When theater tells us about works of mercy
A play in Palermo about welcoming. As Space + Spadoni likes to repeat, “God’s mercy is at work — always!”
Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, housing pilgrims…
In a single act, a play managed to speak lightly about as many as four works of mercy. The so-called “corporal works,” a name that seems to tie in with times long gone, but actually represents very current gestures to which we are all called.
“It’s not out of fear that you have to do good works or even because it’s Christmas; you have to do good works every day,” says one of the characters in the fairy tale for children and adults written and directed by Daniela Pupella, staged in Palermo Dec. 28 and 29.
The show, promoted by Palermo’s Teatro Sant’Eugenio – Artistic Direction Pupella and included in the Christmas events organized by the Municipality of the Sicilian capital, is titled “At Christmas there is also room for you.”
The plot sees mother and daughter engaged in the final preparations for Christmas dinner.At one point, thanks to the intervention of an embittered Santa Claus, a homeless man enters their luxurious home and the two are confronted with poverty and diversity.
The unexpected guest is dirty, hungry, dressed in rags, arrived on a barge from a country at war.
“Did someone invite him?” the woman asks annoyed, and immediately the thought goes to all the times we have failed to open the door to today’s poor, completely forgetting the meaning of Christmas and the value of welcome. Denying our neighbor to make room in our thoughts and in our daily lives. Because it stinks, it bothers, it disrupts our beautiful table setting and our lives.
Daniela Pupella, with her simple, delicate, enjoyable show, makes us not only think, but also smile: especially about our limitations and resistance.
And then, as is often the case, comes more than a message of hope: “the idea of one, with the help of the other, can become concrete”; “it is important to share”; “behind an ugly appearance, a beautiful wonder is hidden.”
The plot sees mother and daughter engaged in the final preparations for Christmas dinner.At one point, thanks to the intervention of an embittered Santa Claus, a homeless man enters their luxurious home and the two are confronted with poverty and diversity.
The unexpected guest is dirty, hungry, dressed in rags, arrived on a barge from a country at war.
“Did someone invite him?” the woman asks annoyed, and immediately the thought goes to all the times we have failed to open the door to today’s poor, completely forgetting the meaning of Christmas and the value of welcome. Denying our neighbor to make room in our thoughts and in our daily lives. Because it stinks, it bothers, it disrupts our beautiful table setting and our lives.
Daniela Pupella, with her simple, delicate, enjoyable show, makes us not only think, but also smile: especially about our limitations and resistance.
And then, as is often the case, comes more than a message of hope: “the idea of one, with the help of the other, can become concrete”; “it is important to share”; “behind an ugly appearance, a beautiful wonder is hidden.”
But more than anything – above the beautiful Christmas carols, Elifilippa’s dance, Santa’s bell – that one question shouted from the back of the theater remains impressed: “Have you seen my brother?”
It is what we should ask ourselves every day.
It is the concern that should move the world, for that brother who is still not there, who is out in the cold, who is alone, who asks us for “a place” at the table and in our hearts.
The play:
- Title: “At Christmas there is room for you too”
- Director: Daniela Pupella
- Sant’Eugenio Theater – Artistic Direction Pupella – Palermo
- Performers: Daniela Pupella, Fabiola Arculeo, Leonardo Campanella, Mirko Ingrassia, Luciano Sergio Maria Falletta, Laura Melluso, Gaia Paternostro and Sofia Pupella
Source
Image
- Loredana Brigante
- Teatro Sant’Eugenio, Palermo