In the play "The Black is the New Black" by social theater group Black Reality, migrant take the stage dressed as garbage bags as a way to denounce the hypocrisy of those who consider them just number.
The play, part of the Officina Estate project, is set for September 17 at the theatre group's space in Rome's Spinaceto neighbourhood, on the city's southern outskirts. Its goal is to make migrants' stories known, in order to raise public awareness and fight against the fear of foreigners.
Migrants as "rubbish" that comes to life
The show grew out of theatre workshops that took place in 2014 at the Staderini migrant reception centre in the Tor Sapienza neighbourhood of Rome. Gianluca Riggi, the show's director, told ANSA the play "came from migrants, who are often considered just numbers". He said at the heart of the performance is "the fact that migrants are considered, from the time they leave, like rubbish bags". On stage, "we simulate a secret radio transmission followed by the police", Riggi said. He described the transmission as providing news about migrants in cynical terms, in the midst of "a sea of rubbish".
During the play, which also includes interaction with the public, "the rubbish bags come to life and some young men come out, telling a story, a poem, or improvising, until an actor playing a police officer stands up in the audience and forces him to leave". Mohammed, getting to know Italy through theatre Mohammed Camara, a 22-year-old from Sierra Leone, is one of the actors in the play. "I fled my country because there was war," he told ANSA. Mohammed arrived in Italy in 2012 after having crossed the Mediterranean by boat. "My journey at sea was very difficult, and before I was in Libya," he said.
Mohammed lived for five months in Crotone, where he applied for asylum, but his request was rejected. He then moved to Rome, where he met the theatre group's volunteers during an Italian language course. "I did theatre in Sierra Leone, too; I like it a lot," he said."Thanks to the play we've travelled throughout Italy, I've learned a lot, I've met people; we have fun," he said. Mohammed now has a stay permit for humanitarian reasons and has applied to university to become a cultural mediator. "I thank God and I thank Italy for the help. When I was on the boat, they saved me, they gave me food, I was sick and they treated me. I'm happy to be here," he said. Riggi said the theatre group has helped one of the young men become a street actor, while some Nigerian women were removed from prostitution trafficking.
He said the show has an ironic tone and is politically incorrect. "It throws stones at the audience, to remind them that we all have ways to know what's going on around us". "Migrants make up a part of our life. Their memory must become our memory. This is the only way we will be able to avoid speeches on identity; otherwise we will pay for it," Riggi said.
(Migrants on stage during the show. Credit: Black Reality)