Today's picture shows a scene from "Southeasterly Winds", a play staged in Rome about migrant accomodation and integration. Four migrants from Mali are actors in the play.
Three elements are the focus of a play staged in Rome by Italian and migrant actors: a family, a door, and someone who knocks but no one wants to answer. The play, titled "Southeasterly Winds", is a reflection on the topic of migration. It takes its cue from Teorema, a novel by Italian writer Pier Paolo Pasolini, which tells the story of how a mysterious guest knocks at the door of an upper-class family and disrupts their routine.
"Looking at his [Pasolini's] work, we asked ourselves who the guest is nowadays that comes and shakes up the order of things,"
the play's director and co-writer, Angelo Campolo, told ANSA.
With that, the Pasolini character becomes the foreigner pushed by a southeasterly wind, fleeing war, crossing the open sea, risking his life and asking for accommodation.
Integration with art
Idris is one of the play's migrant actors. He arrived in Italy from Mali in November 2016. "Theatre has helped me learn Italian and meet lots of people," he said. In the show he tells the story of a boy who's looking for his father. "Thanks to this experience we can show that Italians, foreigners, all people are the same," he said.
"Today there's a short-sightedness regarding Africa and the migrant phenomenon, and these men tell the story with an admirable life force and energy that tries to look positively at the future," director Campolo said. Theatre alone could not move consciences, "but it gives the chance for a human encounter that changes ways of thinking and awakens the cultural laziness with which we continue to look at such an important phenomenon," Campolo said.
Together with four men from Mali who are being hosted by Messina's migrant reception centre, the play was first part of a theatre workshop where it was then made into a play. "We discovered that many of them wanted to tell their stories," Campolo said.
The play was produced in the town of Messina in Sicily by DAF, Theatre of the Exact Fantasy.