The world premiere of A place of safety, the latest production by the Kepler-452 company, took place last weekend at Arena del Sole in Bologna, shortly after the national and international success of Il Capitale. Un libro che ancora non siamo letto (2022), which focuses on the struggle of the GKN workers factory collective and was awarded the 2023 Ubu Special Prize.
Kepler-452, “A place of safety”, 2024, ph Luca Del Pia, courtesy ERT-Emilia Romagna Teatri
The structure of this show, as has now become a “trademark” of Enrico Baraldi and Nicola Borghesi (to whom GKN spokesperson Dario Salvetti acts as a dramaturgy consultant here), consists of the reenactment of a case study on urgent issues operated through the praised testimonies of the real protagonists brought on stage, within a metatheatrical narrative framework entrusted to Borghesi. Also in this case, therefore, the chosen theme is one in relation to which one cannot (or at least should not be possible) remain indifferent: the massacre of African migrants in the Mediterranean and the deliberate obstructionism of international coast guards in compliance with merciless immigration containment measures. Following the interruption of the Mare Nostrum rescue operation, replaced by a border control operation called Triton, the Mediterranean is to all intents and purposes a militarized space, where real martial laws permeate international operational agreements, in practice ignoring the precise obligation, which prevails over all bilateral rules and agreements aimed at combating irregular immigration, to save lives at sea, ensuring rescue and disembarkation in a safe place (place of safety) as quickly as possible.
Kepler-452, “A place of safety”, 2024, ph Luca Del Pia, courtesy ERT-Emilia Romagna Teatri
On 2 February 2017, Italy, with the full support of the European Union, signed an agreement with Libya, whose coast guard has since been funded to capture and detain in detention centers those who attempt to illegally cross the Mediterranean on unsafe boats. In the absence of political will for assistance programs, crossing the sea has become increasingly dangerous and for this reason NGOs have assumed a fundamental role in saving thousands of human lives. Since late 2016, some European politicians and media outlets have accused NGOs of colluding with traffickers in facilitating the illegal entry of migrants into Europe. This campaign has coincided with a broader attempt by Italian and European politicians to prevent migrant crossings at all costs, including by launching judicial investigations against NGOs.
Kepler-452, “A place of safety”, 2024, ph Luca Del Pia, courtesy ERT-Emilia Romagna Teatri
The show was born as a field investigation on the theme of SAR (search and rescue) by Enrico Baraldi and Nicola Borghesi, founders and members of the company, who embarked, after a period of residence in Lampedusa in dialogue with some representatives of NGOs based in Sicily, aboard the ship Sea-Watch 5, which left on a mission from the port of Messina on 11 July 2024. Over the course of almost five weeks of navigation, the crew rescued 156 people, who then disembarked in the port of La Spezia, and then returned to Sicily at the end of the mission on 5 August. During this period, Baraldi and Borghesi collected audiovisual, narrative and experiential material to substantiate their restitution. At the start of the project there is not yet a precise dramaturgical subject, as Baraldi himself tells on stage in one of his monologues connecting the scenic action, the process of theatricalization of the reality underlying it and the relaunch of that reality, unlocked from the removal through the scenic re-elaboration, to an audience that is confidentially addressed by him.
Kepler-452, “A place of safety”, 2024, ph Luca Del Pia, courtesy ERT-Emilia Romagna Teatri
Given the ethical impossibility, fortunately respected, of bringing some dramatic immigration story to the stage, the company decides to tell what happens in a search and rescue mission through the faces and voices of some members of the crew, invited on a stage that the essential scenography (designed by Alberto Favretto) transforms into the deck of the ship. The cast is therefore composed of: Flavio Catalano (former submarine technical officer in the Navy, now deck team leader of Life Support, EMERGENCY), Miguel Duarte (mathematical physicist, head of mission of Iuventa and Sea-Watch, among the ten humanitarian workers who risked up to twenty years in prison for an accusation of aiding illegal immigration by the Italian Government), Giorgia Linardi (jurist specialized in International Law and spokesperson for Sea-Watch, she has always dealt with rescue at sea), Floriana Pati (nurse specialized in Global Health of Life Support, EMERGENCY) and José Ricardo Peña (Texan electrician of Sea-Watch, son of Mexican immigrants).
Kepler-452, “A place of safety”, 2024, ph Luca Del Pia, courtesy ERT-Emilia Romagna Teatri
The protagonists are very effective stage presences, of which one can perceive the extra-theatrical attitude to coordinate, to make themselves heard and to act with determination. They have proud faces and are able to stare at the horizon of the audience invisible to them in the darkness of the stalls with an intensity and concentration that few professional actors can sustain. It does not matter, therefore, some obvious slight uncertainty in the flow of their speeches, conducted with a rhythmic prose (in Italian, English, Spanish and Portuguese) that almost seems like a sharp versification. A sharp speech because it is objective, pressing, impartial in describing from a technical point of view the rules on board, the rescue experiences and hints at the existential and autobiographical reasons at the origin of their involvement in the mission, without any inflection of emotional indulgence. And it is precisely this sentimental neutrality that is the show’s greatest strength, which has managed to make one of the greatest collective tragedies of all time explode in the theatre through an almost aseptic examination of every detail (at times interspersed with dramatic inserts, perhaps a little too naïve) that is careful to keep itself distant from both the epic and the empathic solicitation.
Kepler-452, “A place of safety”, 2024, ph Luca Del Pia, courtesy ERT-Emilia Romagna Teatri
Because what we have to identify with, in fact, is neither the epic triumph of the good over the bad nor the story of a single person who makes us feel capable of compassion, but an ethical stance that takes priority over any other consideration or passion. This is suggested by the development of the show in juxtaposed frames, where the charisma of the experiential baggage of the actors makes our familiarization with the technical devices (uniforms, latex gloves, helmet, life jacket, RHIB – rigid hull inflatable boat) and with the emergency management protocols (first the safety of you and your companions, then of the equipment, lastly that of the people to be saved, according to the guiding principle of doing what is best for the majority) compelling, and above all convincing when from these lists, intact in their unspeakability, visions that have something of the unsustainable and abnormal emerge. We also seem to smell, in the end, what one of the actresses defines as “the smell of stress”, that miasma that hits you when you enter the shelter area where the castaways are housed, where the smell of the sea mixes with that of gasoline (together they become a burning mixture for the skin) and that of urine, feces, vomit and clothes soaked in sweat. But in our case it is not that of the people rescued at sea during an emergency management plan, but that of a decaying civilization, ours, if it manages to allow (if not encourage) all this to happen.
Info:
www.bologna.emiliaromagnateatro.com
Upcoming dates:
November 2025 Mediterranean Biennial Festival, Montpellier
December 2, 2025 Teatro Palamostre, Udine
December 4-7, 2025 Teatro Metastasio, Prato
Graduated in art history at DAMS in Bologna, city where she continued to live and work, she specialized in Siena with Enrico Crispolti. Curious and attentive to the becoming of the contemporary, she believes in the power of art to make life more interesting and she loves to explore its latest trends through dialogue with artists, curators and gallery owners. She considers writing a form of reasoning and analysis that reconstructs the connection between the artist’s creative path and the surrounding context.
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