Anyone who has experienced the horror of the Nazi concentration camps would be able to understand the human tragedy that has taken place and continues to take place inside the American prison of Guantanamo.
A horror that, a few nights ago, many of us tried to imagine what it meant by keeping our eyes (and minds) fixed on the stage of Tram Theater for the 17th edition of the festival The Ant's Shorts designed by Gianmarco Cesario (who takes care of the artistic direction) and produced by Aries Theatre and Idn - Naples itineraries.
On stage a naked man (only for a few minutes he wears an orange jumpsuit and a chain on his feet, an obvious reference to his imprisonment on the Cuban island) tells - in a long monologue - the anguish of those moments. A crescendo of annihilation and annulment of the human being, not as such, but for his religion and his presumed ties with the Islamic "enemy".
Protagonist of “Occidente” written by Antonio Mocciola, Directed by Joseph Cerrone, is Gregory of the Priest, who for this painful and convincing interpretation is among the five finalists for the Best Actor category, in view of the awards ceremony which will take place on Tuesday 25 October, at 18 pm, in Palazzo Migliaresi to the Rione Terra of Pozzuoli.
Del Prete is a Imam, young, handsome, pure, faithfully attached to his beliefs (only at the end, driven by desperation, will he question them) who is slowly stripped of his dignity as a man and a religious person. His cry of pain, as he questions and wonders why all this is happening, reaches the soul and (hopefully) the mind of the spectator, to invite him to reflect.
A man, alone, among so many other unfortunates like him, thrown on the floor of those concentration-cells built by the Americans "Good" that violate human rights. Women transformed into the worst torturers, women who – contrary to what one might think – become ferocious beasts capable of any foul language, humiliation and physical and psychological torture.
Naked in front of the audience, the imam cries and despairs, while around him the worst atrocity a human being can commit is being committed: the annihilation of the self.
Of the other from himself, in the name of a war that has no and cannot have any reason to exist. Like all wars. Like those that bring to mind the images of poor Iraqis held on a leash by US soldiers posing mockingly in front of the camera. Wars that have never ended. Never closed, like that prison where the young priest is locked up without knowing why (so much so that, like a mantra, addressing the audience, he repeats “it wasn't me”).
But on the horizon, while all seems lost, a light pierces the horror that humanity can reach: love. That between man and woman, but also that between beings of the same sex, that they can love each other freely in a world that cannot be just in words. But that it is truly the West, for everyone.
The writing of Antonio Mocciola he was able to "force us" (thank goodness!) to remember events that cannot and must not belong to the past and that concern us all; the direction of Joseph Cerrone she managed to draw from the character nuances that were not exhausted in the sterile story of the human event (with some original stylistic choices such as the stars and stripes briefs worn by the protagonist, an irreverent and irreverent vision of the anti-democratic American oppressor). Consulting and costumes by Sandra Bank.
And finally Gregory of the Priest who has shaped the protagonist on himself - internalizing it to the hidden folds of his soul - giving us back his pain, his faith, his rationality, but also his contradictions to the point of almost denying his god. To be reborn in the hope of the future and of that arcane force that, perhaps, is the only one that can save him and save us: love.
Giuliana Covella
Article published on 18 October 2022 - 19:30
