The tallest maestro in the world: a civil theatre monologue that tells the last hours of Franco Mastrogiovanni's life. On June 25th at the Galleria Toledo

The new show by Mirko Di Martino, artistic director of the Teatro Tram in via Port'Alba in Naples, will debut on June 25 (21 pm, Galleria Toledo) as part of the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia 2019. “The tallest maestro in the world” - which enjoys the patronage of Giffoni Experience and the Presidency of the Council of the Campania Region, Amnesty International and the Youth Forum of the Campania Region- tells the tragic story of Franco Mastrogiovanni, an elementary school teacher who died in 2009 in the psychiatric ward of the Vallo della Lucania hospital: 87 hours earlier he had been hospitalized following a Mandatory Health Treatment, 87 hours later he died with his hands and feet tied to the bed, without having drunk or eaten. On stage, surrounded by the scenography designed by the students of Scenography of the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, the actor Orazio Cerino reconstructs the last hours of Mastrogiovanni's life: the scenic times are marked by the medical records and by a crossroads of voices and sounds of life that continues around Mastrogiovanni, while his is ending. The civil theater monologue turns the spotlight back on a disturbing story: Mastrogiovanni had been stopped for speeding, for not having stopped at the police checkpoint, then he had escaped into the middle of the sea. The mayor signed the authorization for his admission, the traffic police took him to the hospital, the nurses put him to sleep and tied him to the bed with cable ties. Four days later he died of pulmonary edema without ever having been untied.
Today, ten years after the events, the doctors and nurses responsible for Mastrogiovanni's death have been tried and convicted, but many questions remain unanswered. The Mastrogiovanni case is not an isolated case: TSO is a measure widely used in the Italian health system, despite being highly contested. Who is responsible for deciding on hospitalization? Can someone be forced to receive medical care they do not want? The show investigates the complex relationship between care and detention, between health and madness, between right and duty. Today, when the mentally ill have become a burden to the community, a threat to social order, TSO has become the quickest way to quickly liquidate a problem. Even at the risk of someone losing their skin. Someone like "the tallest teacher in the world".