From 1 to 4 February 2024 on the stage of Trento's Teatro Sociale there will be four evenings dedicated to the history of Alcide De Gasperi.
Paolo Pierobon directed by Carmelo Rifici plays "De Gasperi: Europe burns", a show written by Angela Dematté that brings to the stage the stature and complexity, the lights and shadows of the man/statesman Alcide, who totally adheres to his political task so much so that he no longer sees the boundaries between himself and the nation, taking on the burden and then inevitably becoming its architect and victim.
"Taking the floor in this world forum I feel that everything, except your personal courtesy, is against me." These are the words that Alcide De Gasperi spoke at the Paris Peace Conference on 10 August 1946. "Ministers, delegates: for months and months I have waited in vain to be able to express to you in a general summary the thought of Italy on the conditions of peace, and today again, appearing here in the guise of an ex-enemy, a guise that was never that of the Italian people, before you fatigued by long labor or yearning for the conclusion I have made an effort to contain resentment and dominate the word, in order to be clear that we are far from wanting to hinder, but we intend constructively to favor your work as it contributes to a more just order in the world.
Those who interpret the Italian people today are faced with openly conflicting duties. On the one hand, he must express the anxiety, the pain, the anguished concern for the consequences of the treaty, on the other hand, reaffirm the faith of the new Italian democracy in overcoming the crisis of war and in the renewal of the world operated with valid instruments of peace."
The man who was and is an anti-fascist – imprisoned for two years in Regina Coeli - takes on the full weight of Italian fascist history to be able to ferry it to other possibilities, to be able to redeem it. His language appears to be straightforward, solid and emotional, rather than political or, in any case, full of a positive and humble rhetoric very different from that of today. The show "De Gasperi: Europe burns" by Angela Demattè, investigates man in search of rational, concrete, pragmatic solutions that he has absorbed from his land, from his mother tongue. Interested in his objective gaze and his language that does not know how to find lying words.
"De Gasperi: Europe burns" intends to deepen this fragment of Italian history in the close and rooted perspective of the life of the man/statesman Alcide in relation to his collaborators and his intimate life. It proposes to stage the stature and complexity, the light and shadows of a man of other times who totally adheres to his political task so much so that he no longer sees the boundaries between himself and the nation, so much so that he takes on the burden, becoming, inevitably, its architect and victim.
DE GASPERI: EUROPE BURNS
by ANGELA DEMATTÈ
directed by CARMELO RIFICI
with PAOLO PIEROBON and cast in the process of being defined
production TEATRO STABILE DI BOLZANO and LAC LUGANO ART and CULTURE
in collaboration with FONDAZIONE TRENTINA ALCIDE DE GASPERI and CTB - Centro TEATRALE BRESCIANO
