Border between madness and normality, between comedy and sadness, between affection and frustration… cult show on the 180/Basaglia law where you laugh, cry, listen and reflect. Premiered in 1980 at the MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. Written, directed and performed by Dario D’Ambrosi.
The show begins with the screening of a film shot in New York by the Italian-American Gerald Saldo: a short film shot in the Big Apple, shows a psychiatric patient leaving the hospital with an empty cage in his hand, and wandering aimlessly around the big city. The man wears a gown, pyjamas and a pair of slippers; his face is white and thin. It is 1978 and in compliance with Franco Basaglia’s Law 180, the asylums are closed. Patients are discharged from psychiatric hospitals, catapulted into the city without any criteria, without considering that very often the madman is considered by society as something uncomfortable, for which no one wants to take responsibility.
In D’Ambrosi’s film, the patient (Dario himself) finds himself alone, in the chaos of the city, the only object he has with him is an empty cage. After a long wandering, the sick man arrives in front of the door of a theatre; we move then from the film to the stage action. He enters the stage with his back to the spectators and walks towards the stage. The outside, society, becomes the audience, the spectator forced in spite of himself to confront diversity, with a man who finds it difficult to consider an actor who acts.
He is in close contact with the audience and invites them to do extravagant actions, to pronounce words of which one is ashamed. Proceeding without a script, D’Ambrosi forces the spectators to caress and squeeze him, recreating that reluctance that is typical of those who are faced with a real mentally ill. On the viewer’s faces appear that slight smile of embarrassment that characterises the attitude one has for madmen. D’Ambrosi then really seems like a poor sick man and the show succeeds in its intent to demonstrate how the boundary between madness and normality is actually blurred, questioning the very concept of madness beyond common preconceptions.
Performance in Italian only.
Book HERE
Already represented collecting resounding standing ovations in many countries of the world including: Italy (Rome, Milan, Florence), Madrid, Barcelona (Spain), Amsterdam (Holland), London (United Kingdom), Stockholm (Sweden), Prague (Czech Republic), New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (USA), Cairo (Egypt), São Paulo, Rio De Janeiro (Brazil), Brussels (Belgium), Freiburg (Germany), Santiago (Chile).
To receive more information on Pathological Theatre, read HERE (in Italian only).
Cover image: Ph. Federica Di Benedetto