Can an ecological and social drama be told as if it were a pressing multi-voiced novel? “The Invisible Fire. Human History of a Natural Disaster” is a show that the writer Daniele Rielli took from his book published by Rizzoli in 2023. Trying to understand what is killing his family’s olive trees, Rielli reconstructs the events linked to the arrival of Xylella in Puglia , a bacterium that has caused the most serious plant epidemic in the world. Presented below in the form of a staged reading last year, as part of “Wordbox”, the novel, finalist for the Strega Prize 2024 and included in the summer selection of the Prix Grand Continent for the best European novel, it revives Friday, June 28 to the 18.30 in the little park of Pippo.stage (in case of rain inside the Pippo.stage) thanks to the direction of Andrea Bernard, the music by Gabriele Rampino and the scenographic design by Marco Nones. On stage, Rielli’s narration, capable of intertwining and engaging with the most different narrative tools, leads us on a journey through a page of recent history. It all begins in Gallipoli, when the olive trees begin to dry up and die in a way never seen before. A vortex of events is set in motion which picks up speed until it becomes unstoppable. The olive tree is the symbolic tree of Mediterranean civilization and is considered immortal, the squares are filled with demonstrators protesting against the containment measures and the judiciary accuses the scientists who discovered the disease: it is the perfect storm. Today at least 21 million olive trees are dead, it is as if the entire province of Lecce had been burned by a gigantic invisible fire. The epidemic is moving inexorably northwards and one question remains open: how was this possible? Participation is free. Booking is recommended on the website www.teatro-bolzano.it.
