’s in a trance.

TORUCCIO

“Daddy loves you with all his heart!” I get tired dad! Wait! I’m tired, daddy! Like Jesus who’s no longer with us! “Pray with me: My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of your just punishments…” Wait, daddy, I’m tired! “Want to see what happens if you don’t quit crying?” Wait dad, I’m tired! Let me in! Boom!!! The door! Mom went out. “Beautiful, beautiful, you’re so beautiful! Toruccio, let’s play horsey!” Men have beards! It sticks out and goes back in, daddy… Boom the door! (Screaming) Paride, you are next!

PARIDE slaps IGNAZIO on the head and his hat flies off. TORUCCIO’s memory suddenly dissolves. The action returns to the previous scene, in which the brothers were talking about the identity of the person in the photo.

PARIDE (To IGNAZIO, in a threatening voice)

Get your hat! (He shows the picture to TORUCCIO) This is Graziella!

Pause

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TORUCCIO (Pointing at IGNAZIO)

Actually, it’s that son of a cocksucker!

IGNAZIO You come here and say it to my face.

TORUCCIO Who just spoke? A fly?

IGNAZIO And who do you think you are? A lion from the forest surrounding this fucking dick-head?

PARIDE I said stop it, Ignazio! Don’t provoke him!

TORUCCIO And since when have flies been given the gift of speech?

IGNAZIO charges TORUCCIO, but PARIDE gets in the middle and prevents him from reaching TORUCCIO.

IGNAZIO

If you have the guts, you have to say it right in my ear, because, well, otherwise I don’t hear you… Your voice doesn’t go through my Eustachian tubes!

TORUCCIO (Imitating a fly) Bzzz! I hear a buzzing. Paride, can you tell me who’s disturbing my peace?

PARIDE Toruccio, drop it, I said – it’ll all go all to shit!

IGNAZIO You understand me, shithead? If you don’t zip your mouth shut, I’ll rip your asshole as big as a crate and I’ll make talk directly from the same place where your shit comes out…

TORUCCIO (To IGNAZIO)

You’ll do what? You poor, useless thing?

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IGNAZIO I’ll pulverize you!

TORUCCIO You know, Ignazieddu, you can suck it! You’re a nobody mixed with nothing! Don’t forget it: “Suck it! Suck it! Suca!121”

IGNAZIO

It wasn’t enough for dad to suck it, huh?

PARIDE Ignazio, I’ll butcher you!

IGNAZIO What, isn’t it true, Paride? Don’t we all know the truth?

PARIDE All I know is that if you keep talking, I’ll take off my belt and…

TORUCCIO He remembers everything, Ignazieddu: “The historian of the group.” But, Paride, do you think Ignazieddu remembers when dad would measure him and he’d tell us that Ignazio’s dick wouldn’t get any bigger, not even when he watched porn? It’s small, Ignazio, and it will stay small for the rest of your life!

IGNAZIO Fucking faggot!

TORUCCIO What did you say to me?

PARIDE He wasn’t talking to you!

IGNAZIO I said you’re a faggot!

TORUCCIO (Throwing himself on IGNAZIO)

What did you say to me? Livid, PARIDE goes towards NINA. He tosses the pictures on the floor. He threatens to hit her.

121 IPA: su:’kʌ Meaning: Suck it.

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PARIDE Do you fucking see what’ve done? It’s your fault they’re killing each other… if you hadn’t brought those fucking pictures, everything would have gone smoothly… damn you!

NINA

(Screaming to defend herself) Paride?

During the clash with TORUCCIO, IGNAZIO loses his balance and shoves PARIDE who in turn pushes TORUCCIO to keep him away from IGNAZIO. A vicious fight breaks out. NINA, frightened, seizes the opportunity to pick up the photos and hide behind the chair.

Finally, PARIDE immobilizes his brothers by grabbing them by the nape of their necks like a dog with her puppies

PARIDE

What are we going to do you bastards? Are we going to kill each other like dogs over this bullshit or are we going to go through with the plan? Get me that picture right now and I’ll show you I was right, go!!!

TORUCCIO and IGNAZIO search for the picture on the floor, but they can’t find it. This intensifies their rage.

IGNAZIO

It’s not here, Paride, it’s not here anymore!

PARIDE What do you mean? Look for it, it must be here!

TORUCCIO

Can’t find it, goddammit!!!

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PARIDE (Now also looking for the picture)

Where is it? Where did it go?

IGNAZIO It must be here!

PARIDE (Indicating the place where they are looking)

I threw the photos over here, where the fuck are they?

Suddenly, a light glimmers in the brothers’ eyes. Their focus shifts to NINA. She took the pictures. It’s her fault. Now it’s her turn. PARIDE asks his sister for the stack of pictures she holds in her lap. NINA gives it to him without raising her eyes.

PARIDE

(Looking for the incriminating picture among the stack) Now let’s look for that wonderful picture, this way you’ll admit, once and for all, that you were wrong because it’s not Ignazio, it’s not Toruccio, but it’s our bitch of a cousin Graziella!

PARIDE finds the picture and he shows it to everyone.

PARIDE Is this it?

IGNAZIO That’s it.

PARIDE Nina, who’s this?

NINA (Trembling)

Ignazio?

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PARIDE What do you mean, Ignazio! (He laughs) I smashed both their heads and you tell me it’s Ignazio? Then you’re completely retarded! Have a good look, Nina, concentrate. (He stops laughing and raises his voice) Who is it?

NINA Graziella?

PARIDE

Graziella! (To TORUCCIO) Who is this here?

TORUCCIO Graziella.

PARIDE (To Ignazio)

Who is it?

IGNAZIO Graziella.

PARIDE Oooooh! And I don’t want to have to say it again, understand? Get it into your thick heads that when Paride says something…

Paride drops the photo, pretending it slipped from his hands.

PARIDE

(With regret) Talé, Graziella fell down!

Pause

PARIDE Nina, could you please pick her up for me?

Pause NINA raises her eyes and looks first at PARIDE and then at the other two brother. She gets up slowly, knowing that her punishment is coming. Resigned, she bends down to get the

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photo. TORUCCIO, with fake clumsiness, puts a foot on the picture. NINA tries every possible way to free the photo stuck under her brother’s shoe. PARIDE commands NINA’s attention and asks her to collect, without standing, the pictures that, as if they were alive, continue to fall out of his hands. The more NINA crawls at their feet, the more the three bastards get aroused.

PARIDE Thank you, Ninuzza! If you’d knew how much your Paride loves you when he sees you being a sensible little girl!

TORUCCIO Obedient…

PARIDE Toruccio, I’m curious: when I tell you to do something, what do you do?

TORUCCIO What, wouldn’t I do anything for you, Paride?

PARIDE And you, Ignazieddu, do you question why or how, or you just get going?

IGNAZIO I go off like a rocket, Paride!

PARIDE Isn’t that right? Like when dad used to say: Paride go buy me some cigarettes, fly! (He makes his father’s picture fly) Talé, dad flew away!

Pause NINA, without waiting for PARIDE’s command, creeps towards her father’s picture and, breathing heavily, lays down on her side to get few seconds of rest before she begins crawling again to collect the rest of the pictures.

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PARIDE But me, little bastard, instead of cigarettes I bought myself candy. I would go back home, lock my room and eat them all. Mom, then, would grab me by the ears and say: “This isn’t right, it isn’t right, it isn’t right!” (He throws his mother’s picture up in the air) Nina since you’re already down there, would you pick up mom as well?

IGNAZIO You’ll wear her out like this, Paride!

TORUCCIO (Ostentatiously worried)

You’re wearing her out, Paride!

PARIDE You should stay at your sister’s side, then! Don’t move away, Toruccio, help her pick up these photos she brought with so much love! Ignazio, why do you think I have to repeat things two, or three times to your sister?

IGNAZIO Maybe she’s deaf…

PARIDE Toruccio, do you hear well?

TORUCCIO I told you Paride: no ear infections yet. My ears work well, both the right and the left.

PARIDE (Showing the photos to Toruccio)

Did you give her those pictures?

TORUCCIO To who?

PARIDE To your sister.

TORUCCIO Me? No! I swear! (He makes the sign of the cross) I swear it on the Madonna and baby Jesus!

PARIDE (Showing the pictures to IGNAZIO)

Did Ignazieddu give them to her, then?

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IGNAZIO Me? Absolutely not, Paride! I didn’t give them to her. I’d never dream of doing something without asking you first.

PARIDE But then I don’t understand anything anymore! (He gives himself light slaps on the head) Because, if Ignazio didn’t give them to her, and Toruccio didn’t give them to her, then it means that Nina took them herself, without asking for permission! Isn’t that true, Ninuzza?

Pause NINA, on all fours, drags herself around the floor, and, like a dog that is scared because it knows that it will be beaten very shortly, she does not dare to raise her eyes.

PARIDE

Aw, why do you make that sad face? Are you scared? Don’t you worry, blood of mine. Look at me! Paride loves you with all his heart, and if he tells you not to do something he says it for your own good! Come on, come here, little one, so Paride can give you a caress. Don’t make that sad face. Come!

Nina crawls towards Paride.

PARIDE You have to laugh, joy of mine! You have to have fun! Soon your prince charming will come and he’ll have to find you beaming, not with that long face… (Talking to Toruccio and Ignazio) Then she says her brothers don’t love her!

TORUCCIO She’s ungrateful!

IGNAZIO (To Nina)

Enjoy the most beautiful day of your life!

TORUCCIO Any other girl would be happy in your place!

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PARIDE (To Nina)

Did you hear your brothers? You have to enjoy all this God-given bounty! What’s the point of digging up the past? The dead are dead and you have to leave them at peace. Beginning tomorrow a new life! You hear me?

It seems that NINA is no longer listening. She stares at the stack of pictures she has in her hands, catatonically. She spreads them open like a fan and, after counting them, she offers them to PARIDE.

NINA

Maybe it’s better if you keep them with the rest!

PARIDE (Angry)

So you don’t hear me when I speak! It’s true you’re deaf! (He grabs her by the hair) I told you not to worry about those fucking pictures anymore and to stop whining, you hear me? You’ve got to laugh, Nina, you’ve got to be happy like when we were on the boat, remember? There were seagulls. (He imitates a seagull with his voice) Do you remember the cry of the seagulls? I hugged you and you laughed and told me: “Paride, can you get that seagull for me?” And I tried to get it, Nina dear! I leaned on the rail of the ship’s bridge and tried to catch the whole flock of seagulls that was flying above our heads! (He tosses all the pictures in the air and Nina tries to grab the ones she can) Don’t you dare, ever again, do anything before asking me for permission. Open your arms?

NINA obeys the command and, widening her eyes, opens her arms. PARIDE kicks her belly. NINA flies backwards and releases a suffocated scream. Then, as a sign of submission, she gives PARIDE the small stack of pictures that was left in her hands.

NINA

Paride, take them home! PARIDE, gloating, turns to his brothers.

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PARIDE Did you hear? “Take them home” Ninuzza said. That means that we can go, right? (TORUCCIO and IGNAZIO don’t move) What is it? Why are you just standing there? Move, Toruccio! What the hell are you doing, Ignazio? Get your hat, amuní!

TORUCCIO and IGNAZIO, petrified, are staring at the audience. PARIDE suddenly becomes again aware of the audience’s presence. He had completely forgotten about them. For a moment, his legs shake. He feels watched. He’s ashamed of having aired the family’s dirty laundry. PARIDE makes his brothers understand that they should go quickly. He puts the photos in his pocket, fixes his appearance and gestures to his brothers to pick up their hats and coats. Embarrassed and confused, TORUCCIO puts on PARIDE’s fur coat while PARIDE puts on IGNAZIO’s and IGNAZIO puts on TORUCCIO’s. Confident that this time no-one is going to stop them, they lower their heads and, without goodbyes, move towards the exit. But a sudden movement of NINA’s belly makes her jump two feet. PARIDE turns and sees NINA twisting in pain. Her belly moves, jerking left and right as if it were possessed. The three brothers, with terror in their eyes, follow their sister’s pirouettes. NINA, caught up in the contractions and the tremors of her giant belly, is about to give birth.

PARIDE (Shocked)

What’s happening Nina?

NINA It’s moving!

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Pause

TORUCCIO That’s normal!

NINA No, it’s not that normal!

Pause

Her belly moves her from side to side, spreading panic everywhere. NINA asks her brothers for help. They don’t know if they should run away or improvise some sort of emergency treatment. They’re afraid.

PARIDE

Nina, I’ve got an idea: why not take off the sash, so you can breathe better? Good girl! Let’s start here: take the sash off, it’s squeezing you!

NINA obeys and, for a moment, her belly seems to subside. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief but the turmoil starts again and Nina jumps and screams like a possessed creature.

NINA

It’s still moving!

PARIDE Breathe, listen to me, Nina, don’t think about it!

NINA It feels like an earthquake inside me, Paride!

PARIDE Calm down, fill your chest and take long, deep breaths. Use your arm, like this! Good girl! You’ve got to find the right movement: one and two, and one and two…Toruccio, Ignazio let’s breathe with her: one and two, and one and two…

IGNAZIO

Paride, what the fuck are you doing?

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PARIDE Breathe, Ignazio! One and two, and one and two…

IGNAZIO One and two, and one and two…

PARIDE Toruccio, say something to her, distract her!

TORUCCIO Nina, listen to your brother Toruccio: you can’t have it now because if your husband gets here and finds out it’s already out, what kind of shitty first impression would we make?

IGNAZIO and PARIDE Right!

NINA It’s moving by itself!

IGNAZIO How is it moving by itself? It’s not possible. You’re the one that’s making it move!

PARIDE It’s your sick head! It’s all in your head!

TORUCCIO (to Paride)

But how many does she have inside, Paride? Sixteen?

PARIDE Could that ever be, Toruccio? Stop spewing bullshit!

TORUCCIO (To Ignazio)

The Battleship Poteomki122!!!

IGNAZIO (Laughing)

Nina, how many do you want to pop out? One, is that right?

TORUCCIO One is enough, Ninuzza!

122 Mispronouncing of Potemkin.

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NINA squats down, opens her legs and pushes. She pushes with all her might while taking off her underwear.

TORUCCIO

What the fuck are you doing? Close your legs! Stop it, Nina, otherwise I’ll kill you, you understand? Your thighs have to stay shut, damn you!

NINA I can’t do it! It’s not my fault, I swear! Paride, I’m dying!

PARIDE You’re not dying monkey, you’re not dying! Hold on and I’ll give you a present later!

NINA Pull it out, Paride! I beg you! Pull it out! I can’t hold it anymore…

PARIDE Nooo! I said no! And when Paride says something he says it for your own good…

NINA I feel like I’m dying!

TORUCCIO Sing, Nina, don’t think about it. Sing that song you like so much: “Love, my love, these empty hands of mine are full of caresses only for you…”123

NINA has very strong contractions and a lacerating scream of pain makes the brothers run away from her.

NINA

(Desperate to PARIDE) Nooo! Paride! Wait. Don’t go. Not now, please. I’m sick. Just another minute… Parideee! Help me, for the love of God!

PARIDE, followed by the others, goes back to Nina and, instead of helping her, he insults her without pity.

123 Another line from Luigi Tenco’s 1966 song Amore, amore mio.

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PARIDE (To NINA)

You’re nothing but a traitor! Stop it, you bitch! Everyone is looking at us. If you don’t stop it, Paride is leaving, you understand? I’ll leave you to die like a dog!

NINA It’s not my fault, Paride. It’s moving by itself. It hurts!!!

NINA has another contraction. She screams and slumps down. PARIDE covers NINA from the waist down with his fur coat and invites the others to do the same. Nobody should see what is going to come out from inside her.

PARIDE

Stop it, I told you! And when Paride tells you to do something, he says it for your own good… Do you have to pop this bastard out right now?

IGNAZIO It’s not time, Nina!

TORUCCIO What are we going to do, Paride?

PARIDE Shut up! Talk to her, fucking hell! Make her change her mind. And cover her up!

TORUCCIO Yeah, I’m covering her up, goddammit, but if the baby is born what the fuck are we going to do with it?

PARIDE I don’t know, I don’t know…

IGNAZIO It’s too late! We should have gone earlier. It’s all Graziella’s fault!

PARIDE Nina, don’t do it! Don’t you do it!

NINA continues to scream and contort in pain. PARIDE blackmails

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her and makes her believe that this time he’ll really leave her.

PARIDE

Look, Nina, I’m putting on my fur coat and I’m going, once and for all. (He goes to put on the fur coat and he realizes it’s not his coat) This isn’t my coat.

IGNAZIO That’s mine, Paride. Maybe I have yours... Is this the one?

PARIDE (To IGNAZIO)

Give me my coat!

PARIDE throws his fur coat to IGNAZIO who throws him the one he is holding. NINA follows the strange flying coats with her eyes.

PARIDE

(To NINA) There, Paride is getting dressed and is going to leave!

He goes to put the coat on and realizes this one is not his either.

PARIDE

Really, what are we playing at? This isn’t my coat either. Amuní, I’m really enjoying this game! You idiots: who has my coat?

TOROUCCIO I have it, Paride. This is yours and that’s mine.

PARIDE So give it to me, what are you waiting for?

TORUCCIO Here!

While TORUCCIO throws the coat to PARIDE and PARIDE throws him his, NINA follows the flight of the coats with her eyes. She’s almost amused.

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TORUCCIO (Noticing her sister’s reaction, stunned)

Paride, she likes the flying furs!

PARIDE What are you talking about?

TORUCCIO (To PARIDE)

Move the coat for her! Talé: she likes it, she’s laughing! Nina? Look at Paride!

PARIDE shakes the fur coat like a red cloth in front of a bull. He repositions NINA center stage. She is surrounded by her brothers who are making the fur coats fly above her head like a flock of seagulls. The demented girl, for a moment, forgets about her contractions and, as in a dream, transforms the pain into a merry carousel.

PARIDE

Talé, Nina: they’re flying! Just like seagulls! Look!

TORUCCIO It’s working, she likes it, talé! Nina! Look how they glide!

IGNAZIO Toruccio, throw it! Nina, talé, they’re crying out!

IGNAZIO cries out like a seagull. The three circle around NINA. The movement of the air caused by the flying coats lifts open the flaps of NINA’s dress, uncovering her thighs. This arouses the three brothers. They encourage her to undress.

TORUCCIO

Do you like it, Ninuzza?

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PARIDE Show me your legs, my love. Dance for me, Nina, dance!

IGNAZIO Put on some lipstick!

PARIDE Beautiful, beautiful, you’re so beautiful!

TORUCCIO Let down your hair, life of mine!

IGNAZIO Come here! Come here!

TORUCCIO Give me your hands, I’ll warm them up!

IGNAZIO Walk my little dancer!

TORUCCIO Little whore!

PARIDE Toruccio, see how beautiful your sister is when she laughs?

TORUCCIO You are too beautiful, monkey!

Nina uncovers her legs, puts on some lipstick, lets down her hair and, to excite her men in heat, grabs a flying coat and sensually puts it on. In a flash, the bride becomes a whore and bird feathers come out from her battered belly. In this chaos, a stylized orgy takes place among fur coats and feathers. Nina screams and the three brothers, exhausted, kneel at her feet. The magical spell breaks. Nina, bent over in pain, slowly gets up, clinging to her three dogs.

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NINA (To her guests, the audience, while she strokes her belly)

This baby is good! It’s the third time he’s tried to come out. But I hold him in and he goes to sleep. “It’s not time,” I tell him! “It’s not time! Uncle Paride says that we have to wait.”

While NINA continues to stroke her belly, she sings the baby a lullaby to make him fall asleep.

NINA

This baby is a saint! One night I had a dream: I dreamt of big golden wings and when Paride woke me up I was all wet.

Pause

NINA Paride and I sleep in the same bed. In the double bed that was my parents’. Once in a while Ignazio and Toruccio come to visit us. We all sleep together.

Pause NINA

(To PARIDE) My husband loves me, doesn’t he Paride?

PARIDE (He gets up and moves away, ashamed)

He loves you.

NINA (To TORUCCIO)

My husband is thin, isn’t he Toruccio?

TORUCCIO gets up and moves away.

NINA

(To IGNAZIO) And he is handsome, because looks also matter, isn’t that’s how the saying goes, Ignazio?

IGNAZIO moves away.

NINA

I love him too, even though I’ve never seen him. Because my husband respects me!

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Pause NINA picks up the hats and the coats from the floor, gives them to her brothers and helps them get dressed.

NINA Paride, put these on, it’s late! Come on, Ignazio, put on your hat, otherwise your head will freeze. Toruccio, fix your shirt: it’s all wrinkled and I just ironed it this morning. In the house where I’ll go I don’t want locks on the doors and I want the windows to be always open. I will go buy bread, that way I’ll meet some girls and we’ll chat, I’ll make some friends, we’ll get to know each other… On Christmas Day and Easter, my husband, the baby and I will come to visit you. My husband knows the way back to the village, right Paride?

PARIDE He knows it by heart.

Pause

NINA (To her brothers, worried)

What will you do without me? Poor dears! Who’s going to wash your underwear, who’s going to cook for you? (Sternly) Paride you’ll have to take care of your brothers. I can’t spend my whole life caring for you! (Speaking to the audience/guests) But what were they thinking, these three good-for-nothings? I’m a grown woman. If I wait any longer to get married, I’ll turn into an old maid. I know how to do everything: I can cook, I can clean, I’m good at doing the wash, I always separate it by color: whites with whites; reds with reds, otherwise they bleed. I can iron, I can wash the stairs outside the house, I can buy presents, once a week I clean the light fixtures and once a month I clean inside the closets.

NINA gets the sash with the cross and hands it to TORUCCIO.

NINA Toruccio, can you put this on me? (Pause) I do everything I’m ordered.

TORUCCIO fastens the sash over NINA’s belly.

NINA

(To her guests/audience) The priest gave us this sash. Because this baby is a saint! This baby is the present I’ll give my husband. (Pause) I’m tired! Uff……

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TORUCCIO Go sit down.

NINA slumps on the chair-throne and lets her brothers fix her veil and flowers. She’s visibly tired, heavy, worn out but, as her brothers adjust her veil, she keeps smiling at them, giving them loving glances.

NINA

I’d like some strawberries!

Pause

NINA I’d like some strawberries!

PARIDE seizes his chance and, taking advantage of NINA’s desire, tells IGNAZIO to satisfy it.

PARIDE

(To IGNAZIO) Your sister has cravings.

Pause. IGNAZIO doesn’t move.

PARIDE

(Commanding) Ignazio, go buy some strawberries for your sister!

IGNAZIO, after a moment of hesitation, puts on his coat and leaves. Pause.

NINA

With whipped cream!

Pause.

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PARIDE Toruccio, did you hear?

Pause.

PARIDE …so go!

TORUCCIO puts on his coat and leaves. Pause.

NINA I’d like a hug, please!

PARIDE tickles her belly, kisses her on the lips and then lowers the wedding veil over her face.

NINA

My husband loves me, right Paride?

PARIDE He loves you.

NINA He is thin, isn’t he?

PARIDE Yes.

NINA Is he going to buy me clothes?

PARIDE Yes.

NINA And furniture too?

PARIDE Yes.

Pause

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NINA Our house is in the city, right?

PARIDE Yes, yes!

NINA And is it far from the village?

PARIDE Not that far!

Pause. PARIDE takes a hammer and nails NINA’s veil to the stage. NINA, desperate, begins to sound delirious.

NINA

(To the guests/audience) My brothers arranged this wedding for me. They take care of me, truly! What would I do without them, huh? (To Paride) My husband is handsome, because looks also matter, isn’t that how the saying goes, Ignazio?

Pause. She speaks to her brothers, as if they were all right next to her.

NINA

This baby is a saint. My husband is a saint. He told Paride! Toruccio is a good boy, it’s already the third time that he wants to get out. My brothers respect me, that’s why I brought them here. Geeee….how many seagulls! They’re all dead.

PARIDE moves towards the exit keeping his eyes low and his hands in his pockets.

NINA

It’s you, Toruccio! Ha ha ha! I hold him in and he goes to sleep. That’s Graziella! Geee….how mean she was! As soon as you took the black sash from the pantry: bam! She’d whack your belly hard… It’s moving dad! It’s moving, daddy! My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of your just punishments… Where did you get these

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NINA (cont.) pictures, Nina, we hadn’t seen them for centuries! (Screaming) Paride! (Paride stops) Take them home!

PARIDE leaves, abandoning the bride at the altar. NINA gets up and chases him, but the veil pulls her, stops her. She’s tangled. To be free, it’d be enough to remove the clip that is attached to the veil from her hair, but the demented girl keeps turning around deliriously. Like a leash, the veil twists around her neck shortening her reach. Resignedly, she returns to the chair and curls up on it. She opens her eyes wide, lifts her eyes to the sky and smells the twinkling flowers. Without a sound, she stands on the chair-throne. Pulling hard on the veil that, like a noose, wraps around her neck, she hangs herself while rising from the earth towards the sky. In her last muscular contraction, in a terrible and uncontrolled spasm, NINA throws her bouquet of withered flowers at the audience/guests leaving an impression in their eyes of the sacred image of a martyr-bride encased in a religious shrine.

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Life of Mine

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“Who has turned us around like this, so that always, no matter what we do, we’re in the stance of someone just departing? As he, on the last hill that shows him all his valley one last time, turns, stops, lingers–, we live our lives, forever taking leave.”

RAINER MARIA RILKE from “The Eight Elegy” in Duino Elegies

translated by Edward Snow

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We enter an empty room with a bed in the middle. What’s that bed, we ask ourselves? A shelter? A lazy respite? A terminus? There’s a temporal and spatial journey taking place around that catafalque and what moves everything is something we can’t understand. The room we enter is the place where the soul lingers for a moment before tearing itself free from the body. Sweetly, sadly, a mother eyes the three sons before her and teaches them that life is the most precious thing, it is something fleeting, it passes by. Life is a race around that bed. Life of Mine is a foolish, desperate attempt to hold out, until all strength’s vanished, that last lap before death. Who is the chosen one? Whose turn is it? The eldest or the youngest? The best or the worst? And above all, why will it happen to someone not yet ready, who has not stopped, who still has impulses, ideas, discoveries, projects, small reserves of energy? There is a dead man among Gaspare, Uccio, and Chicco who must occupy that bed, but the mother doesn’t want to know, she staggers, sits down, inclines her head to one side and looks at them one by one her men of the house: the oldest, the middle one, the youngest… How can she feel him hers, that dead son? With what courage will she carry him in her arms to that bed readied for mourning, after having dressed him and whispered words of love in his ear? How will her legs not give in unexpectedly? Everything is still: gestures, memories, words of comfort, regrets, that last rhythmic pulse of the heart repeating itself to infinity. Life of Mine is a vigil. That bed is a stone ship and that room is the sea that sucks us under and disappears.

EMMA DANTE

introduction to Life of Mine Vita Mia premiered in October 2004 at Villa Medici in Rome as part of the Romaeuropa Festival. It was produced by the Romaeuropa Festival and the Sud Costa Occidentale company directed by Emma Dante. CRT Centro di Ricerca per il Teatro. The play was written for and performed by Ersilia Lombardo (the mother), Giacomo Guarnieri (Chicco), Alessio Piazza (Uccio), and Vincenzo Di Michele (Gaspare).

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CHARACTERS:

THE MOTHER

The Sons: GASPARE the eldest

UCCIO the middle-child CHICCO the youngest

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In the center of the room stands a bed with a crucifix lying on it. The mourners enter the place of the wake and sit in a semicircle around the bed. CHICCO races around on his bicycle, an old, beat up, rusty Graziella, while the mother and the two brothers, hands in their pockets, stand close to the bed and follow the audience members with their eyes while they slowly take their seats. CHICCO pedals fast, slows down, zig-zags, brakes abruptly, and smiles blissfully. The mother, dressed in mourning, keeps an eye on him and cries silently when he looks at her. The three young men wear pajamas and gym shoes.

CHICCO

(Suddenly breaking) It’s late, mom!

THE MOTHER Quiet! Did you like the bicycle? Pedal!

CHICCO pedals and laps around faster.

UCCIO

We’ve got to hurry, mà!

THE MOTHER Do you think I like this?! I said you have to be quiet, you have to be quiet all three of you! Understand?

GASPARE But why, was I talking?

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THE MOTHER And aren’t you talking now? Who told you to speak? Quiet!

The bicycle circles around the bed. The audience can hear the creaking of the chain and the generator, which, scraping the front wheel, produces electricity for the headlight. After a few seconds, CHICCO gets closer to the bed’s headboard, stops, and starts to wait along with the others.

UCCIO

(To Chicco) Can I go for a spin on the bike?

THE MOTHER jumps up, furious, and unloads a slaps onto UCCIO’s head.

UCCIO Ahh!!! No, mà, I was kidding!

THE MADRE I told you to be quiet!

THE MOTHER looks at the three brothers with disdain, sits at the foot of the bed and puts them to shame pitilessly in front of the guests.

THE MOTHER

(Turning her back to her sons who remain standing, their heads hanging) I wanted a girl! If I’d told a little girl to be quiet, wouldn’t she have stayed silent? (She nods repeatedly, answering the question herself.) She’d have been quiet, she’d have been quiet! Instead with the three of them it doesn’t happen, because I tell them one thing and they let it in one ear and out the other! It’s like this, the whole damn day! I can’t take it anymore! (She turns and notices that CHICCO is sitting on the bed.) Stand up! (CHICCO immediately stands up and sits on the bicycle’s saddle) They don’t listen to me! They don’t want to hear anything, they’re only good at leaving dirty underwear around the house, socks on top of the closet, dirty cups left and right…

GASPARE Mamà, does this seem the time to tell people these things?

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THE MOTHER And when should I tell people these things, when they leave? Now I have to tell them, now, that they’ve come to visit us! This way they’ll know how you treat me. (Reprovingly pointing at GASPARE) This one! This one this one… he’s the eldest. His name is Gaspare. Now, you might ask: being that he’s the eldest shouldn’t he bring something home to his mother? (She nods repeatedly, answering the question herself.) I really think he should bring something! And so I tell him: “Blood of mine, go work, go look for a teeny-weeny job… Something to do…”.

GASPARE There’s no work, mà!

THE MOTHER “There’s no work” he tells me. “No openings to be found!”. “There’s unemployment!”. Because my darling boy would like to be… I don’t know: a lawyer, an engineer, a state employee, he’d like to have cash incentives, end-of-year bonuses…that’s what he’d like. And instead I tell him: “Blood of mine, make do, go be a baker, I’m not telling you to go work in the shipyards because if you fall off a ladder, since we all know those shipyards are never built according to the law, you’ll end up dead, it’s dangerous and I’d even understand that! But the ice-cream man, the illegal valet parker, couldn’t you do that?”. And instead, what does he do? He strolls around the whole damn day, left and right, left and right… (Referring to UCCIO) with this other idiot that’s here at my side.

UCCIO It’s not true, mà!

THE MOTHER How is it not true? Why where do you go the whole day and nobody knows anything about it? Uccio, his name’s Uccio, the middle one – although I don’t really like the name, but who gave it to you, your grandma?

UCCIO What do I know, mà?

THE MOTHER That’s right, blood of mine, you can’t know! (To the audience) Uccio’s a half-wit!

UCCIO You shouldn’t say these things to strangers, mà!

THE MOTHER Why shouldn’t I tell them? Isn’t it the truth? Can’t they all see you’re a half-wit?

UCCIO Yes, but you shouldn’t emphasize it, really!

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THE MOTHER Don’t worry, blood of mine! It’s nothing!

CHICCO (Making fun of UCCIO)

It’s nothing, understand?

THE MOTHER … Save the best for last: Chicco. The youngest. Now, the first two came out as God willed and that burden must be carried, but the youngest one shouldn’t he give his mama something to be proud of? (She nods repeatedly, answering the question herself.) I think he should give her the satisfaction! And so I tell him: “Blood of mine, study! Make something of yourself, become a city councilor! This way you can find a job for your big brother and a disability pension for Uccio, poor devil”.

CHICCO But why, to be a councilor you have to study, mà?

THE MOTHER So open a book, look at the cover, pretend you’re reading and look at the pictures instead, lie to my face! And instead, what does he do? The whole damn day on that bike… He’s going to make my heart burst! Because I’m scared of these things! He’s such a little shit he rides it around the house. Ruined all my furniture, bumping into stuff everywhere. I’ve got animals inside my house! How is this life? I’m tired! I can’t take it anymore!

GASPARE Get up, mamà, we’ve got to get it ready!

THE MOTHER closes her eyes and, using her hands to feel her way, looks for the crucifix on the bed. She picks it up, stands up and, speaking softly, slowly moves towards to the spectators.

THE MOTHER

Yet, all three of them are my life! All three! But what would I do without them? And them without me, where would they go? They’re three boys, they’re young! I don’t tell them all these things, because give them an inch and they’ll take a mile! But I am proud of my sons, I’m proud of how I brought them up, because I raised them, alone, no-one helped me. And if someone dares to speak ill of one of them, I’ll pulverize them! Because only I can speak ill of my sons! Only I know that when they grow up they’ll become three righteous men! Because all three are my heart! All three are my life!

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CHICCO lets go of the bicycle and is about to throw himself on the bed. The brothers stop him and, making horns with their fingers towards the catafalque, they try to convince him to not do that. Chicco doesn’t care, he takes a running jump and speeds off. Gaspare is waiting for him.

GASPARE (Screaming)

Chicco!

THE MOTHER suddenly turns around and sees GASPARE laying on the bed.

THE MOTHER Noooo!

UCCIO and CHICCO lift up the bed and roll GASPARE off it, making him fall to the floor. In turn, the three brothers lie down on the catafalque, and play dead, their bodies rigid. They throw themselves on the bed, do summersaults, roll and jump in a frenzied steeplechase. They move like shrapnel fragments. THE MOTHER beats her chest, kisses the crucifix and collapses three times. She stands and she falls, stands and falls, stands and falls… Her legs give way at that horrid spectacle: the bed attracts her sons inexorably, like a magnet. THE MOTHER is driven back by gusts of wind and, when she finally manages to reach the catafalque, she capsizes it, empties it, and chases away her sons. Suddenly, the jinx is broken.

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THE MOTHER (Furious)

I don’t like this game! Good-for-nothings!!! Move away… quickly… Otherwise I’ll kill you, understand? You shouldn’t play with these things, you crooks! Godless sons, you are! Move away… Go take a walk! Get out of my sight, you’ve ruined everything!

THE MOTHER plumps up the mattress, straightens the bedspread, and before hooking the crucifix to the headboard, she blesses her sons. GASPARE and UCCIO move away, tails between their legs. CHICCO picks up the bicycle and, after having tripped UCCIO, he pedals away, making circles around the bed. GASPARE slaps CHICCO on the head to punish him.

THE MOTHER

(While she is putting things in order) Good-for-nothings!

UCCIO This way you’ll learn, Chicco!

THE MOTHER

Godless, you are! Godless!

CHICCO (To GASPARE)

Didn’t hurt me at all!

GASPARE (To CHICCO)

That didn’t do it? Do you want another one?

THE MOTHER Three useless things, that’s what you are!

UCCIO Don’t try to trip me, Chicco!

THE MOTHER Good at doing nothing!

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UCCIO Because otherwise I get hurt, I, really!

THE MOTHER Good-for-nothings, you’re killing me! I’ll call the cops and I’ll get you arrested. Useless things! I’ll lock you up in boarding school, with the priests, that way you’ll understand what it means to live without your mother. I’m young, it’s not like I can die taking care of you! Are you listening?

GASPARE and UCCIO, hands in pockets, stroll around in a circle. CHICCO follows them on his bike. From under the bed, the mother takes out a drawer with what is necessary for the funeral preparations: a white veil, ten candles for the dead, a shirt, a pair of trousers, a jacket, a neck tie. Everything is completely white, spotless and immaculate. The three brothers observe this sad ritual in silence. When THE MOTHER shakes out the shirt, which was stored in that drawer for God knows how long, pieces of confetti fly out here and there.

UCCIO

Mom, that’s my shirt!

THE MOTHER Now it’s your brother’s! You don’t need it!

THE MOTHER carefully folds the formal white suit for the dead and sets it on the bed.

UCCIO

I wore that shirt during carnival when I dressed like Zorro!

GASPARE Yeah, with a flabby hat and without a sword!

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THE MOTHER Carnival is over!

UCCIO You took my sword and even poked my eye out, remember?

THE MOTHER Good-for-nothings, these things are all you think about!

UCCIO But why do they always have to touch my things, mà?

THE MOTHER Do you think I like this?! Don’t you get it that this is no time to think about these things? I can’t listen to you anymore! You get under my skin!

At the head of the bed, THE MOTHER puts the candles on the empty drawer that now functions as a nightstand. But things fall out of her hands. She’s desperate. CHICCO calls to distract her attention.

CHICCO

Mom? Do you remember the carnival when we dressed up like the Three Musketeers?

THE MOTHER Yes, blood of mine.

UCCIO Athos. Aramìs…

CHICCO And Dartagnàn.

UCCIO Because you were the youngest!

CHICCO The best! What happened to the Three Musketeers, ma?

THE MOTHER They’re put away.

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UCCIO Even Aramìs?

THE MOTHER Sé!124

CHICCO And Uccio, all dressed-up like Aramìs, but instead of a white horse he had a guinea pig, do you remember, ma?

THE MOTHER I remember…

CHICCO One fine day, Uccio, out of nowhere comes home with a guinea-pig in a cage with a big bow on top, because he said that to be a true musketeer Aramis needed a horse!

UCCIO Porthos, I called him. You don’t know this, but to make Porthos exercise, I tied him to the plastic wheel and spun it with my finger. He was good, ma!

THE MOTHER lights the candles.

CHICCO Gaspare, what was the veranda of our old house like?

GASPARE Long.

CHICCO And what was at the end of the veranda, Uccio?

UCCIO A wall.

CHICCO And Uccio, after Porthos was trained, takes the cage, puts it on the veranda, opens the door, and tells the guinea pig: “Gallop, gallop!?”.

UCCIO Give me a ride, Porthos!

They’re doubled up with laughter.

124 IPA: Se Meaning: Yes.

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CHICCO And you’d see this tiny rat-like thing that little by little begins to walk slowly, and then goes faster and faster, and faster and faster…. He thought he was on the wheel, poor thing… and at some point: SLAPT! He made quite a splash on the wall! End up dying like a rat, mà…

THE MOTHER looks at her sons with infinite tenderness. Then opens her arms towards CHICCO.

THE MOTHER

It’s late! Come here… come!

CHICCO hands the bicycle to GASPARE and runs to hug his mom. GASPARE unscrews a bolt, folds the Graziella bicycle in half and rests it against the wall in a corner of the room.

THE MOTHER Now mom’ll dress you all nice. Come!

THE MOTHER makes CHICCO sit at the foot of the bed, takes off his pajamas and, with a broken heart, is about to dress him for the wake. CHICCO is cheerful, lively, unknowing… in her eyes, he is alive.

THE MOTHER

(Taking off his gym shoes) These shoes are old, Chicco.

CHICCO They’re the shoes I play soccer in, ma!

THE MOTHER I know, blood of mine! You’re attached to these shoes, but now you have to take them off, you understand me?

CHICCO shakes his foot uncontrollably fast.

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THE MOTHER Stop moving, Chicco, stop!

CHICCO The shoe, it moves on its own ma! It’s used to juggling a ball…

THE MOTHER I know, blood of mine…

CHICCO 65,74,2000,6000 juggles with this shoe on my foot.

CHICCO is dragged around by the shoe, which runs behind an invisible ball.

THE MOTHER

Stop, Chicco! Grab him Uccio!

UCCIO chases CHICCO and tries to stop him.

CHICCO

It’s great when Uccio tries to take the ball away from me, it means even Speedy Gonzales can’t do it!

UCCIO catches him and brings him back to his mother.

CHICCO

That’s a foul, though, Uccio! Yellow card!

THE MOTHER Sit down!

THE MOTHER, crying, hugs him, kisses him, rubs against him and, in the meanwhile, dresses him.

CHIICCO

Mom, want to know something nice? Palermo is in the first division.

THE MOTHER Yes, blood of mine!

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CHICCO Didn’t I pass the ball to Toni Goal125?

He runs away again.

THE MOTHER Chicco stop! Come here!

CHICCO I was in the bleachers and saw how the whole play happened: I had this shoe on my foot and I went down to the field myself; and I started to guard man-to-man the sweeper, the midfielder, the midfield anchor, the center striker…

THE MOTHER (While she chases after Chicco)

Gaspare, give me the shirt, hurry!

CHICCO …at some point I saw that Toni Goal was in the penalty area and I was about to make a cross…

THE MOTHER runs into him and he picks her up.

THE MOTHER

Put me down, Chicco!

CHICCO …but there was this great defender called mamà and I couldn’t.

THE MOTHER holds his head tight between her hands and she lays it on her chest. She cries and laughs. Simultaneously. It’s excruciating. She puts the shirt on him and tries to button it up, but she can’t: the buttons don’t fit into the buttonholes.

THE MOTHER

Chicco, your mom’s hands are shaking today.

CHICCO When I grow up, I’ll button up my shirt myself, mom! 125 Toni Goal is the nickname of the soccer player Luca Toni, who led the Palermo soccer team to the Italian First Division League or Serie A thanks to his 20 goals in one season.

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CHICCO wriggles free and, running, buttons up the shirt himself. The mother chases after him.

THE MOTHER

Chicco I told you to hold still!

CHICCO Make that one day I go out with a girl…

THE MOTHER I told you mom is tired today, stop… Come here!

CHICCO …what am I going to do, call you from the veranda: “Mom, hey, could you button up my shirt?” Could I ever? How would that look to my girl!

THE MOTHER (Screaming)

Chicco, come here, or I’ll slaughter you!

Obediently, CHICCO goes back to his mother. While running, he has inserted the buttons in the wrong buttonholes and the shirt fits him all twisted.

THE MOTHER

(With infinite gentleness) Do you see you can’t button a shirt up by yourself? You’re young, life of mine!

THE MOTHER fixes the buttons and bends down to help him put on his pants.

THE MOTHER

My back hurts!

CHICCO stands on the bed to allow his mother to buckle his belt without bending over. While he caresses her hair, he looks down at her with love.

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CHICCO Mom, why don’t you put on that pretty dress, the one I like, and let your hair down, that way you’ll get rid of all this sadness in your eyes!

THE MOTHER Yes, blood of mine! First, though, I have to dress you! (She picks up the tie) Look what I’m putting on you!...

CHICCO But what’s this thing flapping around, ma?

THE MOTHER A tie!

CHICCO And what’s it for?

THE MOTHER It makes you look elegant!

Now the jacket, and he’s ready. Ecstatic, THE MOTHER looks at him: he’s an angel dressed in white. In the meanwhile, the other two brothers have remained seated on the bed with their elbows on their knees and their hands covering their faces. They uncover their eyes and smile between tears at their brother. CHICCO answers with a sudden gesture of joy: he makes a running jump into his mother’s arms.

CHICCO

(Singing a soccer stadium chant) Toni Goal! Toni Goal! We don’t care about Del Piero, ‘cause we have our Toni Goal. Toni Goal! Toni Goal! (He holds her tight)

THE MOTHER Let go Chicco. Let go! Don’t cling so tight, I’ll fall… I can’t hold you anymore. I can’t take it… Let go, life of mine!

THE MOTHER pulls away from him and, to avoid looking at his face, spins him around, pushes him

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towards the bed and gives his bottom a little pat of encouragement.

THE MOTHER

Lie down!!!

CHICCO lies down. Assuming the posture of a corpse, he slowly falls asleep with his hands crossed across his chest. He is stiff, still, lifeless. THE MOTHER lowers a black veil over her face and, at her son’s bedside, cries and prays, staring at the crucifix.

THE MOTHER (In a whisper)

Cover him!

The brothers are about to cover the corpse with a white lace veil, when suddenly the mother stops them.

THE MOTHER

Wait! Leave him with me a minute!

The two don’t listen to her and continue to cover him.

THE MOTHER

Uccio, wait! I said: leave him with me a minute!

UCCIO Mom, Chicco is…

THE MOTHER Shut up!

GASPARE He can’t move anymore, mamà!

THE MOTHER You’re wrong. He’s moving!

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THE MOTHER throws herself on her dead son and shakes him, trying to bring him back to life. She does so energetically, imparting momentum to his body, which bounces about on the bed. By inertia, CHICCO follows the movement generated by this external force but since his body is inclined to stay still, the tremors slowly cease.

THE MOTHER

Move, Chicco! Like this! That’s right! No! Don’t stop! Chicco, when your mother tells you to do something, you have to do it, you hear me? Come on, show them you can move… Move, life of mine… Move!

THE MOTHER doesn’t give up and shakes him harder, begging him not to stop moving. Exasperated, she doubles the rhythm of the jerks she gives the mattress and the body bounces off it. CHICCO comes to and dies off. Comes to and dies off, until GASPARE brutally grabs his mother and yanks her away from the bed.

GASPARE

Think, mamà, think! Who have you got to show it to? It’s over, do you understand?! It’s over. Leave him alone, mà! Don’t torment him. He can’t move anymore, you understand? This is life. We have to let him go. He has to stay there, in bed, and there’s nothing to be done…

UCCIO (Screaming)

Gaspare?

GASPARE and THE MOTHER suddenly turn around.

UCCIO

(Without taking his eyes off of CHICCO’s body) He’s moving!

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We hear the squeaking of the bed springs but CHICCO seems motionless. THE MOTHER and GASPARE stare at him fixedly but only when their eyes become more alert, they catch a glimpse in his seemingly rigid chest of the imperceptible beating of his heart.

THE MOTHER

That’s right! That’s right! (To GASPARE) Can you see that he’s moving? (To CHICCO) Like this! Move, blood of mine! Don’t stop… Get out of this bed for the dead! What’s this bed have to do with you? You’re a little boy!

Miraculously, CHICCO comes back to life. In a rhythmic crescendo, he bounces off the bed, he opens his eyes, he unfolds his hands and his body loosens up… The deceased dances a sirtaki and his heart skips in his chest. It pounds, beats, quivers… With tumbles and cartwheels, somersaults and pirouettes, the bothers and the mother festively circle around the bouncing bed like merry acrobats.

UCCIO

He’s moving, Gaspare!

GASPARE Shut up! (To his mother) Mà, stop!

THE MOTHER Move! That’s right, that’s right! Like this! Don’t stop, Chicco! (To Gaspare) Can’t you see he’s moving? Help me you two!

UCCIO Chicco, loosen your hands!

GASPARE What do you mean, loosen your hands? But then you’re completely stupid! Stop, Chicco! He can’t move anymore, mom… We have to let him go! Can’t you understand? He has to stay there, in bed! That’s his place.

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THE MOTHER Don’t stop! Get out of this bed of death!

UCCIO He’s moving, Gaspare!

GASPARE (Unable to continue to deny what is apparent)

Mamà, he’s really moving!

THE MOTHER Didn’t I tell you he moved?

GASPARE Then is this true?

UCCIO

It’s true! Get up, Chicco!

THE MOTHER Get uuuup!!!

GASPARE Ride a last lap…he’s moving, mà!

THE MOTHER Didn’t I tell you he moooveeed?

CHICCO gets out of the bed and, in his last turn on the merry-go-round, becomes separated from his soul. UCCIO chases after him, festive and frantic; THE MOTHER begs him to keep going; GASPARE takes the bicycle and, without screwing on the bolt, offers it to CHICCO with the hope of bringing him back to life, to usual, everyday life. But CHICCO escapes, runs… he’s alive and beside himself with happiness. When UCCIO catches him and clasps him close, CHICCO slips languidly away from him. And, after crushing against the bicycle that, like

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a magnet, is reunited with him, the handlebars thrust through his chest. Time rewinds, to the precise instant when CHICCO lost his life. Everything is in its place: the mother kneels in front of the lifeless body of her son who is lying on the ground next to the bent and dented Graziella.

THE MOTHER

(Looking around like a mad woman) Uccio, I’ve forgotten the flowers!

In a corner of the room there’s a red rose bush, the last decoration for the funerary arrangements. Between the branches of the plant rests a red sash camouflaged among the roses. THE MOTHER takes off the black veil and unties her hair, looking at CHICCO with a strange smile.

THE MOTHER

Gaspare, tidy up the bed for me! GASPARE plumps up the mattress and tucks in the bedspread.

THE MOTHER

Turn your backs, I have to get dressed. (She takes off the black dress). I don’t need this anymore. What’s with this black stuff?

THE MOTHER positions the bush at the head of the bed, takes the red sash and unrolls it: a very elegant red evening dress magically appears.

THE MOTHER

Seems new! Who knows if it still fits. I’ll put it on! This way I’ll get rid of all the sadness I’m carrying in my eyes. Beautiful, truly! (She puts on the red dress.) Uccio, zip me up! (Uccio zips her up). (To Gaspare and Uccio) Go to bed, it’s late!

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THE MOTHER goes back to CHICCO and kneels, she kisses him, and lifts him up by the waist. She positions her son’s heels on the tips of her feet and, to keep him upright and adherent to her body, she walks backwards, supporting his weight with her whole body.

THE MOTHER

Get this bicycle away from here!

UCCIO Can I have it, mà? Or are you giving it to Gaspare?

THE MOTHER is stunning in the bright evening dress and, clutching her prince, she drags him into a melancholic and heart-wrenching dance.

THE MOTHER

You’re a half-wit, Uccio, but your mother loves you. I can’t give you the bike because otherwise you’ll get hurt! You’ll get hurt!!!

THE MOTHER lies down on the bed, carefully placing her dead son on top of her.

THE MOTHER

Cover us!

GASPARE, embarrassed, comes closer to the bed and, looking at the audience out of the corner of his eye, speaks to his mother with reproach and shame.

GASPARE

Get up, ma! Everyone’s looking at us!

THE MOTHER I told you to cover me up!

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UCCIO springs forwards and obeys the command: using the veil, he covers the two bodies clasped in the incest of death.

GASPARE

What are you doing?

UCCIO She told me to cover her up and I’m covering her!

GASPARE But then you’re a complete idiot, isn’t that right? Mom, tell him you were joking. Otherwise he’ll really believe it!

UCCIO Gaspare Calafiore be a sensible little boy! (Pause) Mom? (Pause) Is this how it ends? You just leave us here like two idiots in pajamas, with all these people watching?

GASPARE laughs hysterically.

THE MOTHER Lie down, Uccio. It’s late!

GASPARE laughs even more hysterically.

UCCIO

What are you laughing at?

GASPARE

(Teasing him) Lie down!

UCCIO (Sneering while pointing to the bed)

It’s true that I’m a half-wit but there’s no more space there, isn’t that right?

GASPARE It’s a single bed, mà! We can’t all fit!

UCCIO He he he! We won’t fit, Gaspare!

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GASPARE Wait, I have an idea!

He takes off his shoes.

UCCIO What are you doing?

GASPARE Mom!?

GASPARE lifts the veil and tries to get in bed with his mother and brother.

THE MOTHER

(Pushing him out) Get off!

GASPARE and UCCIO play and joke around like when they were kids.

UCCIO

What an ass, you really make me laugh!

GASPARE I don’t fit in here!

UCCIO Gaspare, lie down under the mattress and tickle Chicco. Under the mattress… Come on, scare him… Like when we were little!

GASPARE gets under the bed and shakes the mattress.

GASPARE

Chicco, an earthquake is coming!

UCCIO He he he, he makes me laugh so hard…what an ass!

He doesn’t see GASPARE anymore and becomes frightened.

UCCIO (cont.)

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Where are you? You left me alone?

THE MOTHER Gaspare, don’t move the bed!

UCCIO I don’t want to stay here by myself! Don’t leave me alone, I get scared! Mom?! Mom?!

UCCIO is about to start crying when he notices the bicycle and has an idea.

GASPARE

Uccio, look what I found here?

From under the bed GASPARE throws out masks, streamers, and confetti.

THE MOTHER

Gaspare, put them down!

UCCIO (Putting on a mask)

Geee, my Zorro mask!

GASPARE Chicco!?? (Playing a toy trumpet) Pae pae pae pae pae pae!!!

THE MOTHER Good-for-nothings! Carnival’s over!

GASPARE Uccio, here, you play it for Chicco!

He throws the toy trumpet to UCCIO.

UCCIO

Chicco, don’t let mom get up, I’m taking a spin on the bicycle.

THE MOTHER (Scolding him)

Uccio, don’t you dare touch that bicycle! You’ll hurt yourself!

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UCCIO No, mà, I’ll be fine!

Uccio takes the bicycle and, without hopping on it, he begins to push it rapidly around the bed.

THE MOTHER

(Screaming) Uccio, I told you: leave that bicycle alone.

UCCIO I won’t get on it, mom. I’m pushing it since I don’t know how to ride it anyway…

THE MOTHER Gaspare, help me with your brother, take that bicycle away from him, he’ll get hurt!

GASPARE (To UCCIO)

You liked the bicycle? So, ride!

THE MOTHER Gaspare, I can’t get up! Take that bicycle away from him because if he falls he’ll break his head!

GASPARE He has a hard head, mamà, he won’t get hurt, don’t worry!

UCCIO Gaspare, say, should I go for a ride?

GASPARE Run Zorro, run!

THE MOTHER Uccio, stop, I don’t like this game!

UCCIO plays the trumpet and GASPARE throws confetti and streamers, colorful and festive, which fall on the bed. The catafalque becomes a Viareggio carnival float.

THE MOTHER

Godless you are, godless! Uccio, if I get up, I’m going to slaughter you!

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UCCIO Mamà, my head’s spinning!

THE MOTHER Uccio, I’m getting up, Uccio! I’m up…

THE MOTHER throws her legs and arms about and, ready to spring up, she lifts her head shooting the demented child a withering look. UCCIO stops, terrified. The mother clasps CHICCO’s hands so as not to let him fall, then throws a shoe at UCCIO and points, with her naked foot the foot of the bed.

THE MOTHER

Put, that bicycle here, at the foot of the bed, immediately. Move it, you idiot! Not just a half-wit, you’re a complete idiot!

UCCIO obeys: he folds the Grazziella and puts it at the foot of the bed.

THE MOTHER

Here, I want to touch it with my foot.

She kicks off the other shoe and slips her foot between the spokes of a wheel to keep it under control.

THE MOTHER

This way… I’m the only one who can touch this bicycle, understand? Cover everything up and go lay down!

After covering the bicycle with the veil, UCCIO hangs the mask on the crucifix and slips under the bed. Now they’re all inside the catafalque.

THE MOTHER

Good-for-nothings! I can’t leave you alone not even for a minute. You have no control, like little children… You’re killing me. I can’t take it anymore. Good-for-nothings! I’ll call the cops and I’ll get you arrested. Useless things! I’ll lock you up in boarding school, with the priests, that way you’ll understand what it means to live without your mother.

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THE MOTHER (cont.) I’m young, it’s not like I can die taking care of you! Are you listening? (Pause) Useless things… (Pause)

THE MOTHER’s nervous foot vigorously pushes the bicycle wheel which begins to spin. The bed seems to be moving. One push, and another and the wheel won’t stop anymore. Lulled by the squeaking of the chain, THE MOTHER and the sons slip off into a slumber.

THE MOTHER

But… …all three of you are my life… …all three…

In the darkness the candles’ flames flicker uncertainly.

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Market Dogs by Emma Dante

Translation by

Francesca Spedalieri April 2016

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“Truth is at the bottom of a well: look inside a well and you see the sun or the moon; but if you throw yourself in, there’s no more sun or moon, just the truth.”

LEONARDO SCIASCIA from The Day of the Owl

translation by Francesca Spedalieri

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The mafia is a woman-bitch who shows her teeth before opening her thighs. She’s the head of a pack of children who, wagging their tails, get in line to kiss her. Her kiss is Honor. The bitch gives her sons permission to enter: “In the name of the Father, the Son, the Mother and the Holy Ghost.” She clobbers her youngest son and dresses him in a suit stained with blood. The mafioso is reborn and is blessed by the Mother. His brothers hug him and demand an oat: “I enter with blood and I’ll leave in blood.” The pact is sealed. This is how I re-elaborate the affiliation ritual of a man who, swearing before God, gives himself forever to the mafia. This ancient rite is folklore, it is the postcard-ready mafia found in an agritourism venue in the Corleone countryside where one eats ricotta and chicory and recites prayers along with Radio Maria. But folklore is a lavishly decked table that helps hide a horror. Behind which, hidden from people’s eyes, something that can’t be said, that isn’t even talked about in the news, materializes itself. The mafia is the triumph of lies, it is the wrong side becoming the right one, the underbelly floating to the surface, low becoming high, crime turning into norm. A gang, a fish trap, a political party, a society, a brotherhood: a Family. One can end up in this corral by birth, for fear, or for love. Those who enter it incur eternal obligations. Ties become binding, pacts unbreakable. One can’t back out, can’t go back. It is a savage belonging, herd-like. Who leaves the herd dies. There are people who live in Sicily who speak a secret jargon, accompanied by winks, by gestures made with hands, head, eyes, shoulders, belly, feet. A people capable of making a whole speech without ever opening their mouths. These people have a mafioso-like attitude that has nothing to do with the mafia. One example: I’m driving my car down a one-way street and a car going the wrong way appears in front of me. I stop, I’m in a hurry and I honk my horn. I wait for the driver to move back and, despite my courage, one look together with a motion of her head is enough to make me understand that it would be in my best interest to back up. I don’t think that the driver of that car is a mafiosa, even though her attitude is. It is easier to meet a contemporary mafioso in a government-owned car in the middle of Rome, in the correct direction of travel. The mafia woman-bitch disgusts herself and asks her children to repudiate her. She pushes them away from her to not soil their name; it is a whore who is ashamed of her past. She fed them with the blood of innocent victims, she sent them to school, she ennobled them. Now her children have become important. They hold high office. The bitch offers her children an upside-down, divided Italy, made of “little islands sans-head to report to.” In this new map, Sicily is in the north. The bitch doesn’t worry anymore about punishing the truth, the one that cost Peppino Impastato his life, because she managed to delegitimize this truth, discrediting judicial authorities and accustoming the public opinion to illegality.

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In an island in the north of an upside-down Italy there is a madrìce city, a city that is mother and matrix, a primordial place, where a silent people, sitting around a lavishly decked table, divvies up Italy and eats its raw flesh.

Emma Dante introduction to Market Dogs

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CHARACTERS:

In Hierarchical Order

MAMMASANTISSIMA Or, The Sacred Mother; Sicilian

TOTÓ SICILIANO

a.k.a. “Uncle Totó the Scalpel”; Sicilian

SALVATORE SPAGNUOLO a.k.a. “Don Sasá”; Neapolitan

TONI CINTOLA

a.k.a. “Big Jim”; Sicilian

GIROLAMO RICCIO a.k.a. “Gegé the Chemist”; Neapolitan

STEFANO VARVARÁ

a.k.a. “Slim Fast”; Sicilian

GENNARO PANZANELLA a.k.a. “Joker”; Sicilian

GIUSEPPE BONANNO a.k.a. “Dagger”; Sicilian

VITO MONTALTO

a.k.a. “The Mouse”; Sicilian

FEDERICO PANUNZIO a.k.a. “The Doorman”; Sicilian

LIBORIO PAGLINO

SM, Station Master, Neapolitan

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Facts and characters here recounted are fictional. Any resemblance to real individuals is theatrically coincidental.

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LIBORIO PAGLINO, a railway worker, stands on the proscenium line in front of SALVATORE SPAGNIUOLO, a.k.a. DON SASÁ. DON SASÁ lies on the floor in his underwear. He wears a blindfold. He looks dead. Ten wooden plate display stands are lined up in front of LIBORIO. On the stands rest ten icon-images of the Immaculate Conception. A votive candle sits in front of each image. A colorful map made of arrows, numbers, and circles adorns the stage… a map that brings to mind a board game, the game of Mafiopoli. Next to a red circle there’s the outline of a body where those who are punched or butt-headed usually fall to the ground. Upstage, the market dogs get dressed behind the backrests of eleven chairs. These all differ in height and appear as if ascending towards the tallest chair of all: MAMMASANTISSIMA’s throne. The dogs wear double-breasted linen suits, vibrantly colored ties, and colorful floppy hats. Their lips are stained red. MAMMASANTISSIMA, dressed like one of them, stands on her throne, her back to the audience. When the dogs are ready, FEDERICO PANUNZIO, a.k.a. “The Doorman,” comes forward and begins to light the candles starting from stage left and making his way towards stage right. After lighting the first two candles, PANUNZIO carefully observes LIBORIO. LIBORIO reciprocates his look from behind the glasses resting on his nose.

PANUNZIO

Can you see?

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LIBORIO Yes.

PANUNZIO Are you sure?

LIBORIO Without any problem whatsoever.

PANUNZIO gets back to lighting the candles. When he’s done, he addresses LIBORIO to begin his interrogation.

PANUNZIO

Liborio Paglino, you were born on December 25th, 1966 in San Bartolomeo in Galdo, province of Benevento.

LIBORIO Santissimini Gerolomini St., number 2.

PANUNZIO You’re single, you have no children, no relatives, and you suffer from a severe vision impairment, correct?

LIBORIO Minus eight diopters.

PANUNZIO You’re 5 feet 5 inches tall without the hat, your shoe size is an 8 on the right side and an 8 ½ on the left, and you have no criminal record. Am I right?

LIBORIO A spotlessly clean record, really.

PANUNZIO (Pointing at DON SASÁ)

Do you recognize this man?

LIBORIO (Taking off his glasses)

Yes.

PANUNZIO Are you sure?

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LIBORIO (Putting on the glasses)

Decisively.

PANUNZIO You’re an SM.

LIBORIO Station Master. Senior in my shift.

PANUNZIO

And, customarily, your duty is to inspect tickets.

LIBORIO I also help travellers; let’s not forget that.

PANUNZIO You work eight hours per day and usually you’re at the tail-end of the train where there’s more liability.

LIBORIO The tail-end is the most critical part of the train.

PANUNZIO But you never stop moving, you’re not always at your post… you go back and forth through the corridor, a little in the tail and a little at the head.

LIBORIO My brief is to ensure that everything goes well, that everything is quiet, smooth. If there are problems, critical issues or disservices, I must report them to my shift supervisor who keeps to the head, the conductor.

PANUNZIO And here’s where I wanted to get, to your shift supervisor, the conductor; you usually give him the “Ready to Go” signal, am I right?

LIBORIO But how do you know all these information about me?

PANUNZIO

I’m a tick.

LIBORIO takes off his glasses and observes PANUNZIO.

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LIBORIO Wouldn’t say! Ticks are something else. They belong to the animal sort; you’re sort of man! Am I right?

PANUNZIO Three years ago, at the Vibo Valenzia Pizzo Station, you gave the conductor the “Ready to Go” and didn’t see that your young colleague, the SM on shift, still had his head under a wagon to check on a break!

LIBORIO

It was an ugly accident! Let’s not talk about it, really.

PANUNZIO How come you didn’t see him? Didn’t you have your glasses on?

LIBORIO Of course I had them on, how could I work otherwise?

PANUNZIO But you can’t see anything with those glasses, Liborio!

LIBORIO What are you talking about?

PANUNZIO You’re not missing eight diopters, you’re eyesight is 20/20.

LIBORIO That’s not true! That’s slander, through and through.

PANUNZIO (Showing him four fingers)

How many fingers?

LIBORIO Five.

PANUNZIO Not true! It’s four, you see?

LIBORIO takes off his glasses.

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PANUNZIO (Pointing at DON SASÁ)

You obtained a job by asking this man for help. And it was he who procured, for you, the fake certificate of invalidity that forces you to wear your glasses, always.

LIBORIO You’ve got it all wrong.

PANUNZIO Without this fake visual handicap you wouldn’t have made it on the list.

LIBORIO Slander, through and through!

PANUNZIO (Snatching Liborio’s glasses)

Because of these, you didn’t see your young colleague crouching under the train nor his head rolling on the tracks ten seconds after departure.

A silence filled with tension. LIBORIO takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

LIBORIO

I’d never stooped down to compromise in my whole life, never! It wasn’t my fault. I needed a job! (Pointing at DON SASÁ) I’d known of him for a while, he’s also from San Bartolomeo in Galdo. One day I saw him at the café in the piazza and, after telling him all my troubles, he seemed accomodating, kind… Please, don’t say anything to anyone, otherwise you’ll get me into trouble.

PANUNZIO Make the sign of the cross.

LIBORIO What?

PANUNZIO Make the sign of the cross!

LIBORIO In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and So Be It.

PANUNZIO After me: in the name of the Father, the Son, the Mother, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Repeat with me: in the make of the Father, the Son, the Mother, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

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LIBORIO …of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

PANUNZIO You’re a respectable person, Liborio Paglino. Don’t you worry. Put your glasses back on and keep them on, always. If you’ll tell no-one what you’ll hear, I swear I’ll keep your secret. Can you see?

LIBORIO No.

PANUNZIO Good.

PANUNZIO turns towards MAMMASANTISSIMA and gives her the “Ready to Go” signal. Then he goes behind the chairs and shakes them together with his brothers causing a racket. MAMMASANTISSIMA stands with her back to the audience at the top of the staircase made by adjoining ascending chairs. She waits for DON SASÁ to get up and reach her. The chairs bang out a pressing rhythm that functions like a rallying cry. DON SASÁ stands up and, following the noise, gets closer to the throne. LIBORIO, scared, backs up, opening up stage right.

DON SASÁ May I…[come in]?

The dogs stop the chairs’ movement.

DON SASÁ I, Don Sasá, crave to know, always please and thank you, who among you should I kiss?

The dogs climb the staircase to reach MAMMASANTISSIMA. They kiss her on the mouth, and then climb down. After having kissed everyone, MAMMASANTISSIMA comes down. The others kiss among themselves, always on the mouth.

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MAMMASANTISSIMA gestures with her head to BIG JIM to kneel in front of DON SASÁ to set in motion The Rite of Recognition. DON SASÁ, blindfolded, will have to overcome the trial: identifying MAMMASANTISSIMA. He’ll be able to touch with his hands the faces of whomever will kneel at his feet to be identified. DON SASÁ pushes BIG JIM and DAGGER away without hesitation. The same faith awaits SLIM FAST until MAMMASANTISSIMA decides to kneel down, her face directly in front of DON SASÁ. He takes off her hat and recognizes her immediately. MAMMASANTISSIMA takes off DON SASÁ blindfold, kisses him, and signs herself.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

In the name…

EVERYONE …of the Father, the Son, the Mother, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MAMMASANTISSIMA undresses herself and readies DON SASÁ for a second trial: The Lapidation.

DON SASÁ

(To MAMMASANTISSIMA) Come, I’m waiting for you. I’m not scared. Come!

EVERYONE Go. Cut him open, kill him!

MAMMASANTISSIMA lunges ferociously towards DON SASÁ; she hits him with her shoes, showers him with kicks, punches, and spit, she insults him without mercy. The others cheer her on and gang up on him. Satisfied, MAMMASANTISSIMA throws the man suit she took off to the dogs; the same suit DON SASÁ will soon wear. They help DON SASÁ get dressed while he is still disoriented by the blows. As soon as the new affiliate is ready with his double-

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breasted suit, tie, and hat, UNCLE TOTÓ moves towards him to hug him while the others kneel in front of him. After hugs and kisses on the mouth, the dogs and MAMMASANTISSIMA cheerfully line up, tighten ranks, and walk back and forth reciting the “Our Mother” prayer while throwing stacks of money in the air as if they were confetti.

EVERYONE Our Mother, Who art on Earth Hallowed be Thy throne Thy Kingdom come

EVERYONE (cont.) Thy will be done on Earth, in Heaven, and everywhere Give us this day a bit of bread And remit us our trespasses As we remit to you those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from the Father.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Exchange a sign of peace.

The dogs punch each other and, immediately after, they hug lovingly. They then kneel, each in front of their icon, while DON SASÁ recites The Oath.

DON SASÁ I enter with blood And I’ll leave in blood.

Everyone rubs their lips against their Saint-icon, smudging them with lipstick. Then they use the flame of the candles to burn the images.

DON SASÁ

I swear To be faithful to my brothers To never betray them

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DON SASÁ (cont.) To help them always And if so it weren’t May I burn and be scattered Like this image is scattered As it is consumed to ashes.

The dogs blow on the ashes that disperse into the air. The plate stands become guns that the dogs point at each other’s faces.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Who’s not with me, is against me!

Mammasantissima phrases the questions leading to The Ten Commandments of the Holy House.

MAMMASANTISSIMA How many steps must we take to enter the Holy House?

EVERYONE

A lot.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who doesn’t kiss the feet of the Miraculous Virgin as he carries her in procession, how many teeth should he keep in his mouth?

DAGGER Two.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who wants to be a Mother even before being a Son, how should he sign himself?

JOKER Without hands.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who slips inside a confessional to listen to what only the Eternal Father should know, how will we plug his ears?

GEGÉ With pieces of their own tongue.

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MAMMASANTISSIMA Who can’t see but still looks at what should not be seen, how will we turn off his light?

DON SASÁ We’ll sew his eyes shut.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who doesn’t know where to put his feet because they point in different directions, how long should he walk in circles before he can stop?

BIG JIM Until he, walking round and round, digs himself a grave.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who doesn’t go to bed when the cock crows, what should the bells ring before we put him to sleep?

MOUSE A toll.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who intimidates the woman of his brother, what will we do to their dicks?

SLIM FAST

We’ll split them and eat them.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who turns the blood of his baptism into water, what can we do to make him die a decent man?

ZU TOTÓ Drown him in his own blood.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who sings and becomes a snitch, how many rounds shall we play in his mouths?

EVERYONE Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who doesn’t stand down in the name of the brotherhood deserves to be stabbed in the chest ten times. And to enter the Holy House, you must ask: “May I…[come in]?”

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The dogs slip the guns in their partners’ mouths and, as couples, dance a waltz. PANUNZIO arranges the chairs with LIBORIO’s help, positioning them from the shortest to the tallest around a long table. He places the throne at the head of the table where MAMMASANTISSIMA will sit. MAMMASANTISSIMA wears a richly embroidered white skirt with a 14 foot-long train that covers the whole table. The dogs, holding the train, festively accompany her towards the throne. When everyone is seated in hierarchical order on their assigned chair, the dogs settle the table covered by MAMMASANTISSIMA’s tablecloth/train on their legs. LIBORIO, scared, follows PANUNZIO and sits in front of him on the lowest chair. THE RITE OF BREAD AND WINE MAMMASANTISSIMA hands the dogs a large bottle of wine and a piece of bread.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

All of you drink from it, for this is my blood.

The dogs take off their hats as a sign of respect. They place them on the table and, one by one, they drink from the fiasco bottle of wine that MAMMASANTISSIMA has offered them.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

All of you eat of it, for this is my body.

Rudely, the dogs/disciples eat. They spit, they burp, they devour the bread with yearning and urgency. MAMMASANTISSIMA watches them, lost in thought.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Slow down. You look like a bunch of market dogs. If you eat like that you’ll choke. You’ll dirty the tablecloth.

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ZU TOTÓ I’m full, Mammasantissima, because the honor to sit at your side, at this banquet, fills me more than anything else.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Don Sasá!

DON SASÁ God bless you.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Do you still hear voices?

DON SASÁ Strong and clear.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Like your faith! You’re a man of honor and you’ve earned this seat at my side, because you’ve done important things for me. Now, I ask you to do something important for my family.

DON SASÁ I’m entirely at your service, Mammasantissima.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Mouse, you look run down. Are you sick?

MOUSE

Women burn me out, Mammasantissima!

MAMMASANTISSIMA Yeah, women! Whores, you mean!!

Everyone doubles up with laughter.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Gegè, how’s the pharmacy going?

GEGÈ Pharmacies never go bankrupt.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Where there’s life, there’s illness!

They’re still laughing uncontrollably.

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MAMMASANTISSIMA Big Jim we missed you, did you go on vacation?

BIG JIM

In Sardegna, a real paradise on Earth.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Did you chop off the mustache, Slim Fast?

SLIM FAST

I shaved this morning and didn’t even spill a drop of blood.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Dagger, how’s school going?

DAGGER

I’m working on my third degree, Mammasantissima.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Did you win at scratch offs yet, Joker?

JOKER

I don’t play anymore, I was ruining myself!

MAMMASANTISSIMA Look how far you are, Panunzio!

PANUNZIO

Ready to stand to follow your orders.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Down there in front of you there’s a stranger.

Everyone looks at Liborio, who, embarrassed, puts on his hat and tries to make a joke.

LIBORIO

What does a dwarf write on the wall?

Nobody answers but everyone continues to stare at him.

MAMMASANTISSIMA What does he write?

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LIBORIO Down with the cunt!

Nobody laughs. Everyone continues to stare at him and he, even more embarrassed, tries to explain the pun.

LIBORIO Down…he wants the cunt to be lower, the little dwarf…so he can get it. He is a dwarf… tiny… and he also has a right to that God-given bounty… (Silence) I know another one… Listen up, listen up… breaking news: bomb at the cemetery: everyone’s dead! (More silence) It’s a word game, shananigans. (Pointing at JOKER) You must laugh! From time immemorial when someone tells a joke the other one who’s listening waits a bit and then grins lightly… maybe if he liked it he even lets out a fat laugh… (Pointing at DAGGER) You too must laugh… I’d be happy even with a courtesy laugh… but why are you staring at me? What do you want? What…

DON SASÀ Liborio, calm down!

Liborio falls silent but shivers all-over. He takes off his hat and puts it back on the table.

DON SASÀ I abided by Mammasantissima’s wish to have a respectable person sit at our table.

PANUNZIO

SM Liborio Paglino.

MAMMASANTISSIMA This respectable person will be the most important guest.

BIG JIM laughs wildly.

MAMMASANTISSIMA (She glares at him)

There’s nothing to laugh about!

BIG JIM stops. Everyone is silent, while they wait for MAMMASANTISSIMA’s words.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

I took bread out of my mouth so you could study! (Pause)

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MAMMASANTISSIMA (cont.) I paraded you around, speaking of you as if you were the best of the best. You climbed to the top of this mountain rising up and up, bit by bit…

MOUSE And we never got afraid of the climb.

BIG JIM We wore our feet and knees off for you Mammasantissima.

MAMMASANTISSIMA You conquered the place you were due and no one better touch it!

SLIM FAST No one!

The dogs look at LIBORO.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Now you’re ready to descend, my sons! The biggest is ready to become the smallest. The smartest becomes the dumbest and who’s in charge is ready to serve.

BIG JIM What am I hearing, Mammasantissima?

MAMMASANTISSIMA Do what I’m telling you: get down, scooting over one by one until Don Sasà and Uncle Totò find themselves at my feet on the last chairs in place of Liborio the Railway Man and Panunzio the Doorman.

Nobody moves.

MAMMASANTISSIMA (Screaming)

Panunzio!

PANUNZIO jumps on his feet and invites the others to quickly climb down from the chairs. Everyone is dumbfounded but they don’t dare to disobey. DON SASÀ and UNCLE TOTÒ sit down where LIBORIO and PANUNZIO sat before, the others remain standing.

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MAMMASANTISSIMA Don Sasà, place your gun on the table. Uncle Totò, do the same.

The two take the guns out of their pockets and lay them on the table.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Who’s in charge?

UNCLE TOTÒ, double-quick, points his gun at DON SASÀ who stands still. Silence.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Don Sasà, that way you’ll lose!

DON SASÀ You’ve never pointed a weapon at me, Mammasantissima, and yet I’ve always respected your commands. Without saying a word!

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Because I could explain myself and I never felt the need to raise my voice or to shoot to reiterate my commands. Isn’t that right, Uncle Totò?

UNCLE TOTÒ Quite right!

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Then: disarm! All of you! (To everyone) Take out these guns and hide them under the table, because I don’t want to see them anymore. Quickedy quick.

The dogs follow the order. They unarm, putting the weapons underneath the table.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Attention! Don Sasà, this tiny seat is now yours and, at my side, in the place that you’ve conquered for yourself with so much effort, I’ll put an ordinary person: Mr. Railway Man Liborio Paglino. What do you say to that?

DON SASÀ I ask for the reason.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

And if I say that it’s fair this way, would you trust me?

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DON SASÀ (After he takes a thoughtful pause)

Certainly, Mammasantissima.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Uncle Totò, what do you say?

UNCLE TOTÒ

The same.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Bravi! How satisfying to reason with you all! Panunzio, I’ve been able to explain myself this time as well, and you, who are the last among servants, have gotten a nice promotion: sit at my side, up here, come on! Liborio Paglino, the same honor goes to you. The Doorman on the right, the Railway Man on the left, in the two seats of honor. (To the others) The rest of you set those chairs at the appropriate marks, that I’ve got to make a speech. Seriously! And open up your ears!

The dogs push the chairs away from the table and open them up in a semicircle, five on one side, five on the other, placing them in mirroring positions, each in front of an arrow. DON SASÀ and UNCLE TOTÒ sit down below in the seats assigned them by MAMMASANTISSIMA, while LIBORIO and PANUNZIO climb to the side of the throne, taking the seats that were previously occupied by DON SASÀ and UNCLE TOTÒ.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Take a seat everyone!

Everyone sits in their usual place, ignoring MAMMASANTISSIMA’s wish.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Are you comfortable?

JOKER

Very, Mammasantissima!

MAMMASANTISSIMA Ah no Joker! I think that if you sit next to Don Sasà, you’ll be more comfortable!

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After a moment of hesitation, Joker moves over one seat.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Mouse, come up beside Panunzio.

Mouse, euphoric, climbs up one seat.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Dagger, where would you like to sit?

DAGGER

(Pointing at GEGÈ’s chair) Here!

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Granted: Gegè, get down!

GEGÈ stands up, dumbfounded while DAGGER quick as lightening, takes his place.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Slim Fast talk to Uncle Totò a bit, he’s feeling lonely, poor man; Gegè there’s an empty seat left; Big Jim, sit down!

BIG JIM

But this is Slim Fast’s place. Mine is this one! (Pointing at the chair where MOUSE is now sitting). It’s higher!

MAMMASANTISSIMA That’s your younger brother’s place now.

BIG JIM

Mammasantissima, I’ve been in and out of jail my whole life, I’ve never ratted out anyone and Panunzio can guarantee that I’ve always kept quiet so I could be next to you and now you want to send me away?

MAMMASANTISSIMA I’ll feel you close just the same. You shouldn’t get attached to material things in life. (To Liborio) So tragic!

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BIG JIM Mammasantissima, you taught Mouse how to behave, and like the civilized person he is, he should’ve asked my permission before sitting on my chair! (To Mouse) Come on, get down and ask for permission!

Mouse is about to get down.

MAMMASANTISSIMA I gave him permission.

MOUSE

I’m nobody, Mammasantissima! I can’t sit higher than Big Jim. I didn’t do anything to deserve it! It’s not fair!

MAMMASANTISSIMA Life isn’t fair! Big Jim, teach your brother how to grow up and take a seat in the chair I assigned you!

Big Jim hesitates for a moment, and then he moves towards the shorter chair pointed at by Mammasantissima.

BIG JIM Gegè!

GEGÈ

Uh!

BIG JIM Are you comfortable?

GEGÈ

No.

BIG JIM How come?

GEGÈ

This isn’t my chair!

BIG JIM

So?

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GEGÈ (To Mammasantissima, taking courage)

I worked my ass off with the Colombians, the Afghans, the Nigerians, and the Filipino, bringing in cocaine, heroin, crack, kobret, and shàboo. I sweated to get that fucking chair, and what do you do? You give it to that piece of shit who’s never done anything in his whole life!

DAGGER

How dare you, you beast? You’re still stuck on cocaine while I busted my ass to make you win government contracts and subcontracts.

GEGÈ

Dagger, get down from there you ass-clown!

DAGGER Did you forget the single span bridge?

BIG JIM

But if we haven’t even broken ground yet, Dagger! It’s a bridge to Messina and money should’ve come in to us! That was the deal, wasn’t it?

DAGGER It’s not my fault the Government changed: we were almost there!

BIG JIM It’s 30 years that we’ve been waiting for this blessed bridge on the strait, Dagger, stop dumping on our dicks!

DAGGER

I’m going to get down and rip both of your asses! I’m coming!

GEGÈ Come on pretty, get down!

MAMMASANTISSIMA Don’t you move from that fucking chair!

SLIM FAST Mammasantissima is right, Dagger earned that chair, constantly plastering walls with giant copies of his face and putting his hands on documents and official records, he made the family richer. Not like us, who’re still stuck in the Stone Age. Do you do drugs, Gegè?

GEGÈ Me? As If I would ever! I’m a good boy.

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SLIM FAST Me too… I’m someone who works, not someone who bullshits around! Dagger, now that you’ve started your rise to power, why don’t you go roam around Autonomia Siciliana St., Tukory Avenue, and Maqueda St. all damn day under the blazing sun?

DAGGER Wait, are you all still dealing with bribes? Goodbye racket! You don’t need to roam around all day under the blazing sun anymore, Slim Fast. At this point, we are the economy: instead of asking businessmen for a percentage on their earnings, we should lend them money and when they can’t give it back because the interest rate is too high, their businesses become ours! Now, Slim Fast, answer me this question: if the businesses become ours, who will you ask for protection money? Ourselves?

SLIM FAST

Big Jim! Dagger asked me a question… a difficult one… and I’m pushing myself to answer, but I’m pushing so hard I’m going to shit myself!

SLIM FAST stands up and pulls down his pants. Everyone, including MAMMASANTISSIMA, laughs hysterically.

SLIM FAST Joker, aren’t you sitting in Dagger’s chair?

JOKER Yes.

SLIM FAST

And you feel nothing up your ass?

JOKER Actually I’m also sensing a stirring coming since I feel like I’m sitting on my throne.

JOKER pulls down his pants and runs here and there with SLIM FAST pretending to hold back their shit.

SLIM FAST Uncle Totò, where’s the bathroom?

UNCLE TOTÒ I’m constipated.

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SLIM FAST I’m going to shit myself. I’ve found a solution. (He steals MOUSE’s hat) Thank you! Joker, get Dagger’s hat?

JOKER (Grabbing DAGGER’s hat)

Good Idea!

SLIM FAST shows JOKER what to do. He reaches the nearest chair and puts the hat upside-down on it.

SLIM FAST

Follow me, Joker, ease the hat down on the chair, grab your underwear: Mammasantissima, may we? …one…two…and…

JOKER Three!

Both pull down their underwear, sit on the hats, and shit with satisfaction.

SLIM FAST

These are the pleasures in life, Don Sasà!

MAMMASANTISSIMA The smell is killing me! Joker, when was the last time you changed your underwear?

JOKER Mammasantissima, just today I put on clean underwear for the occasion.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Slim Fast, all done?

SLIM FAST All.

MAMMASANTISSIMA So then why don’t you have Dagger eat your shit, just like you did with that kid before you shot him in the mouth?

Silence. SLIM FAST stands up and slowly pulls up his underwear. He looks at her from below.

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SIM FAST Mammasantissima, I never mix work with play. This useless thing is my brother, blood of my blood, and I could never disrespect him like that.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

(To JOKER and SLIM FAST) Then, since you’re moved by such brotherly feelings, the hats on your heads, you’ll give them to your brothers, and the ones that were under your asses, you put them on.

SLIM FAST and JOKER carry out the order, then they go sit in their places.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Big Jim, Gegè, instead of standing there upright like the pricks you are, go sit down in the seat Mammasantissima gave you!

Gegè goes to sit down but Big Jim doesn’t move.

MAMMASANTISSIMA What are you waiting for, a court order?

Everyone laughs, except Big Jim.

BIG JIM Mammasantissima, first I’d like to ask Dagger, who’s by now become an expert on the new economy, how come, in addition to the bridge project, with government contracts and subcontracts already assigned, he made us lose the bid for that waste-to-energy plant we asked him to keep an eye on? That was money, never mind the bribes!

UNCLE TOTÒ

You can only talk trash, can’t you Big Jim?

BIG JIM But why, Uncle Totò, are landfill management and chemical waste recycling trash or business?

UNCLE TOTÒ

This question’s out of line: Dagger has nothing to do with it and you, with this talk, are offending me and only me, because you know that it’s my jurisdiction to remove the trash! So, get out of my face, Big Jim, and go sit down. You should trust more. We’re working for you.

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BIG JIM What working and working Uncle Totò, you haven’t done anything, you scored a bundle of votes and our thanks was the 41-bis.

SLIM FAST, GEGÈ, and JOKER stand up.

UNCLE TOTÒ (To SLIM FAST)

So, I didn’t do anything! That’s what I have to hear from a good-for-nothing who every time he goes on vacation the whole family has to feed him while he freeloads!

BIG JIM

But why, do I go on vacation for myself?

GEGÈ Go sit down, Big Jim!

UNCLE TOTÒ

Gegè, answer me: do you feel ok?

GEGÈ I’m ok, thank the Virgin!

UNCLE TOTÒ

I’m ok too! Everyone, here, enjoys excellent health, don’t they? We have the best private hospitals in Europe, where the best of specialists work, all luminaries, ambulatories, diagnostic centers, laboratories of nuclear medicine that are the topmost in the world and everyone can suck it; we have the health system that brings us money! And all this seems little to Big Jim?! Gegè, it’s really true that when you toss pearls to swines you get splattered with shit…

BIG JIM applauds and engages the others into a standing ovation for UNCLE TOTÒ. Everyone congratulates UNCLE TOTÒ for the beautiful speech and UNCLE TOTÒ, with the intention to make peace, approaches BIG JIM.

UNCLE TOTÒ (To BIG JIM)

Take off your hat, Big Jim.

BIG JIM takes off his hat and, after a moment, UNCLE TOTÒ head-butts him unexpectedly with such violence that BIG

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JIM collapses to the ground precisely on top of the painted body outline.

UNCLE TOTÒ Scum of the Earth!

BIG JIM gets back up, stumbling, and flings himself against UNCLE TOTÒ. The others block him, trying to calm him down.

JOKER (Pulling his shoulder)

You need to calm down!

BIG JIM And you shouldn’t touch me… (He punches JOKER) Touch me again, and I’ll slaughter you! (To MOUSE) Mouse, go sit down in the chair that Mammasantissima gave you!

After taking the punch, JOKER falls on the body outline but stands up almost immediately to pounce on BIG JIM. GEGÈ stops him.

GEGÈ (To JOKER)

Calm down, nothing happened.

JOKER (To BIG JIM)

Big Jim, I always spoke well of you!

GEGÈ Joker, shut up, calm down!

JOKER (To GEGÈ)

I’m calm… I’m calm. (To DAGGER) Dagger, bring me my hat on all four!

DAGGER What am I, a dog?

JOKER

Yes.

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MAMMASANTISSIMA Joker, go sit down.

GEGÈ

Dagger, that chair does stand for you.

DAGGER And you, instead, what do you stand for? Dick?

MAMMASANTISSIMA Shut up or I’ll cut you!

JOKER

Dagger, I swear on the Holy Mother: bring me the hat or I’ll rip off your head and stomp on it!

DAGGER

And I’ll sue you!

GEGÈ What did you say?

DAGGER I’ll sue you!

JOKER (Ironically)

Then I have to look for a lawyer!

SLIM FAST Dagger, do you know a good one?

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Go sit, I said, down!

JOKER …then I’ll bring back that cashmere hat to Dagger first…

GEGÈ …he’s a real fine man!

SLIM FAST

(To DAGGER, screaming) Get off that fucking chair!!

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SLIM FAST grabs DAGGER by the hair and throws him on the floor, JOKER kicks him and then wipes his feet on DAGGER’s hat. A vicious brawl breaks out during which the dogs overturn the chairs in front of Mammasantissima in sign of protest. DON SASÀ doesn’t take part in the revolt; on the contrary, as a sign of devotion to MAMMASANTISSIMA, he sits on the floor at her feet, ignoring the fight. DON SASÀ’s striking gesture breaks off the commotion. The dogs direct their attention toward DON SASÀ.

DON SASÀ

For me it’s enough to sit on the floor in front of you Mammasantissima to not lose my dignity. Even better! What we are, we carry it on our shoulders and we never lose it.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

Got it? Unworthy, criminals… At my feet you should sit! On the floor, you crooks! Because I am your God. Thieves! Blasphemers! If I climb down, I’ll set your insides on fire and make heaven fall with all its saints! Stand up, Don Sasà!

DON SASÀ

I can’t get up by myself, I’ve got sciatica!

MAMMASANTISSIMA Big Jim, help him!

BIG JIM slowly heads towards DON SASÀ and helps him get up.

DON SASÀ

(To BIG JIM) Thank you. Thank you very much! May God repay you! Uncle Totò and I are sitting on the lowest chairs but that doesn’t mean that we don’t count for anything! (To LIBORIO) How’re you doing up there, Liborio? Did you see what kind of confusion your brought? Mammasantissima, may I make up for it and put some order in this chaos?

MAMMASANTISSIMA That’s why you’re here, Don Sasà.

DON SASÀ Liborio, am I less important than you?

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LIBORIO No!

DON SASÀ Then why are you sitting in my seat?

Liborio feels all eyes on him. Scared, he looks around, but he sees everything out of focus because of the glasses. He calms down only when he locks eyes with Mammasantissima, who seems to be smiling at him.

LIBORIO (Pointing at MAMMASANTISSIMA)

The lady told me to!

DON SASÀ (To LIBORIO) Right! You followed an order and you’ve done well. (To the dogs) He also has a dignity of sorts, he’s good, loyal, and gets attached quickly. (To LIBORIO) True or not true?

LIBORIO Yes.

DON SASÀ And we, what have we done, Uncle Totò? To take care of our business we’ve neglected him, leaving him alone! Do we want to honor his presence per Mammasantissima’s wish, or don’t we? What do you think, Slim Fast?

SLIM FAST That in here a guest is sacred, especially if he’s a friend of yours.

DON SASÀ Libò, would you explain to everybody why you’ve become my best friend?

LIBORIO Because you helped me find a job.

DON SASÀ

I know how to help my friends, it’s true, and my friends know that when Don Sasà asks, they have to give. What would you be willing to do for me, Libò?

LIBORIO Everything.

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DON SASÀ Everything, everything?

LIBORIO Without any problem whatsoever.

DON SASÀ A moment ago Slim Fast made a gesture near my chair I didn’t care much for. Would you explain to him that certain needs are to be relieved in the crapper?

DON SASÀ stares at SLIM FAST while he moves closer to LIBORIO who begins to shiver.

DON SASÀ (To LIBORIO)

Give him a slap for me.

LIBORIO (Shaking his head to say no)

It was nothing… a joke… he’ll understand on his own…

DON SASÀ Libò, it’s a favor I’m asking.

After a long silence, LIBORIO starts to get down from the chair but, since it’s too tall and he risks breaking his neck, he pulls back. He takes off his glasses, and again tries to climb down. He makes it. As everyone watches, he moves very slowly towards SLIM FAST. Now he sees them well, the dogs. Their faces are mean. Hungry mouths. He looks for Don Sasà’s eyes, he finds them and directs a pleading look towards him. Don Sasà encourages him to take the last steps towards SLIM FAST who’s waiting for him, arms crossed. His head down, his hands sweaty, Liborio freezes in front of SLIM FAST. Then, lightening fast, gives him a flick on the cheek and runs to hide under a chair. Everyone nearly dies laughing.

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DON SASÀ I want to know who taught you to slap people! Don’t you see that like that Slim Fast you didn’t even scratch him?

DON SASÀ heads decisively towards SLIM FAST and plants a huge slap square in his face, making his hat fly off. Laughter subsides. Speechless, everyone looks at DON SASÀ.

DON SASÀ (Laughing)

That’s a slap! Libò, pick up the hat for Slim Fast, otherwise he’ll start crying… ha, ha, ha!!!

LIBORIO starts towards the hat but he’s stopped in his tracks by DON SASÀ.

DON SASÀ On all fours!

SLIM FAST understands DON SASÀ’s intentions and relaxes. LIBORIO, terrified, carries out the order getting on all fours. Everyone laughs at him. DON SASÀ hugs SLIM FAST and puts on his head the hat that LIBORIO brought him.

DON SASÀ (To SLIM FAST)

See how good he is? I’m very proud of him. (To the dogs) That’s why I gave him my seat. What did you think, that I’d give it to anyone? (To LIBORIO) Liborio, do you know what it means to be in charge?

LIBORIO

No.

DON SASÀ (Pointing at his chair)

But who sits up there has to call the shots.

LIBORIO I could stand though, I’m used to it.

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MAMMASANTISSIMA (Standing up from her throne)

If he stands, then I have to stand too. Liborio, my children are here to celebrate you: ask and you shall receive.

DON SASÀ She’s asking you to make a wish, take advantage of it!

LIBORIO I don’t need anything, thank you!

DON SASÀ (Whispering)

What are you doing? You can’t refuse; it would be too big of an insult against Mammasantissima. Go on, be brave, what would you like?

LIBORIO

I… I would like to leave.

DON SASÀ That’s your wish? Then you’re an ungrateful man! Why, we let you sit at our table, I gave you my seat, you saw and heard about our things… you understand that you can’t leave the same way you came in. First, we have to play hangman! Would you like to participate?

LIBORIO

I don’t know how to play.

DON SASÀ It’s really easy, listen to me: the guest, to participate, has to have a sin to confess. If the guest has a sin, then we can play. Mammasantissima thinks of a word that she hides inside a full sentence and we have to guess it.

LIBORIO

And what should I do?

DON SASÀ If we guess the word right, you’ll be the hangman!

The dogs almost die laughing.

JOKER Go on, confess!

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LIBORIO I don’t have any sins!

JOKER Come on… everyone has teeny-tiny sins!

LIBORIO

I swear in front of God!

PANUNZIO Vibo Valenzia Pizzo Station, does that ring a bell?

LIBORIO You swore you wouldn’t tell.

DON SASÀ He’s right, Panunzio. He has to tell it! Come on Liborio, it’s another favor I ask.

Silence. LIBORIO is trapped. He can’t escape. He puts his glasses back on and, in a whisper, recounts the tragedy of which he is sadly responsible.

LIBORIO Vibo Valenzia Pizzo Station, time: 23:42, I put on my glasses through which I see nothing… I pull out the lantern to give the “Ready to Go” signal… the doors close… the driver turns on the engine… and…

He can’t go on. He stops.

PANUNZIO …and the train… sets off!

PANUNZIO smacks LIBORIO and his hat flies off.

PANUNZIO Paglino! What did you do? (Pointing at the hat that fell on the floor) The head of your young colleague, SM on shift… decapitated!

LIBORIO takes off his glasses and looks at DON SASÀ. Then he takes courage and runs to get back the hat. PANUNZIO gets there first, grabs the hat and, excited, throws it to

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the dogs making them take part of this cruel game.

PANUNZIO

The head rolls… rolls… rolls…

UNCLE TOTÒ From Track 3…

MOUSE To Track 2…

JOKER To Track 1…

GEGÈ How disgusting a dead man’s head!

BIG JIM

Catch it, Liborio.

SLIM FAST Grab the head, Libò…

The dogs, circling around Liborio, throw the hat at each other, mimicking the bouncing of the severed head. LIBORIO tries to grab it, but he falls. He stands back up. He looses his glasses. He gets injured. PANUNZIO puts his own hat on LIBORIO’s head and the railway man crosses himself. Then, exhausted, he falls to the ground in front of MAMMASANTISSIMA, in the same spot where DON SASÀ sat. From behind, with a floppy hat on his head, LIBORIO looks like one of them.

MAMMASANTISSIMA (To LIBORIO)

Put your glasses back on and don’t repent for what you’ve done because it’s not a sin. You have no faults. The poor are always right, even when they’re in the wrong. Come to me!

LIBORIO stands up and as he goes toward MAMMASANTISSIMA, he picks up from the

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floor his railway man hat. Then, on all fours, he gives back the floppy hat to PANUNZIO.

MAMMASANTISSIMA

(To LIBORIO) Don’t crawl on all fours, you’re a respectable person and you’ve been an example for all of us.

MAMMASANTISSIMA addresses the dogs, calling them by name, thus revealing their identity.

MAMMASANTISSIMA Thank you, Cardinal Salvatore Spagniuolo, you did something important for my family, showing everyone that, to rule, guns are no use nor it’s useful to sit at my side, (pointing at the throne) because this seat, by now, is worth nothing. You too are a respectable person, Governor Totò Siciliano and there’s no need to hide your name because no-one can do you harm, nobody should be scared anymore, you don’t have to hide your names, everyone has to become a respectable person, because I don’t exist. Trust me. We still have a ways to go, but you’ll climb down from this mountaintop and in the valley you’ll entrust my conscience onto everyone. The country will be ours! You’ll rest your asses on seats of power: on the right, on the left, or in the center, what does it matter where you’ll sit? I’ll be your shadow and I’ll follow you everywhere. You won’t have to content yourselves with the crumbs fallen on the tablecloth because the real feast is underneath it. Believe me: I don’t exist. And it’s right for journalists to write that on your newspaper, Gennaro Panzanella. Tony Cintola, the bridge will be built, don’t worry. You’ll open construction sites for major public infrastructures all over the country, undersecretary Giuseppe Bonanno. Water is the business of the future, more so than drugs, doctor Girolamo Riccio. Vito Montalto, Stefano Varvarà continue to defend the values of the family even if it costs you your lives but do blend in with ordinary people and don’t show yourselves anymore wearing these ugly clothes! Throw away everything! Colonel Federico Panunzio, help your brothers in times of need. With my consent: may God bless you. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and So Be It.

The dogs throw their hats in the air. They help MAMMASANTSSIMA lift the train/tablecloth to uncover the table. A gigantic map appears, depicting an upside-down and divided Italy where Sicily is in the North.

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The dogs hide their faces with transparent masks and begin to undress. MAMMASANTISSIMA descends from the throne with her face covered by a black veil and with a brush writes syllables on each of their backs. She writes “IO” on LIBORIO. As each individual receives his writing, he turns towards the map of Italy, which hangs from the upstage grid, pulls down his underwear and begins to masturbate. When everyone has turned around, a sentence appears: “IO MA DRE VI AF FI DO L’ITA LI A.” 126 The dogs ejaculate while the map flies up and a noose with an attached counterweight descends. MAMMASANTISSIMA slides the noose around LIBORIO’s neck. The dogs fall to the ground to reveal the word thought up by MAMMASANTISSIMA. Three of them remain standing. On their backs is spelled the word: MA FI A. MAMMASANTISSIMA unties the counterweight and LIBORIO dies hanging.

126 This spells “I MOTHER DELIVER ITALY TO YOU.”

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The Eyeglasses Trilogy by Emma Dante

Translated by Francesca Spedalieri

May 2016

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Three studies on characters, not story The Eyeglasses Trilogy focuses on three themes of disenfranchisement such as poverty, illness, and old age, but what ultimately links together the relationships between these characters is love. All of them put on glasses. They are half-blind, melancholy, and alienated. They perspire sweat and tears. Because they love. Madly. Each with their own intimate music: a music box for the old lovers, a megaphone playing the refrain from Titanic for the nostalgic sailor, and the lullaby of the little dolls-princesses that spin round and round in front of a sleeping Nicola. There’s no plot in The Eyeglasses Trilogy, like there isn’t in life. Three human and inhuman conditions merrily tell of their suffering. Speflector is on the bow in front of the sea, his face splashed by the spurts of the waves as he watches tropical fish… the coral reef… a harlequin octopus with multicolored tentacles… and a jellyfish… gigantic… entangled in the rays of the sun… the sea that changes color every minute… and the puff-fish that holds inside itself the future and the past… and the Christ of Rio that swan dives from the tip of the Corcovado… and an iceberg… enormous… that melts into crystal tears inside the depths of the sea… Above his head, he listens to the ticking of the heavens. Then everything falls silent. The sea stops breathing and Speflector feels his heart skip a beat: one day the ship sailed without him leaving him mad and alone on the dock of a foreign country: terra firma. He, of all people, who has devoted his life to sailing, who feels lost if he doesn’t sway, who by day and by night needs to behold his one great love: the sea. The voices of the crew, the captain, echo in his head and the cabin boy becomes wood as he constantly waits for the ship to return, like the figurehead of an old galleon. A fall from a chair unleashes the unbridled run of Nicola who oozes out sweat and drools after being huddled up and forgotten for far too long. His eyes are open but he doesn’t see. Two women clean him up, feed him, scold him. He has been curled up on a small chair since he was taken away from his house in the Zisa quarter. He used to spent all day at the window looking at a marvelous castle… with a dragon mask and clawed gloves he shooed away the devils perched on the tower to defend the princesses…but one day Nicola is deposed and he becomes spellbound, forever. In the Zisa Castle are locked his childhood, his happiness… We are the ones who see him stand up after the fall, lift his eyes to the sky, let out a scream trapped in the body, we are the ones who hear him speak, laugh, light up with passion. The refrain of two little twirling mechanical dolls carries us back inside the dream. The old dancer pulls out of the trunks the memories of her life among them is the most beautiful one: her husband; it’s New Year’s Eve but she can’t celebrate alone. She calls him, pulls him towards her with the melody of an old music box. Tall and skinny, he emerges from a trunk and heads towards her, tiny and bent over. Out of habit, she’s always at his right side and when they are near each other, they bring to mind the

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pronoun it. He pulls out a pocket watch from his jacket and counts barely moving his lips: 5… 4… 3… 2… as midnight tolls he sets off a small firecracker and throws merrily in the air a handful of confetti. She looks at him. He looks at her. it dances. He, with his chin resting on her head. She, holding on to his jacket. it draws closer and they kiss like it’s the fist time. The Eyeglasses Trilogy is dedicated to our grandparents and their memories, which render loneliness poetic; to loved ones who fell ill and left smiling, without as much as a whimper; to the beggars who we encounter everyday in the streets and don’t feel like listening to.

EMMA DANTE introduction to The Eyeglasses Trilogy

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Holywater A beggar’s thought in italics

“You know and understand a thousand things that are hidden to a simple shepherd. Often, when I watch you standing so still above the empty plain whose last horizon closes with the sky, or follow, step by step, as I wander with my flock, and when I see the stars burn up in heaven, I ask myself: Why all these lights? What does the endless air do, and that deep eternal blue? What does this enormous solitude portend? And what am I?”

GIACOMO LEOPARDI from Night Song of a Wandering Shepard in Asia

trans. by Jonathan Galassi in Canti:Poems

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CHARACTERS:

SPEFLECTOR Who also plays The Captain and The Sailor

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I’m kneeling before this rusty ship-bow, tied to three anchors hanging from the lighting grid. The anchor attached to my right ankle weights 5 pounds, the one tied to my left ankle 7.5 pounds, and the central one, tied to the back of my belt, weighs 11 pounds. Mostly, it’s the 11 pounds at the back that gets to me. At the end of the day I can’t move from the pain. I found them in the sea, that’s why they’re all three encrusted with seaweed and shells. From the grid, I hung five bottles upside-down that slowly drip water. Underneath the bottles, five bowls collect the drops. I like the sound of water; it makes me feel at home. People come in, they take their seats in front of me. They’re all here for me! They lower their eyes pretending nothing is happening, but I know they see me. I look at them intensely, my eyes pleading. Each of us plays our part. I’ve put a small plate in front of the bow with a sign saying “Thank you.” I comb my hair trying to straighten up the part on the right; once in a while I drink from a plastic bottle that I always keep handy, I wipe the corners of my mouth with the handkerchief I keep in my pants’ pocket. My corduroys are worn, my t-shirt is faded, my shoes have holes. With the corner of my eye, I check to see if the plate is still empty, I drink again, spray water through my teeth towards the outside of the bow to water the stage, I comb my hair, I blow a whistle tied to a little chain around my neck. They call me SPEFLECTOR because of my specs; the reflectiveness of my lenses in which others see themselves. As soon as everybody takes their seats and the doors of the theatre close, with a mischievous smirk on my face I turn on the lights that illuminate the inside of the bow, I built it myself this bow, with two metal sheets I found at the little Holywater harbor. I drink again and I stand up, water in my mouth. Above my head I hung thirty or so kitchen timers that I set by stretching upward while balancing on my toes. Tick tock tick tock tick tock… I set them for 40 minutes. Tick tock tick tock tick tock… in the meanwhile I gargle… gargle gargle gargle gargle… The engines ignite…tick tock tick tock… I move the ropes to which the anchors are attached and, as they begin to oscillate, I also sway from one foot to the other… I swing till the sea becomes rough… it becomes rougher and rougher…

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waves crashing against the side of the ship… I stagger… lose balance… slip… I grab onto the anchors… the sea is force ten. I blow the whistle with all the strength I can muster. There’s a terrible storm… And they just sit there, arms folded and moronic expressions on their faces! I grab the hat of the Captain who’s screaming like a madman.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

All hands on deeeck! Tighten the lines! Getoffofthere you fool - it’s dangerous! We gotta take it astern otherwise we’ll capsize!

I take advantage of a moment when he’s distracted to lean out on the rail and dive into the sea. I swim, trying to go against the tides, I barely stay afloat… a whirlpool pulls me down… I’m happy… mad with happiness. The sailor sees me, bastard, he always has an eye on me… He sounds the alarm. I put on the sailor’s hat.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Maaan Overboooard!

I reach the ship with difficulty and after various attempts, I get back on board, all shivery and freezing. I return to the bow and I pick up a small megaphone into which the sailor screams.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Speflector report to the Captain! I repeat, Speflector report to the Captain immediately.

I’m excited. I tuck my T-shirt inside my pants, I take off the sailor’s hat, and I speak to the audience, who hasn’t moved. Not even an inch.

SPEFLECTOR

Sweet Mother of God how I hate this sailor! He always has an eye on me. I’ve got him here, breathin’ down my neck. He thinks the Captain’s callin’ me ‘cause he’s gonna punish me but, the Captain likes me an’ instead he’ll surely want to reward me for my heroic behavior during the most dangerous sea storm that ever was.

I put the sailor’s hat back on.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

I repeat, Speflector report to the Captain immediately.

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I stand at attention in front of the Captain.

SPEFLECTOR I really can’t stand this sailor piece of shit! There’s the Captain, how handsome! Yessir, Captain, sir!

I take off the hat and the glasses, I let the rope tied to my left foot pull me over and I listen to my Captain. I put on the Captain’s hat.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

But what have you done, Speflector, did you jump overboard again?

I take off the hat, put on my glasses, straighten my T-shirt.

SPEFLECTOR I didn’t jump, Captain, I fell. Just ask ‘em there!

I turn to the audience.

SPEFLECTOR They’re all witnesses here, that storm was like being inside a Tsunami, inside that ride, what’s it called, the Tagadá. Nobody could understand anything anymore… them too they were all twisted up, flyin’ purses, kids rollin’ around, seniors hangin’ in the balance.

I put the Captain’s hat back on.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

That’s not true, I saw you leaning on the rail when we were coming about.

The hat comes off, I defend myself.

SPEFLECTOR I was counterbalancing, Captain, if it wasn’t for me we’d have capsized! I took hold of the reins and navigated, I kept the ship steady by my own brute force.

A fat lady in the audience looks at me tenderly.

SPEFLECTOR Ma’am, you see me all skin and bones but when things like this happen I turn into Superman…

The sailor breaks in, putting his hat back on my head.

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SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Don’t believe him. We all saw him - swan-diving into that force ten sea!

He can’t always have the last word… I get rid of the hat.

SPEFLECTOR My glasses were flying off and trying to catch ‘em I fell in too! Ya know these specs are my brains. (To the fat lady) They call me Speflector, Ma’am, ‘cause of the lenses that reflect things back, but I don’t get offended, these lenses are the representation of my intelligence, I keep it constipated inside my brain, my intelligence, otherwise it explodes. You too over there, (to an old man in the middle of the audience whose eyelids are dosing from time to time) with the glasses, isn’t it true that if you take ‘em off all your intelligence explodes?

The sailor meddles once more.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Instead of saying bullshit, why don’t you clean up your mouth? You’ll make us greet out guts.

How embarrassing! I quickly take the handkerchief out of my pocket and clean the corners of my mouth. I can’t control my spit when I talk, I’m sorry.

SPEFLECTOR

This is sea-foam. It’s not disgusting to me. Do you think it’s disgusting, Ma’am? No, in all honesty… the lady seems a little disgusted, but come on, don’t be like that, this is sea-foam… ok ok, Ma’am, if you’re going to leave, then I’ll wipe it off.

I clean myself with the handkerchief but the saliva reappears at the corners of my mouth.

SPEFLECTOR See, there it is again. I take it off… an’ it comes back… off an’ back… I can’t do anything ‘bout it, it’s an unfair fight, like wanting to drain the sea. But seeing that, to me, the sea has never done anything, every time that there’s danger I’m the first to dive in. And now, for all those rescues I did for them, they should put up a statue of me like Garibaldi’s or Cavour’s.

I strike a pose.

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SPEFLECTOR I want it like this the statue, Navigation’s Pride. No, that way I’ll lose my balance. This way: me lookin’ at the anchor…

The sailor pulls the rope tied to my right foot.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

But when have you ever saved anyone, Speflector, the one man overboard has always and only been you!

I don’t dignify him with a look.

SPEFLECTOR And each time I fell, I’ve saved myself.

The Captain pulls the rope tied to my left foot.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

This farce has got to stop: you throwing yourself overboard, we tossing you a lifesaver, the boat that has to stop… we’re here on board to earn the little money we get, it’s not the Love Boat, is it?

The sailor interrupts.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Why don’t we leave him at sea the next time, Captain, since he only wastes our time, this idiot!

The Captain raises his voice.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

Silence. Everyone, back to your places - we’ve got to resume navigation. Set course towards Rotterdam.

The Captain bends closer to me and speaks softly.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

Speflector, you’ve got to get your head in order because next time I won’t be able to defend you anymore! Go on now, get to work!

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I go back to the bow, feeling proud. The Captain defends me, he likes me, he understands me. I look at the sea, inhaling deeply. I turn on the megaphone and I lean forward, holding on to the ropes. It’s that song from Titanic.

SPEFLECTOR

I want it like this, the statue, on the bow, like the figureheads of the ancient galleons. I sway following the rolling of the boat.

SPEFLECTOR

How many things have I seen from this boat… how many! The sun and the moon, one in front of the other throwing rays at each other, knotting ‘em and making ‘em go down, straight down into the sea… I’ve seen a color-changing sea… and a swordfish that had two swords… and a gigantic jelly fish entangled in the rays of the sun and the moon… and the puff-fish that held inside itself the future and the past… and from the top of this bow, I’ve dived into a coral reef where every coral was the statue of a saint in paradise… and I’ve seen a harlequin octopus with multicolor tentacles and tropical fish dancing above and below it… and the Christ of Rio, I saw him swan divining from the Corcovado… We did a few laps together and then we started to do somersaults in the water with the Statue of Liberty with her boobs all hanging out… top-less… I held on to a barracuda’s fin that brought me to the other side of the world… to Japan… where there were fish with almond eyes eating other fish, raw… like sushi… and I saw a galleon from three centuries ago, full of people who were dancing and singing all-timey songs… and an iceberg… enormous… melting into crystal tears, inside the depths of the sea.

I fall silent. It hurts to remember happiness when one has sorrow in his heart. I’m sad, very sad… I turn off the music and speak to the audience, privately.

SPEFLECTOR

I’ve done everything on that boat, since I was fifteen. I worked in the machine room, cleaned the toilets, peeled potatoes, made breakfast, croissants and brioches, cleaned the deck, the bulkheads, I sanded, painted, tied knots then untied them and then tied them again just so I could learn, I made lunch and dinner first and second shift, if I had five free minutes I’d eat on the fly, ‘cause I had to serve officers and petty officers, and afterwards I cleared the tables, washed the dishes, cleaned the toilets again and at night when I’d finish my work before going to bed I’d go to the stern, underneath the starry sky to watch the images that the propeller’s foam made in the water… and I’d be overcome by this lethargic, apathetic, helplessness - this ‘a ppocundria… I saw mom’s face, my buddies from Brunelleschi avenue, those delicious taralli made with lard and pepper from Granatiello… and I’d feel like throwing up. So then I’d look in front of me and to stop thinking about it, I’d start singing.

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I take off my glasses and look towards infinity. The retching becomes more insistent.

SPEFLECTOR “Ohè! Chi sente e chi 'mo canta appriesso a me…ohè, pe' tramente s'affaccia 'a luna pe vedè” (I put on my glasses, puke a little in the handkerchief) “pe' tutta sta marina da Procida a Resina se dice guarda llà 'na femmena che fa…” (the retching slowly disappears) “Maruzzella Maruzzè t'hai miso dint' all’uocchie 'o mare e m'hai miso 'npietto a me 'nu dispiacere…’stu core me fai sbattere cchiu forte 'e l’onde quanno 'o cielo è scuro…primma me dice si, poi doce doce me fai muri… Maruzzella Maruzzè…”127

I sing the refrain with all my might, I even do a little dance and my face lights up.

SPEFLECTOR

One day I discovered that the best place to face the sea is here, on the bow, toward becoming.

I’m looking towards the horizon… but I only see the darkness of the theatre.

SPEFLECTOR

I don’t have a home, a family, a friend, I don’t even have a change of underwear, I don’t know what it means to satisfy a whim, to have fun, I’ve always done nothing but work, always. To give an example: the deck that’s twenty-eight of my steps long and that usually takes half an hour to clean, took me an hour and fifteen minutes to clean, ‘cause I’m meticulous; I’d clean it spotless: when I could part my hair while watching at my reflection in the deck, only then I’d be satisfied! I taught this handful of slobs how to do everything, these castaways, these processed industrial by-products, these bums: the routes, the winds, naval terminology, all the stars in the sky, one by one, I’ve taught ‘em, about knots, and currents… without me they wouldn’t even be afloat… ‘cause the half cabin boy is the most important role in all of marine navigation.

I sing at the top of my lungs.

127 From the Neapolitan song Maruzzella by Renato Carosone. Translation: “Oh! Who hears and who now sings after me…. Oh, even the moon peaks out to see, overlooking the whole marina from Procida to Resina, it asks look here, what’s a woman doing here… Dear little Mara, you’ve put the sea in your eyes and you’ve put sadness in my heart… this heart you make beat stronger than the waves when the sky’s dark… first you say yes, then you sweetly let me die…Dear little Mara…”

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SPEFLECTOR “Maruzzella Maruzzè, t'e miso dint' all’uocchie 'o mare e m'hai miso in pietto a me 'nu dispiacere. 'Stu core me fai sbattere cchiu forte 'e l'onde quanno 'o cielo è scuro…primma me dici si, po' doce doce me fai muri… Maruzzella Maruzzè…”128

The sailor snaps his fingers and pulls my right foot.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Just drop dead, Speflector. Do you get it or not: you’re useless on this boat!

I look at him with hatred.

SPEFLECTOR That’s not truth! Without me you’d all go under!

I run to the bow, I turn on the megaphone, I take control of the wheel and I steer northwest. Watch this beautiful come about, you ugly piece of shit!

SPEFLECTOR

I’ve done the math, to get to Rotterdam, we’ve gotta veer northwest, it’s a shortcut!

The Captain becomes suspicious.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

What’s happening? This isn’t the direction marked on the map!

Worried, the sailor looks around with a hand on his balls.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

It’s confirmed Captain, my compass is never wrong, we’re not heading northeast, we’re heading northwest.

The Captain realizes they’re in danger.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

We’re on a collision course; we’re heading straight for the rocks!

The sailor rushes to the bow, pushes me aside, grabs the wheel and comes about left. I resist and re-establish the direction to the right.

128 Ibid.

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SPEFLECTOR

Oh no, you gotta trust me, I did the math!

The sailor tears the wheel from my hands.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Speflector, take your hands off this wheel - we’re heading straight for the rocks!

I try to reason with him while I keep the wheel steady.

SPEFLECTOR And so what? This boat is indestructible, if we hit a rock, the rock will fall to pieces! This is my shortcut, we’re gonna do a piece of it by land!

The sailor, exasperated, retakes possession of the wheel.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Land, what land you jackass?

I hit him with a karate move and I’m the helmsman again. The bastard bites my wrist and, proud, hat on his head, points the boat once more towards northeast. I tickle him, he can’t resist and laughs.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

No, no tickling.

I answer, clarifying.

SPEFLECTOR Oh yes tickling, tickling is allowed!

The sailor gets really angry and snatches the wheel away from me once and for all.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Speflè, if you don’t take your hands off this wheel, I’ll call the Captain and I’ll have you dismissed!

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I let go my hold.

SPEFLECTOR Let’s not say anything to the Captain!

The sailor looks at me with disdain.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Let’s not say anything? You were about to sink us!

Me? How can he say such a thing?

SPEFLECTOR Even so? We’re fully stocked with life rafts, they’re brand new, we’ve never used ‘em!

The sailor cracks a sarcastic smile.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

You lost your mind, Speflector. You’ve become dangerous. We’re going to the Captain!

He grabs my arm, jerking it.

SPEFLECTOR Ouch, ouch, you’re hurting me! No, not to the Captain, if he makes me get off this boat it’s the same as killing me! Let’s not say anything to anyone, let’s keep it a secret between you and me.

The sailor looks at me, dead serious.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

And what are you gonna give me in return?

Me? What can I give him? I don’t have anything…

SPEFLECTOR Ouch, ouch! The hand, no, please, the hand, no…

The sailor lowers his pants and puts my hand inside his underwear.

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SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Like this, Speflector… very slowly… don’t worry, we won’t say anything to anyone.

I jerk off that revolting scum… slow rhythm, long movement… he likes it like this… becoming shorter, and shorter… up to the tip… fast fast… and… filthy, disgusting worm… after he comes, he hangs me upside-down by the feet.

SPEFLECTOR

Whoa! Whoa! What the fuck are you doing? Don’t drop me… don’t drop me! Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Blood’s going to my head this way. Let me down! Someone let me down! I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! Captaaain! Call the Captain!

The coward unties my feet… I fall and hit my head.

SPEFLECTOR These pranks have got to stop. What’s this other bullshit of putting my feet up in the air and my head in the water? People die like this. I was drowning. Like that other time when you left me outside the whole night. I got bronchitis and had to spend three days in bed. Why do you always pick on me? What did I ever do to you? You steal my cigarettes, take my mineral water, hide my toilet paper, put glue in my shoes… Enough is enough… now I’m not afraid of your threats anymore: I’m going to the Captain and I’ll rat you out one by one… this way he’ll get rid of all of you and it’ll finally be only he and I on this boat. Now you’re really breaking my balls! Come on, let’s go! One on one, face to face…

The bastard hangs me upside-down again. I can’t breathe like this… I can’t take it…

SPEFLECTOR

Ahhh! Ahhh! Mom, moooooooom! I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe…mom! I can’t breathe anymore…

I convulse. I’m going to suffocate if no one unties these ropes. The wretch sets me free and pulls his pants up while he laughs his face off.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

I’d like to know why the Captain insists on keeping you on this boat, when he could replace you with a Filipino and pay him half of what he pays you.

I take the handkerchief out of my pocket and clean the hand that jerked him off.

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SPEFLECTOR What does a Filipino know about navigating big ships? He’s used to going from island to island with canoes, paddles. Does a Filipino know knots the way I know ‘em? What does a Filipino know of a hitch knot, a half hitch, a single Savoy knot, slipped and/or in series, a Franciscan knot, multifold overhand knot, a monkey’s fist, a flag-man’s knot, sheet bend, reef, English, granny, bowline, Portuguese bowline, Spanish bowline, triple bowline, sheepshank, buntline hitch and slipped buntline hitch, taut-line hitch, slipped anchor bend, cleat wind, angler’s loop, slip knot… The Filipino wouldn’t even know how to tie his shoes… because he doesn’t have shoes…he wears flip flops!

The sailor laughs.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

You’re a riot, Speflector, real entertainment. When we get to Rotterdam, you’ll get off with us, we’ll go have some fun, we’ll take you to the red district and you’ll show us if you’re a man.

I answer him as usual.

SPEFLECTOR

You know I don’t get off. I don’t believe in these things.

The sailor pulls my left ear.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Then it’s true you’re all… heeeyyy…. heeeyyy…

We laugh.

SPEFLECTOR What are you thinking? I don’t believe in solid land!

I look at the sailor as I get serious once again.

SPEFLECTOR It’s an illusion; it’s inside your heads. I’ve seen the mistake you make. When the boat leaves the dock, you all get on deck at the stern: “Bye, mama, don’t cry, don’t worry - I’m already on my way back… sweetheart, make sure not to bring anyone home with you ‘cause if I find out something happened, I’ll come back and I’ll kill you…papa’s princess, study hard, do your homework, and don’t make your mother angry so that when daddy comes back he’ll bring you a nice present!”

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SPEFLECTOR (cont.) I don’t say goodbye to anyone, did you ever see me say bye to anyone? Who am I going to say bye to? I don’t have anyone. That’s how I can see things you can’t even imagine, when the boat leaves the docks, I see the lights gettin’ smaller and smaller and the harbor, the wharf, the city move away. I see distance. But the most important thing is that the world, bit by bit, goes away… it detaches itself… What’s the world? It’s nothing! That’s why I’ve never wanted to get off this boat; it’s a sentimental matter. ‘Cause I fell in love. I got engaged to infinity.

The sailor, hands on his balls, moves his pelvis back and forth.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

And did you fuck it, Speflector?

He makes me laugh with his mimed fuck.

SPEFLECTOR Does it seem possible to you that I can fuck the sea?

On the bow, I brace myself against the ropes and I stretch out towards the sea.

SPEFLECTOR

The sea is untouchable, immense, pure. The sea is my sweetheart! I look into her eyes, only a few meters away. Whoosh! Whoosh! What are you doin’, sea? Are you splashing me with your waves? Quit it! You’re giving me a bath! Stop! I’ve gotta tell you somethin’ important and this time everyone’s gotta hear it. Everyone has to hear it. It mustn’t be a secret anymore, I can’t keep it inside anymore. Whoosh! Whoosh! Ah ah ah! Stop! Whoosh whoosh! All right, give me a bath! After all, this is blessed water for me. It’s holywater! From the first time I saw you, I couldn’t understand anything anymore. I didn’t know anymore if it was day or night… I only thought of you, I wanted to be alone with you…

The sailor makes fun of me.

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Speflector, so you’re really fuckin’ the sea?

I ignore him.

SPEFLECTOR Don’t listen to ‘em, they’re kids, they only think about dirty stuff. But I, since I met you, I don’t think about all that crap anymore. Sea, I love you.

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The sailor is jealous of me…he doesn’t have a love as big as mine. That’s why he turns everyone against me and even tries it with the Captain. He gets worked up, he calls him…

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Call the Captain, he has to come see this, he has to come see this too, Speflector is declarin’ his love for the sea. He went and gone crazy!

Yes I’m crazy, yes…

SPEFLECTOR I’m crazy for you, sea!

The Captain will understand. He’ll defend me. There he is!

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

What is happening here? Why aren’t you all at your places? The boat is drifting!

He won’t listen to the sailor, no, he won’t…

SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

Captain, they are all witnesses here, Speflector lost his marbles, that’s why he doesn’t do anythin’ anymore and we gotta finish all his duties. Tear him off that bow and make him get off the boat otherwise there’s going to be a mutiny!

The Captain comes close to me and speaks softly.

SPEFLECTOR (As the Captain)

I can’t defend you anymore, Speflector, there’s too much tension here, come on, take some time off!

I give the Captain a kiss on the forehead because I also care about him.

SPEFLECTOR

But where am I gonna go, Captain? The sea is my whole life!

The sailor comes to the bow, takes the megaphone and shouts.

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SPEFLECTOR (As the sailor)

We can’t stand him anymore, either he leaves or all of us will. Homo! Fag! Go away, you get it? Captain, take him off!

I slowly put the megaphone in its place. I look at the anchors behind me and feel discomfort from the ropes tied to my ankles and my back. I move backwards. I now hear strong and loud the water drops falling from the ceiling. I still have the sailor’s hat on my head, but I can’t make him talk… How strange…I find myself imitating him with mechanically disconnected gestures, with disarticulated movements. I take off the hat and try putting on the Captain’s hat. Same thing. I stop. I try again to move the sailor, then the Captain, the whole machinery is stuck, they don’t respond anymore. I stop, I feel discomfort in my back, the anchors are incredibly heavy, with difficulty I move slowly forward, I reach the bow and look at the sea. Infinity.

SPEFLECTOR

Sooner or later they’ll come back. They’ll go around the world and then they’ll come back here! They can’t leave me here. All my stuff’s on the boat! I don’t have anythin’ here…

I take off my glasses and grab on to the ropes, leaning forward on the tip of my toes. I sing.

SPEFLECTOR

“Tramonta 'a luna...e nuje, pe' recitá l'urtima scena, restammo mane e mane, senza tené 'o curaggio 'e ce guardà... Famme chello che vuò… indifferentemente, tanto 'o ssaccio che so': pe' te nun so' cchiù niente! E damme ‘sto veleno, nun aspettà dimmane... indifferentemente… si tu m'accide nun te dico niente.”129

I put my glasses back on, do a little dance, then, still holding on to the ropes, open up my arms, like a figure head ready to challenge the ocean.

129 From the song Indifferentemente by Mario Abbate. Translation: “The moon sets… and we, to play the last scene, are left hand in hand, without having the courage to look at each other… Do of me what you will… indifferently, because I know what I am: for you now I’m nothing! And give me this poison, don’t wait till tomorrow… indifferently… if you kill me I’m not going to say anything.”

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The Zisa Castle Falling inside the dream

“Nothing has changed. Except perhaps the manners, ceremonies, dances. The gesture of the hands shielding the head has nonetheless remained the same. The body writhes, jerks and tugs, falls to the ground when shoved, pulls up its knees, bruises, swells, drools and bleeds. Nothing has changed. Except the run of rivers, the shape of forests, shores, deserts and glaciers. The little soul roams among those landscapes, disappears, returns, draws near, moves away, evasive and a stranger to itself, now sure, now uncertain of its own existence, whereas the body is and is and is and has nowhere to go.”

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA Tortures

from Poems New and Collected translated by Stanislaw Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

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A room in a religious institution for the care of the sick, four chairs leaning against the back wall, each covered with a white sheet. Above each chair dangles a small white crucifix. Two women, one young, the other older, kneel in silent prayer in front of the chairs while glancing sporadically toward the crosses. Both women wear slips, their hair is down, their feet are bare. They finish praying, stand up, kiss the crucifix, cross themselves and move away toward a corner of the room where their carefully folded clothes are lying on the ground. The women pull up their hair into tight buns and get dressed in the half-light, whispering between themselves.

YOUNG

(Putting on her glasses.) Did you mend Nicola’s pajamas?

OLD Shouldn’t you have done it? Je l’ai fait l’année dernière… (She also puts on glasses.) You, instead: did you iron the sheets?

YOUNG I did many other things… (She puts on a white shirt and quickly buttons it up.) I dusted the toys…swept the floors…cleaned the bathrooms… made breakfast… washed the dolls’ tiny dresses… look!

The young woman points to two mechanical dolls dressed like princesses positioned a few meters away from them.

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OLD But what do you care about the dress if that doll hasn’t worked in years! It spins so slowly, it’s exasperating! (She puts on a black skirt and a white shirt.) Don’t tell me you cleaned and reordered parce que c’est pas vrai! C’est tout en désordre! Tu dis vraiment n’importe quoi! You just say that crap!

YOUNG (She also puts on a black skirt.)

If you speak French, I don’t understand a fucking thing!

OLD Depuis tout ce temps you should have learned French.

YOUNG

I don’t understand what you’re saying, dimwit!

OLD All right now… (She takes off her glasses.) Mettons les points sur les i… Listen carefully…

YOUNG (Takes off her glasses and gets closer to the face of the older woman.)

No, you listen…

OLD Hulà! Mais tu t’es pas lavé les dents, c’est une infection!

YOUNG Nicola’s pajamas need to be mended and the toys organized…Who’s going to do it?

OLD What do you mean who’s going to do it? Yesterday, I did it, today, it’s your turn.

YOUNG Mine? Then you don’t hear! This morning, I did more than I had to, therefore you’ll do the rest! Do you understand my language? Unbelievable!

OLD Quoi? Ah non mais alors là vraiment c’est le ponpon!

YOUNG Go do your job, go!

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The young woman puts on a pair of flats and, arms crossed, waits for the other woman to move.

OLD Tu es mesquine! Vraiment mesquine! Like I didn’t fulfill my duty. Like I didn’t do anything all day. Je me casse le dos toute la journée à nettoyer, à cuisiner, à repasser, à ranger, j’ai pas une minute pour moi… jamais! Je suis extenuée… je suis éreintée… destroyed. Va te faire voir!

The older woman puts on a pair of black flats. Grumbling and stamping her feet, she moves toward the chairs. She pulls out a few bowling pins, a hula hoop and small, colored balls, which she puts at the feet of the chairs. When she returns, the young woman has put on a black apron and the white veil worn by catholic nuns.

OLD

See, it took me two minutes… when you do it, it takes you half an hour because instead of tidying up, tu fais la maline avec l’hula hoop…

YOUNG I experiment with new exercises…on myself… so when it’s time to do them with the patients it’s easier, I know how… here, hurry up!

She hands her an apron and a veil.

OLD (Quickly putting on her nun garments)

J’expérimente des nouveaux exercises. Tu es la plus malade, ici! And I am the one who slogs away all day!

YOUNG You’re not proactive… never… I’ve read a multitude of books… I go to the cinema when I can… to the theatre… I watch TV… I experiment continuously.

OLD Et on voit le résultat! Bravá!

The younger nun picks up a large leather bag and puts it across her shoulders. They both move toward

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the first chair in the row. They bend over to take two corners of the sheet that covers the chair and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, they uncover a young man curled up on the chair, his upper torso folded forward. Like the other patients covered by sheets, the young man doesn’t show any sign of life. In this room of the institution, they all sleep deeply. The older nun lifts up Nicola, and brusquely takes off the shirt of his pajamas. Nicola’s eyes are wide open but he doesn’t see. He lets the women handle him like a rag doll. The younger nun takes two tissues from her bag and hands one to the sister. They spit on the tissues, lift up Nicola’s arms and rub the tissues against his armpits. After lowering his pants, they repeat the same action between his buttocks and genital area.

OLD

Nicolá regarde-moi! Toujours le même! Tu es paresseux. Lazy! Leve le bras, ouvre la main, tourne la tête… allez un petit effort. A little effort, come on!

YOUNG Hurry up, pull down his underwear. I don’t have time for this!

OLD Hulá! Il transpire… Il sent mauvais!

YOUNG Wipe his ass instead of complaining. Here’s another tissue.

OLD You wipe it while I go wind up the dolls…

She moves away to wind up the princesses. They revolve as their carillons’s music plays.

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YOUNG (Loudly, to Nicola)

If she weren’t here to take care of you, you’d piss and shit all over yourself… let’s wait for her together, ok? Poor devil…

The older nun comes back and angrily sticks a tissue between Nicola’s buttocks.

OLD

Allez maintenant on va te nettoyer les fesses… let’s clean up your cheeks. Hulá! Il a fait caca!

She hands the dirty tissue to the other nun.

YOUNG

But why when there’s something disgusting to do is it always my turn? My Lord, let this torment end soon!

OLD (Looking at Nicola’s penis)

Hulá! Il a un gros zizi! Tous mes compliments, Nicolá!

The younger nun throws the shit-covered tissue to a corner of the room, then she bends over and picks something up. When she reappears, she is wearing a dragon mask. She plants herself in front of Nicola and imitates the monster’s movements while making terrifying sounds.

OLD Qu’est-ce que tu fais avec cette maskerá?

YOUNG What kind of question is that? You see me do this pantomime everyday… I do it to startle him, to make him react!

OLD But if you see it doesn’t work, why do you insist?

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YOUNG

Because I believe in miracles. The older nun snatches the mask from her head and moves towards the doll that, in the meanwhile, has stopped playing.

OLD Espèce d’arrogante!

The young nun whispers incomprehensible words in Nicola’s ear and, meanwhile, throws him a ball, puts the hula hoop around his arm, spinning the circle to make it twirl, plays with three balls in front of his face hoping that his eyes will move… react… but nothing, nothing happens… the boy does not respond to any stimulus, his pupils are dilated, his eyes dull. The older nun returns and, after turning his head towards one of the two carillon-dolls, she feeds him a spoonful of mush taken from a little jar. The young nun takes a comb out of the leather bag and begins to comb his hair.

OLD

Does this seem like the right time to comb his hair?

YOUNG Sooner or later you’ll poison him with that concoction.

OLD Tell me frankly: what would you like me to feed him?

YOUNG What did you put in that?

OLD Carrot puree and tomato sauce.

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YOUNG That’s disgusting! Aren’t you ashamed of feeding him that?

OLD

Why don’t you make him something to eat then?

As the older nun quickly turns towards the sister, she bumps Nicola’s shoulder. He falls from the chair.

YOUNG

Idiot, you made him fall!

OLD I made him fall, huh?! Qu’est-ce qu’il faut pas entendre?!

The older nun bends over Nicola, pulls him up and sits him down. Then, as she turns around suddenly, she hits Nicola’s shoulder again. He falls down in the same position as before.

YOUNG

You see? You’re the one who makes him fall. You didn’t put him back in the chair correctly! You’re incompetent!

OLD I didn’t put him back correctly! Que’est-ce qu’il faut pas que j’entende de la bouche d’une gamine! You go break your back! You pick him up and you put him back! Go on! Do it!

YOUNG What? You made him fall and I have to pick him up? Are you completely stupid?

OLD

I’m stupid, huh? You don’t even help me, do you realize that? You’re happy when he falls… to throw it back in my face! You don’t have pity for him… for anyone! How will God forgive you?!

YOUNG You know what? I’m not doing anything else today. You deal with it!

OLD Ça changera pas grand chose, since you’ve never done anything.

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YOUNG Don’t you dare talk to me like that, understand? I’m really going now and then we’ll see if nothing changes!

OLD Viens ici! Alors, let’s speak clearly and let’s start from the beginning: how do you expect me to feed him while you’re brushing his hair? Can you explain that to me?

YOUNG I can’t collaborate with you…there’s no listening. You’re deaf. You can never feel when it’s the right moment to do something.

OLD Ah, I can never feel when it’s the right moment to do something?!

YOUNG I can’t stand you anymore. If you keep on provoking me I’ll explode! Look at the doll, her dress is coming apart, look at Nicola, his pajamas have holes, the food you give the patients is disgusting, the toys are broken, the sheets stained…

OLD Shut up for a second - I don’t understand. Tu parles en permanence, c’est insupportable! We can’t get anywhere with you… To go on like this, c’est pas possible! Je deviens folle! I’ll have a nervous breakdown. Je suis exaspéré, tu me ruines l’existance, tu comprends?!

YOUNG I’m at the point of no return, not you! You’re exasperating! I beg you, dear Lord, stop me because I’m about to commit a homicide.

OLD Oui, voyons! Do it! Tue-moi! Kill me if you have the guts! Je suis lá. J’attends…

The younger nun repeatedly kicks the sister with unbelievable ferocity.

OLD

Arrête! Arrête! Je t’en prie! Pour l’amour de Dieu, arrête! Tu me fais mal, tellement mal! Ce n’est pas possible de continuer comme ça, je n’en peux plus, moi! Je suis arrivée au bout, à la limite du supportable. J’ai des bleus énormes sus l’arrière train, des bleus grands comme ça! Je me passé de la crème tous les soirs avant d’aller au lit mais rien n’y fait! J’ai l’arrière train tout gonflé. Je souffre, moi! Tut te rends compte de ce que tu me fais subir depuis des années? On ne peut pas continuer comme ça, non, ça n’est pas possible! Le matin, quand je me lève, je suis pliée en deux, tellement je souffre, comme ça! Je fais en effort surhumain pour me redresser. J’ai du mal à marcher, non mais tu e rends compte? Oh mon Dieu, je vous en prie, faites quelque chose pour moi! Aidez cette

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pauvre femme à retrouver la raison, elle est folle, c’est une folle! Je vous en supplie mon Dieu, aidez-moi à surmonter cette épreuve! Je veux bien souffrir comme le Christ sur la croix mais aidez-moi…130

The younger nun, her face distraught, kneels down and prays under her breath.

YOUNG

Lord, forgive me…

The older nun, crying, lies on the floor flat on her belly and, in stretching out her hands like a cross, she hits one of the two dolls. The doll tips over and stops playing. While the two women are absorbed in prayer, Nicola gets up from the floor and sits on the chair. When the older nun pulls herself up, Nicola falls to the ground once more in the same position as before. The two nuns, troubled, turn towards him.

YOUNG

Did you see him too?

OLD Bien sûr!

YOUNG He pulled himself up and fell down. My God!

Carefully, the older nun goes closer to Nicola while the other follows her, visibly frightened.

130 Stop it! Stop it! I beg you! For the love of God, stop it! It hurts, a lot! I can’t go on like this, I, I can’t take it anymore! I’ve reached the end, the limit of what’s bearable! I’ve got enormous bruises on my butt, this big! I put on ointment every night before going to bed but it doesn’t do anything! My butt is all swollen. I suffer, I! Do you realize what you’ve made me suffer for years? I can’t go on like this, no, it’s not possible! In the morning, when I get up, I’m bent over, the pain is so strong, like this! I have to put in superhuman effort just to pull myself up. I struggle to walk, really do you realize it? Oh God, please, do something for me! Help this poor woman find reason, she’s crazy, she’s a madwoman! I beseech you, my Lord, help me overcome this trial! I’m willing to suffer like Christ on the cross but help me…

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OLD Help me! Let’s pull him up!

The two women put Nicola in the chair and, after having observed him, the young nun puts the hula hoop around his arm and gives it a spin. Nicola responds to the spin giving the hoop enough momentum to complete two, three, or four revolutions.

YOUNG

Good Nicola! Good! Like this… keep going, don’t stop… Yesss… Make it spin, Nicola… Make it spin… Faster… Go on!

OLD Vite, vite Nicolà! Et voilà! Maintenant let’s try with the ball. Catch it! (She tosses him the ball and Nicola catches it.) Bravò Nicolà, like this… bravò!

Overexcited, the two nuns continue to throw him balls and bowling pins until Nicola wakes up from his lethargy as his body shakes and he cries in pain. He stands up from the chair, takes two steps and falls. The young nun helps him to get on his feet. Nicola takes four steps and falls. The two nuns exhort him to stay on his feet. Nicola falls down and stands up several times until he manages to stay upright, placing one foot behind the other as if he were learning to walk again.

YOUNG

Hold on tight to the balls, Nicola, and walk, good, like this, see, so you don’t fall.

OLD (Throws three small balls in the air.)

Look, Nicola! Fais-le toi aussi, lance les boules et rattrappe-les, comme ça, regarde! You do it too, throw the balls and catch them, like this, look!

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Nicola throws the balls in the air and catches them like a real juggler would.

OLD

Bravò, bravò Nicolà!

Nicola lets the balls fall and makes cartwheels and backward somersaults. He runs… sprints around the room… maddened with joy… but as soon as he notices the gaze of the audience, he halts downstage. With his head inclined right and left, he looks at them, losing his balance until he falls. The older nun brings him a pair of glasses and, once he puts them on, Nicola sees better and regains his balance. Making small gestures and joyous squeals, he stares stupefied at the audience. In a sudden fit of euphoria, he fidgets until his body is taken with retching spasms; he is then spellbound as he looks at the doll that the older nun had tipped over during her prayer. The older nun runs towards the doll and, as soon as she stands it up, Nicola breaks out of the spell.

NICOLA

(Curious, he talks to the two nuns and the audience.) My name’s Nicola. I’m from Palermo, from the Zisa. I spend the whole day in front of the window lookin’ at the Zisa Castle. I am the guardian of the castle. I live with my aunt Marisa, she loves me, my aunt! In the mornin’ she calls me: “Get up Nicola!” No, aunty, I’m sleepy. “Get up - the milk’s ready!” I go runnin’ an’ runnin’, ‘cause I like milk, it makes me stronger, but not just a cup! I drink five, six cups …a river of milk… we got a water faucet and a milk faucet, ‘cause there’s a cow on the roof with little tubes stuck to her boobs, all pressurized: pew pew! It’s a little much, this imagination I got! Milk’s good for everythin’: you get a scratch and make yourself a milk compress, you break your wrist and you soak it in milk, you get a headache, and you take two milk drops, and if aunty Marisa gives me a slap… does it turn red? I put milk on it and it becomes white… you got to rub it, though! Rub it!

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Nicola slaps himself repeatedly, the glasses fly off his face. The two nuns try to calm him down but the fit escalates. He hits himself hard, hurts himself. The young nun runs to windup one of the dolls in an attempt to capture his attention.

YOUNG

Nicola, look… look! Music… the princess spins and plays music!

Attracted by the sound of the music box, Nicola calms down and is spellbound, staring at the princess until she stops moving… smiling serenely, he now focuses his attention onto his pajamas.

NICOLA

There’re full of holes, my pjs! All ripped up! It’s dirty, look! When I get dirty my aunt Marisa runs me an amazing bath. She washes my head, hair, ears, armpits, belly button, balls and ass hole! (Looking at the nuns with malice) She washes my balls and ass hole… and my wee wee… you always have to wash your wee wee otherwise it gets sore and it swells up! Swells up big, as big as this room!

He slides his hand inside his underwear and touches his penis. He ejaculates prematurely. The younger nun cleans his hand with a tissue and, preceded by the other nun, begins to move towards the back wall.

NICOLA

When I’m all clean and smellin’ nice, my aunt sits me down in front of the window and goes to work, she works at the hardware store… “Don’t open the door for anyone, Nicola!” Nooo, aunty! I’ll stay here, lookin’ at the Zisa castle… it’s tall! You can’t see where it ends! It has a tower where two princesses are hidden… They’re very pretty! Delicate! The devils would like to take them, but I defend them! My window’s full of eyes and claws…and my mouth puffs out air all day long, and once in a while, a devil passes by and I suck him up!

He runs to get the dragon mask. He puts it on and returns downstage making frightening noises

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accompanied by large and disjointed gestures. Then he takes off the mask and lifts his gaze towards the tower of the castle.

NICOLA

I made all the devils run away! An’ I ate the smaller ones! One night my aunt came back and brought me bolts… she gets them from the hardware store, the bolts… I make a lot of contraptions with bolts… for her that night I made a dragon with wings, I made! “Nicola, are you very hungry?” Yeeeah! “Should I make pasta and potatoes for you, the kind you like?” Jeee must be a holiday?! “Sit down, Nicola. I have to talk to you!” One minute, come here aunty, look outside the window! Look how beautiful the castle is… touches the moon… it turns into silver with all those tiny stars around it like a crown! What are those black patches, aunty? It’s full of dark patches up there! It’s the devils sitting on top of the tower! The princesses are in danger! “Sit down Nicola - I have to tell you something important!” What is it, aunty? “You can’t stay with me anymore.” Why? “I can’t have here anymore.” But I wanna stay with you, aunty. “It can’t be helped, Nicola!” Then, you come with me, aunty! “I can’t come with you, but I’ll come visit once in a while.” (Nicola cries) In the name of the holy ghost’s son! “No, Nicola, in the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost.” I’m the guardian of the castle! I’ll defend you, aunty! The devils can’t do anythin’ ‘cause I’ll eat them, I’ll eat them horns, tails, wings and everything! Their iron hoofs too! Iron doesn’t do

NICOLA (cont.) anythin’ to me. Iron makes me even stronger! One time, a devil kicked me, and I ate his foot, he walked away lame. Another time a devil kicked me twice and I ate his feet, he walked away on his hands, like this… (He turns to look at the nuns who are waiting for him near the empty chair.) In the name of the holy ghost’s son! “No, Nicola… in the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost.” I get it wrong ‘cause of the devils, aunty! It’s not my fault! In the name of the holy ghost’s son! In the name of the holy ghost’s son! “In the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost!” Help me aunty! In the name of the holy ghost’s son! In the name of the holy ghost’s son! “No, Nicola… in the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost!” You’re tickling me like that, aunty! In the name of the holy ghost’s son… help me aunty!

Nicola crosses himself as he moves backwards towards the chair. A sudden blackout interrupts the action. When the light comes back on, Nicola is on the floor in the same position as before.

YOUNG

You see? You’re the one who makes him fall. You didn’t put him back in the chair correctly! You’re incompetent!

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OLD I didn’t put him back correctly! Que’est-ce qu’il faut pas que j’entende de la bouche d’une gamine! You go break your back! You pick him up and you put him back! Go on! Do it!

YOUNG What? You made him fall and I have to pick him up? Are you completely stupid?

OLD I’m stupid, huh? You don’t even help me, do you realize that? You’re happy when he falls… to throw it back in my face! You don’t have pity for him… for anyone! How will God forgive you?!

YOUNG You know what? I’m not doing anything else today. You deal with it!

OLD Ça changera pas grand chose, since you’ve never done anything.

YOUNG Don’t you dare talk to me like that, understand? I’m really going now and then we’ll see if nothing changes!

OLD Viens ici! Alors, let’s speak clearly and let’s start from the beginning: how do you expect me to feed him while you’re brushing his hair? Can you explain that to me?

YOUNG I can’t collaborate with you…there’s no listening. You’re deaf. You can never feel when it’s the right moment to do something.

OLD Ah, I can never feel when it’s the right moment to do something?!

YOUNG I can’t stand you anymore. If you keep on provoking me I’ll explode! Look at the doll, her dress is coming apart, look at Nicola, his pajamas have holes, the food you give the patients is disgusting, the toys are broken, the sheets stained…

OLD Shut up for a second - I don’t understand. Tu parles en permanence, c’est insupportable! We can’t get anywhere with you… To go on like this, c’est pas possible! Je deviens folle! I’ll have a nervous breakdown. Je suis exaspéré, tu me ruines l’existance, tu comprends?!

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YOUNG I’m at the point of no return, not you! You’re exasperating! I beg you, dear Lord, stop me because I’m about to commit a homicide.

OLD Oui, voyons! Do it! Tue-moi! Kill me if you have the guts! Je suis lá. J’attends…

The younger nun repeatedly kicks the sister with unbelievable ferocity.

OLD

Arrête! Arrête! Je t’en prie! Pour l’amour de Dieu, arrête! Tu me fais mal, tellement mal! Ce n’est pas possible de continuer comme ça, je n’en peux plus, moi! Je suis arrivée au bout, à la limite du supportable. J’ai des bleus énormes sus l’arrière train, des bleus grands comme ça! Je me passé de la crème tous les soirs avant d’aller au lit mais rien n’y fait! J’ai l’arrière train tout gonflé. Je souffre, moi! Tut te rends compte de ce que tu me fais subir depuis des années? On ne peut pas continuer comme ça, non, ça n’est pas possible! Le matin, quand je me lève, je suis pliée en deux, tellement je souffre, comme ça! Je fais en effort surhumain pour me redresser. J’ai du mal à marcher, non mais tu e rends compte? Oh mon Dieu, je vous en prie, faites quelque chose pour moi! Aidez cette pauvre femme à retrouver la raison, elle est folle, c’est une folle! Je vous en supplie mon Dieu, aidez-moi à surmonter cette épreuve! Je veux bien souffrir comme le Christ sur la croix mais aidez-moi…131

YOUNG Lord, forgive me…

The older nun, crying, lies on the floor, flat on her belly and, in stretching out her hands like a cross, she does not bump the doll this time. Nicola is still on the floor when the two nuns get up and move toward the second chair of the row to uncover another patient by lifting the sheet from his small, curled up body.

131 Ibid.

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Dancers A lengthy caption for the pronoun it

“I know that love Can turn white As when one sees a dawn That was believed lost.”

ALDA MERINI from “La donna di picche” in Clinica dell’abbandono

translated by Francesca Spedalieri

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At two opposite points in the room there are two open trunks. A very old woman is hunched over the smaller trunk. She searches, she leans over, she loses balance, she pulls herself up with difficulty. She stretches her back and lets out a wheeze. She holds a switch connected to an electric cable. The woman presses the switch and a firmament lights up above her head. Myriads of little bulbs hanging from the ceiling illuminate the room. From the other trunk a man, equally old, emerges. He looks at her. Smiles. She hunches over again and takes out the jacket of an old suit from the bottom of the trunk. The two begin to walk towards each other until they meet in the center of the room. He is tall and thin. She is tiny and bent over. Out of habit, she stops at his right. When they are close to each other they resemble the pronoun it. She helps him put on the jacket. He, slowly, slides one arm and then the other inside the slightly creased sleeves. it dances. A slow dance. He, with his chin resting on her head. She, holding on to his jacket. it falls asleep as they dance. Turn after turn, they begin to snore. They kiss while they snore. Mixing the noise of the snoring with the noise of love-making. He touches her. She lets him touch her. Their grunts become groans then panting. He unbuttons the jacket, unzips the fly of his pants. it presses up against each other. He thrusts against her abdomen with small movements of his pelvis. it has an orgasm. She feels she’s suffocating. She has an asthma attack. She fidgets. She moves away from him and her whole body goes into a tremor. He extracts a small pill bottle from his jacket pocket, takes out a pill and holds it out to her. She swallows it voraciously, then she calms down and from the sleeve of her blouse takes out a white embroidered handkerchief. She blows her nose and lurches forward. He holds her by one arm. She puts away the handkerchief, then she scratches her thigh. He zips up his pants and pulls out a pocket watch from his jacket. He counts barely moving his lips: 10…9…8…7… He takes a handful of confetti out of his pocket and merrily throws it in the air …5…4…3… as midnight tolls, he lights a small firecracker. She does not react. He pulls out a party horn and, as soon as he blows into it, it stretches into a multicolored paper tongue. She continues to not react. He coughs, puts the whistle back in his pocket and moves away from her. She watches him move away.

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He moves close to the bigger trunk. He puts a hand in it, then an arm, deeper and deeper. He rummages through. He finds two small, colored paper hats. He’s amused. He looks at her. She looks at him. He holds one hat out to her. She turns to scratch her other thigh. He leans over the trunk, puts away the hats, takes out a toy trumpet, stands up and begins to blow it, moving around clumsily. He has a cramp in his leg. She looks at him. He asks for help with his eyes. She clenches her fist and hits her leg with soft blows. He mimics her, trustingly. The cramp melts away. He puts away the toy trumpet in the trunk and takes out a bottle of spumante. She looks at him. He looks at her. it looks at each other for an infinite time. Then she turns toward the opposite side of the room. He puts away the bottle. She walks toward the smaller trunk. He quickens his pace behind her. He follows her. She opens the trunk. She looks inside. She leans over the trunk and after a few moments reappears with a wedding veil on her head. it looks at each other. She has an asthma attack. She feels she’s suffocating, she gets rid of the veil, fidgeting. He extracts the pill bottle out of his pocket, takes out a pill and holds it out to her. She swallows the pill, then takes the handkerchief out of her sleeve and blows her nose, lurching forward. He holds her up by one arm. She calms down, puts away the handkerchief, then she scratches her thigh. She leans over again and takes a small music box out of the trunk. it stares at each other. She turns the crank and makes it play. He looks up, sighing. She begins to laugh and move her feet. He laughs too. Laughing and dancing it enters into its memories and re-lives backwards its love story. She stretches her back, lengthening. He puts on glasses and becomes younger. The echo of a song:

E se domani io non potessi rivedere te… mettiamo il caso tu ti sentissi stanco di me… quello che importa all’altra gente non mi darà nemmeno l’ombra della perduta felicitá… e se domani, e sottolineo se, all’improvisso perdessi te avrei perduto il mondo intero non solo te… 132

it dances.

132 E se domani by Mina. Translation: “And if tomorrow I couldn’t see you again…let’s say that you’d feel tired of me… what’s important to other people for me isn’t even a shadow of lost happiness… and if tomorrow, and I underline if, suddenly I’d lose you I would have lost the whole world and not only you…”

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Lontano, lontano nel tempo qualche cosa negli occhi di un altro ti fará ripensare ai miei occhi, i miei occhi che t’amavano tanto… e lontano lontano nel mondo…133

it undress: jackets, shirts, skirt, trousers, until he’s left in his undershirt and she in her slip…

Non essere geloso se con gli altri ballo il twist, non essere geloso se con gli altri ballo il rock, con te, con te, con te che sei la mia passione, io ballo il ballo del mattone. Lentamente, guancia a guancia, io ti dico che ti amo, tu mi dici che mi ami, dondolando sulla stessa mattonella…134

She’s thirty-something years-old. He’s a few years older. Se mi vuoi lasciare dimmi almeno perché…io non so capire perché tu vuoi fuggire…da me…se mi vuoi lasciare dimmi almeno perché… tu dicevi sempre che vivevi per me…il tuo amore non era sincero…I tuoi baci non erano veri…I tuoi occhi mi han sempre mentito…135

While dancing, she moves towards the larger trunk. She pulls him towards her swaying her hips. Aroused, he follows her but when he notices a newborn baby popping out of the trunk, he runs away as fast as he can. She holds the baby while she chases him. He runs. She catches up, passes him the baby and, dancing, moves away. He tails her and when he can, he unloads his son on her. The baby cries. He’s sorry for what he’s done, goes back and, to calm the baby, he begins to make strange faces with his mouth, his nose, his eyes. She also acts like she’s become stupid. Turned toward their son, they compete to see who can make the funniest sounds.

HE

An’ howcute, howcute, howcute!

SHE An’ potakatapita!!!

133 To the song Lontano, lontano by Luigi Tenco. Translation: “faraway, faraway in time something in somebody’s eyes will make you think of my eyes, my eyes that loved you so… and faraway faraway in the world…” 134 Il ballo del mattone by Rita Pavone. Translation: “Don’t be jealous if with others I dance the twist, don’t be jealous if with others I dance the rock, with you, with you who are my passion, I’m dancing the brick-dance. Slowly, cheek to cheek, I tell you I love you, you tell me you love me, swaying on the same little tile…” 135 Se mi vuoi lasciare by Michele Maisano. Translation: “If you want to leave me, at least tell me why… I don’t understand why you’d want to flee… from me… if you want to leave me, at least tell me why… you always said you lived for me…your love was not sincere… your kisses were not true… your eyes have always lied to me…”

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HE and SHE An’ tuminimipotika!!!

HE An’ pote…

SHE Pota…

HE and SHE Potatoe!!

HE

An’ Cock-a coo.

SHE An’ Doo-da doo.

HE Cock-a doo.

SHE Doodle-doo.

HE An’ daddy.

SHE An’ mommy.

HE Ppppppupupu.

SHE Paepaepaepaepaepaepae.

HE Dadadadadada.

SHE An’ daddy.

HE An’ daddy.

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HE and SHE An’ daddy’ll eat him!

SHE You can’t eat him!

HIM But I’ll eat him! Yes, I’ll eat him!

He pretends to nibble at the baby.

SHE Don’t eat him, let him be…leave his tiny hand alone!

HE This little hand is mine! I’ll eat it! An’ the ears are mine as well…I’ll eat them…an’ the belly button, an’ the belly, an’ his little willy! I’ll eat it all, this little willy, all of it… all of it…

SHE No, not his little willy!

HE Yes, his little willy!

SHE Leave his little willy alone!

HE Yes, yes I’m going to eat it!

SHE No!

HE Yes!

SHE Ahhh!

HE

An’ I’ll also eat his little feet! I’m going to eat him all, this little baby, all of him!

He bites the new-born baby. He devours him. She tries to take the baby away from him but she can’t do it. He tosses the baby into the

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air and then catches him. Worried, she jumps up with the baby and then falls down. Jumps and falls, jumps and falls until she feels a stabbing pain in her abdomen. She runs toward the other trunk and pulls out a big button-down shirt. She puts it on. She is nine months pregnant. She paces up and down frenetically. She’s in labor, about to give birth. He puts the baby in the trunk and follows her, worried.

HE

Stop and breathe… breathe!

She takes off her shoes. He also takes off his shoes. She hands him her glasses. He puts them in his pocket, and then takes his glasses off. She dances from pain.

Nel continente nero, paraponziponzipó, alle falde del Kilimangiaro, paraponziponzipó… ci sta un popolo di negri che ha inventato tanti balli, il piú famoso é l’ Hully-Gully! Hully-Gully, Hully-Gá! 136

HE Breathe, I said!

SHE I feel terrible!

HE Follow me…

SHE I’m dying!

HE This way, look!

He lifts a leg then the other till he begins to follow the steps of the Watussi dance. She follows him, forgetting for a moment that she’s in labor…

…Ogni tre passi facciomo sei metri noi siamo quelli che dall’Equatore vediamo per primi le luci del sole…noi siamo i Watussi…137

136 From the song I Watussi by Edoardo Vianello. Translation: “In the dark continent, paraponziponzipó, at feet of the Kilimanjaro, paraponziponzipó… a country of black people has invented many dances, the most famous is the Hully-Gully! Hully-Gully, Hully-Gá!”

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HE That’s good, sweetie! You see, this way you don’t feel the pain anymore!

SHE Siamo i Watussi, siaamo i Watussi…gli altissimi negri… ooogni tre passi… ooogni tre passi…138 Oh! Oh! Oh!

HE Facciamo sei metri139…Dance and It’ll go away!

SHE Alle giraffe guardiamo negli occhi, agli elefanti parliamo negli orecchi…se non ci credete venite… venite quaggiú140… Ahhh! Ahhh! Nel continente nero… alle falde del Kilimangiaro…paraponzi-ponzipó…141 I am dying. Run, go get me a painkiller… Paraponziponzipó… paraponziponzipó… No, no, no… ahhh! Go get me a cigarette… chamomile… make me some chamomile tea… Call… call… call…

HE Who should I call?

SHE The hospital… my mother… the neighbor… wake up the whole building… ahhh! Ahhh! Paraponziponzipó… paraponziponzipó… Heeeelpp!

She takes off the shirt and gives it to him. He puts it on, taking his turn experiencing the piercing pain. She catches her breath. He takes off the shirt and looks at her, exhausted. it laughs. He lightly touches her breast. it kisses, caresses each other. They’re aroused. She takes off his undershirt. He, her slip. She unzips his pants. it takes off its clothes while dancing.

Dimmi quando tu verrai, dimmi quando quando quando… l’anno, il giorno, l’ora in cui forse tu mi bacerai…Ogni instante attenderó fino a quando quando quando… d’improvviso ti vedro sorridente accanto a me. Se vuoi dirmi di sí… devi dirlo perché non ha senso per me la mia vita senza te… e baciando mi dirai non ci lasceremo mai…142

137 From the song I Watussi. Translation: “…every three steps we do six meters, we are the ones that from the Equator are the first to see the light of the sun… we are the Watussi…” 138 We are the Watussi, we are the Watussi, the tallest black people… eeevery three steps… eeevery three steps… 139 We cover six meters. 140 We look giraffes in the eyes, we speak to elephants in the ears…if you don’t believe it come… come down here. 141 In the dark continent… at feet of the Kilimanjaro, paraponzi-ponzipó… 142 From the song Quando, quando, quando by Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. Translation: “Tell me when you’ll come, tell me when when when… the year, the day, the hour when, maybe, you’ll kiss me… Every instant I’ll wait till when when when… suddenly I’ll see you smiling next to me. If you want to tell me

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She moves away from him. He looks at her moving away. She slips inside the larger trunk. He waits. She comes out wearing a wedding gown.

Ogni instante attenderó fino a quando quando quando… d’improvviso ti vedró sorridente accanto a me… 143

He can’t take his eyes off of her. He doesn’t blink. He’s moved by his young bride’s beauty.

HE

Come here! Come! She holds the music box in her hands. She plays it while, moving like a mechanical doll, she slowly comes closer to him. it is less than twenty years old. She bends, spins around. She moves in spurts. The wedding gown slips away from her. When she stops in front of him, she’s wearing a swimming suit. He looks at her in ecstasy. She hands him the music box. He takes it quickly and hides it behind his back.

HE

I brought you something.

SHE What is it?

HE Guess?

She tries to peek behind his back.

HE Ah, no! Touch my nipple.

As soon as she presses her finger on his nipple, he plays the music box.

HE

The other nipple!

yes… you’ll have to say it because my life doesn’t make sense without you… and kissing me you’ll tell me that we’ll never leave each other...” 143 From the song Quando, quando, quando by Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. Translation: “Every instant I’ll wait till when when when…suddenly I’ll see you smiling next to me…”

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She touches the other nipple.

HE Again!

She touches his navel and he plays.

SHE But how do you do that?

HE Where you touch me, there I make music! Here!

He hands her the music box.

SHE What is it?

HE A carillon à musique.

SHE You don’t pronounce it how it’s written, dummy!

HE All right, all right, what does it matter? You like it?

SHE I like it.

HE And I like you.

He’s embarrassed. She looks down and plays with the music box. Then she smiles naughtily.

HE

I like your eyes… I melt when you look at me like that! I like you when you laugh… like now, that you get a dimple here! (He touches the corner of his mouth) I like your curls, it’s like they say: “A whim for every curl on a pretty girl!” And I like when you smoke a cigarette leaning on the balcony hiding from your father. And I stroll by and then come back, to and fro under that balcony…

SHE I saw you!

415

HE I know… that’s why I stroll by!

Pause

HE

Do you want to marry me?

She pulls her head up. They look at each other seriously. They kiss for the first time…

…É un’ora che aspetto davanti al portone, su trova una scusa per uscire di casa… fatti mandare dall mamma a prendere il latte… devo dirti qualcosa che riguarda noi due…144

She breaks away and runs like a madwoman.

SHE Yessssssssssssssssssss! …Ti ho visto uscire dalla scuola insieme ad un altro… con la mano nella mano passeggiava con te… tu digli a qual coso che sono geloso che se lo rivedo gli spaccheró il muso…dai scendi amore…ho bisogno di te…ho bisogno di te… vieni gú…145

He runs to catch her. He grabs her, kisses her passionately. She slips and rolls on the floor, he follows her. it jumps, turns, does summersaults, turns cartwheels… they are happy and in love.

Dai scendi amore…ho bisogno di te… ho bisogno di te…vieni giú…dai…146

She runs, her muscles extended. Her legs are long and slender. He catches up with her and hugs her, encircling her with his wide shoulders. it is in love. She snuggles into his right side and looks towards us. He also looks at us. Enchanted, it stares at us.

… E bá e bé… embé che cosa c’é…kiss me besame t’embrasse baciami… ba ba baciami piccina sulla bo bo bocca piccolina…dammi tanti tanti baci in quantitá… ma questi baci

144 From the song Fatti mandare dalla mamma by Gianni Morandi. Translation: “It’s an hour I’m waiting in front of your door, come on find an excuse to get out of the house… have your mother send you to get some milk… I have to tell you something that’s about us…” 145 From the song Fatti mandare dalla mamma by Gianni Morandi. Translation: “…I saw you getting out of school with another guy…hand in hand he was walking with you… tell that thing that I’m jealous and that if I see him again, I’ll smash his face… come on come down love… I need you… I need you… come down…” 146 From the song Fatti mandare dalla mamma by Gianni Morandi. Translation: “come on, come down love… I need you… I need you… come down… come on…”

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a chi li devo dar?… e bí e bó e bú… bi e bé cara sillaba com’é… sono tanto deliziose queste sillabe d’amore… bi bi bimbo biricchino…147

After having passed him his undershirt and shirt, she puts her blouse back on. They kiss and start dancing again while they get dressed. From the bigger trunk she takes out a bottle of spumante and runs toward him. He uncorks the bottle making it pop.

HE

Happy New Year! Questo bacio che cos’é… é un’apostrofo rosa messo nella frase t’amo… ba ba baciami piccina con la bo bo bo bocca piccolina… dammi tanti tanti baci in quantitá… ma questi baci a chi li devo dar?…148

HE Best wishes, my love!

He kisses her again. They drink from the bottle while they continue to get dressed. it laughs, falls. They get back up. They hug. it gets drunk. He takes the colored party hats out of the trunk: puts one on his head and the other one on hers. He takes out the toy-trumpet and plays it while dancing in an odd but energetic way. She’s entertained. He’s happy to entertain her.

Laggiú nell’Arizona terra di sogni e di chimere se una chitarra suona cantano mille capinere… hanno la chioma bruna hanno la febbre in cor… chi va a cercar fortuna vi troverá l’amor…149

She puts her wedding veil away in the smaller trunk, then the music box…

… A mezzanotte va la ronda del piacere e nell'oscurità ognuno vuol godere… son baci di passion… l'amor non sa tacere e questa è la canzon di mille capinere… il bandolero

147 From the song Ba-Ba-Baciami Piccina by Alberto Rabagliati. Translation: “An’ ki an’ kae…an’ so what is there…kiss me besame t’embrasse baciami…ki ki kiss me little one on the ma ma mouth little one… give me give me many kisses in all…but these kisses who should I give them to?… an’ ki an’ ko an’ ku… ki an’ ke dear syllable as is… they’re so delicious those syllables of love… no no naughty child…” 148 From the song Ba-Ba-Baciami Piccina by Alberto Rabagliati. Translation: “This kiss, what is it? It’s a rosy dot over the 'i' of loving… ki ki kiss me little one on the ma ma mouth little one… give me give me many kisses in all…but these kisses who should I give them to…” 149 From the song Il tango delle capinere by Nilla Pizzi. Translation: “Down there in Arizona, land of dreams and chimeras, if a guitar plays a thousand blackcap birds sing… they have a dark manes and a fever in their heart… who goes to look for fortune will there find love…”

417

stanco scende la sierra misteriosa sul suo cavallo bianco spicca la vampa di una rosa… quel fior di primavera vuol dire fedeltà e alla sua capinera egli lo porterà….150

He gets more and more drunk. He puts on his trousers, the vest, the bow-tie. As soon as she has her jacket on, her back hunches over. He steps inside the largest trunk and disappears. She puts her wedding dress inside the smaller trunk together with her other memories. She’s drunk. She leans over the trunk and re-appears with the face of an old woman. She has an asthma attack. She feels she’s suffocating. Worried, she looks around and sees his jacket on the floor. She drags herself toward the jacket. She bends over to pick it up and takes the pill bottle out of the breast pocket. When she takes a pill, she drops the others on the ground. She swallows the pill, takes her handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse and blows her nose. She calms down, puts away the handkerchief. She takes his jacket and, with the tip of her fingers, brushes the dust off the collar. Then, she folds it up carefully while moving towards the smaller trunk. She opens it with difficulty and puts the jacket inside. She looks around. Before shutting the trunk once and for all, she leans over and picks up the cable attached to the switch. She presses the switch and the lights above her head go off. Only the empty bottle and the confetti scattered on the ground are left in the middle of the room. She staggers toward the bottle. She stops and crouches down breathing heavily. She looks around again, does not move for a few seconds before leaping with feline agility along the perimeter of the room. Her muscles extended, her limbs outstretched. She rummages everywhere. Like a caged animal, she sniffs the air.

150 From the song Il tango delle capinere by Nilla Pizzi. Translation: “At midnight the pleasure patrol goes out, and in the darkness everyone wants to feel pleasure… it’s kisses of passion… love doesn’t know how to be quite, and this is the song of a thousand blackcap birds… the tired bandit comes down the mysterious mountain, on his white horse the red flame of a rose stands out… the spring flower that means fidelity and that he’ll bring to his blackcap bird…”

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Appendix B: Works Directed by Emma Dante (1999 to 2017)

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Theatrography

Original works and Adaptations 1999 - Il Sortilegio, adapted from Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garçia

Marquez. 2000 – Il filo di Penelope L’arringa 2001 – Insulti, adapted from Superwoobinda by Aldo Nove

La principessa sul pisello, inspired by the writings of David Foster Wallace and Valerie Solanas. mPalermu

2002 – Carnezzeria 2004 – Medea, adapted from Euripides’ tragedy, with live music by the Mancuso

Brothers. La Scimia, adapted from Le due zitelle by Tommaso Landolfi.

Vita mia 2005 – Mishelle di Sant’Oliva 2006 – Cani di Bancata 2007 – Il festino

Alkestis, adapted from Euripides’ tragedy. 2011 – Acquasanta Il castello della Zisa Ballarini 2014 – Verso Medea adapted from Euripides’ tragedy, with live music by the Mancuso

Brothers. Operetta Burlesca

Le sorelle Macaluso Io, nessuno e Polifemo, with live music by Serena Ganci. 2016 – Odissea A/R with songs by Serena Ganci and Bruno Di Chiara. 2017 – Bestie di scena

Theatre for Young People and Adults (Théâtre Tout Public) 2001 – La Favola di Farruscad e Cherastanì, an adaptation of La donna serpente by

Carlo Gozzi. 2010 – Anastasia, Genoveffa, e Cenerentola 2011 – Gli Alti e Bassi di Biancaneve 2013 – La bella Rosaspina addormentata 2014 – Tre favole per un addio, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match

Girl, The Little Mermaid, and The Red Shoes.

Music Theatre Works (Opera and Music Revues) 2007 – Carmen Consoli in teatro – Eva e la bambola; a show/concert with Sicilian singer

Carmen Consoli.

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2009 – Le pulle by Emma Dante; an ‘a-moral’ operetta with songs and dialogues. Music

by Gianluca Porcu (Lu) and lyrics by Emma Dante. Carmen, music by Georges Bizet and libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy at La Scala Theatre, Milan.

2012 – La muette de Portici, music by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber and libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne at the Opéra Comique, Paris.

2014 – Feuersnot, music by Richard Strauss and libretto by Ernst von Wolzogen at the

Teatro Massimo, Palermo.

La muette de Portici, music by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber and libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne at the Petruzzelli Theatre, Bari, Apulia.

2015 – Gisela!, music by Hans Werner Henze and libretto by Hans Werner Henze,

Michael Kerstan, Christian Lehnert at the Teatro Massimo, Palermo. 2016 – Cenerentola, music by Giocchino Rossini and libretto by Jacopo Ferretti (based

on the French libretto by Etienne for Cendrillon by Isouard) at the Teatro dell’Opera, Rome.

2017 – Macbeth, music by Giuseppe Verdi and book by Francesco Maria Piave at the

Teatro Massimo, Palermo.

Filmography 2013 – Via Castellana Bandiera (A Street In Palermo)