30 YEARS – a poetic act of resistance
The torch, when burning, makes everything to melt as the waters offshore, and makes the tree of theatre renew its miracle.
Thirty years.
To live
To hope
I was hoping to renounce to the world and to myself.
And, what have I done?
Nothing!
Nothing?
I said nothing.
I did… nothing!
Now, I hope that nothing will never happen as I expected.
I spread a handful of water over all the places, to become clear.
Now, I’m under the water, mute,
Still hearing the call.
I revolt against this world!
A world in which to love is a catastrophe that deprives us of all individuality.
A world in which we stick to habits out of fear of freedom.
A world that dissolves the thoughts and annihilates any goal.
Nothing enlightens me: neither my life, nor that of the others, nor their absence, neither their death.
My will tamed, my body a bundle of reflexes, my memory a reminder of history.
Beauty, the ultimate refuge of form, ideology, belief, tradition…
I love freedom, even when I betray it every day.
The 30s.
War breaks out.
The little boys, and the little girls too, prefer to be alone.
They are afraid of the world. They can’t imagine it.
They laugh at any moment, helplessly.
They spy lovers and feel lost in their own bodies…
Have fever, chills, vomiting.
And one day, they lie unconscious and exhausted full of new ideas.
They are between life and death.
In their presence, there is talk of shots in the neck, hanging, murder,
and what they cannot hear nor see, they sense it.
The children are told: “Shshshsh! Silence!!! Above all, be quiet”.
And without future, they are asked to enter into life.
In motionless remembering, to what we pay attention?
Few are the things that, indeed, can orientate us.
The altars are raised awaiting the sacrifice.
Those who have seen, have died.
How is the taste of blood ?
The taste of silence?
Buried by a silence of funeral rites and its liturgy of pain,
I feel exhausted, empty, dry inside.
Today memory is inhumane.
Compelled to keep silence, I think of every betrayal and ignominy.
How lucky to be able to love, to forgive!
Thirty years.
To live…
I have the vision of a door.
At the door steps, blocking my progress, there is a dog lying.
An old dog with tawny fur, riddled with scars of countless blows.
Has the eyes shut. Is resting. Taking a nap.
Perhaps there will come a day when we will have the eyes of a dark golden colour, and we shall see the beauty. We will be free of the filth and of all pain. We will rise into the air, we will walk underwater, and forget our calluses and needs. Perhaps one day we shall be free, all shall be free, even of the freedom in which we believe.
When I say those words, I remember a text I worked long ago, by Maria Zambrano, about Antigone. And she said that one day, in a land never seen by anyone, we shall found the city of siblings.
Thank you for joining me in these 30 years.