At the Piccolo “Fire was the cure” by the Sotterraneo collective

Last night at Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato the Milanese premiere of de took place Fire was the cure of the collective Underground, after the world premiere debut at the Teatro Metastasio in Prato which produces the show together with the collective, the Piccolo and Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT. It will be possible to see it until Sunday 26 May, for those who have booked tickets in advance, now sold out for all reruns.

Yesterday’s performance was greeted with warm applause from the audience and some doubts from the person writing these lines. I believe that the enthusiasm can be explained by the appreciation for the fast pace, the ironic register, the energy of the young performers. If you think about it, it’s more or less the same elements that didn’t convince me in this proposal freely inspired by the famous novel Fahrenheit 451 Of Ray Bradburyreleased just over seventy years ago, in 1953.

How much has our society changed since then? How much of our democracy (“and who has it”, Rino Gaetano would comment, but I will return to music shortly)? Has Bradbury’s catastrophic prophecy come true? That books are in danger and so are their authors is dramatically evident. Last but not least, this is demonstrated by the attack on Salman Rushdie who has just published a work – Knife – to talk about the attack he suffered in 2022, due to which he lost an eye and risked his life.

Here and there around the world books are burned, not just metaphorically. Banning titles that are contrary to one’s orthodoxy is now an established practice and one of the many battlefields in which today’s culture wars are fought. Which are the same as yesterday and always. This is also remembered by the series of famous fires, from that of the “heretical” pharaoh Akhenaten to that of the Nazis in 1933, passing through Savoranola, first executioner and then victim of the fire treatment.

The collective rereads the dystopian novel in the distorting light of our devices that they put into circulation fake news, poisoning the wells of civil coexistence. Two screens propose alternative versions of reality, or its interpretations. Which ones does the public, every single spectator, believe?

Divided into three parts, preceded by a prologue and closed by an epilogue, Fire was the cure it seemed to me like a sequence of paintings detached from each other, with small ballets as a frame. I found the use of musical pieces excessive, although they were all very effective, selected because they were inspired by literary works, such as Moby Dick for the Led Zeppelin song of the same name and Alice in Wonderland For White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.

Songs at the theatre, in my humble opinion, should be savored with a grain of salt because they risk distorting the flavor of the show (this is what usually happens in school plays, where we err on the side of excessive effects and underlining).

The work invites us to reflect on many ideas, starting with the book that each of us would choose if we had to take on the task of saving it from destruction (“The well of the past is deep. Or shouldn’t we say it is inscrutable?” is the incipit of the mine), to continue with the changes in the language. I am referring, for example, to the use of n-word in the Italian translation of Truffaut film which we focus on in a scene (but the film is a constant point of reference). But also to the sweetening into “bitch” of the heaviest pute with which Flaubert insults his heroine, aware of having given her an immortality denied to him.

In all this great talk about books (healthy, let’s be clear!), I suddenly thought – for the first time – that the Piccolo Teatro Studio would be a wonderful library. But for now the books are only in the foyer, selected by the protagonists of the theater season. Toni Servillowhich will be staged at the Strehler tonight with Puccini, Puccini, what do you want from me? by Giuseppe Montesano, he chose The betrothed. We all know how it begins. At the moment.

Saul Stucchi
Photo by Masiar Pasquali