I had just said goodbye to Lucia, and it confirmed what it means to be tenacious.
More than a year earlier—it was around Christmas, I think—we had run into each other in the church courtyard. Lucia, who ran the Disability Center at our parish and was also my friend and neighbor, had proposed to me—not as a question but as a statement—that once I retired, I could do with her young people what I had done with my students at school for so many years: help them put on a play, "which they absolutely love!"
Here she was, sixteen months later, reminding me of it. I had just left teaching, and apart from puttering in my garden, taking a few walks around Rome, and polishing silver that had sat neglected for years, I had little on my plate.
So Lucia—"tenacious" but hardly obnoxious, being one of the sweetest, most disarming people I know—came back at me again. And so began my adventure with the Amici Group at the parish of N.S. di Coromoto. It started precisely with a letter to all the volunteers, asking (in writing, as Lucia had wisely suggested) for their help and availability in different areas. More than a dozen people signed on. More than a dozen people signed what amounted to their own fate!
At first, I wavered between the calm that comes from nearly thirty years of theater work with high school and middle school students—"which," I told myself, "must have been good for something!"—and sheer panic at the thought of working with these new people, who were not students, not teenagers, not "able-bodied." But it was early May, and the hypothetical carnival performance months away seemed far enough off to keep me reasonably at ease. At least until I began listing the fundamental unknowns of the operation:
- X = the actors;
- Y = the volunteers;
- Z = the script.
I knew no one in the group. So began the long phone calls and meetings with Lucia, where we went through names, the young people's characteristics, types of disability, how they reacted. Gradually I started showing up to group activities—games, singing, snacks—moments that helped me earn acceptance and let me see with my own eyes what each person could do: this one speaks clearly, that one loves music, this one has good pitch, that one can't stand for long, this one has a good memory, that one gets angry easily. I also came to know the volunteers who worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—many of them enthusiastic, some willing, others lukewarm, and a few positively glacial. Slowly I was solving the first two unknowns. That left the third: the script.
To be honest, I had started thinking about the text long before meeting the group, right after Lucia's first proposal. I dusted off old scripts I had written or reworked for at least thirty school productions—scripts from a teacher, not a theater professional—and picked out a few that still seemed charming. I calculated that when the time came, a couple of days of cutting and adjusting would produce something manageable. Two days! Ha. Once I actually knew the young people, none of the old scripts worked. Some were too childish, others too complex to stage, some used language that was too refined, and many simply had too much dialogue.
Then came a wonderful suggestion from an old friend and fellow theatrical adventurer: dig up an old script we had written together and already tested at school, and build a new text that wasn't too demanding—something easily adaptable for "young people" with an average age of thirty, some well into their sixties.
And so "VILLA CAMOMILLA" was born: a small story about a group of retired artists staying at a rest home, recalling their personal glories through brief numbers of singing, dancing, and acting, linked by threads of memory and nostalgia. Nothing groundbreaking, but a good starting point—flexible, open to all kinds of variations, with an ending still to be invented but one I imagined would be explosive! The group loved the idea, and so the final unknown was solved. By September, we could start rehearsals. But how to distribute the roles? Somehow, through consulting with the volunteers, dividing and multiplying lines and scenes, we ended up with a part for nearly everyone—at least for the most dedicated ones. We could begin fitting the characters to each performer. I was working with a mobile script, mobile as famous sands. The limits of each young person emerged, and I had to trim lines, replace words that were hard to pronounce, and use their characteristics theatrically: a particular way of walking or gesturing, a way of speaking or even the silences. I had to account for the autistic young man's resistance to contact with other performers, or conversely, rein in the vanity of another. I had to find space for those without a voice and turn down the volume on those who had too much.
And here the volunteers became indispensable—standing on stage beside each young person, discreetly feeding lines or gestures, almost imperceptible interventions that made the story flow smoothly on stage and kept things running backstage. I won't name them all, but I carry them all in my heart.
Rehearsals took off, helped by this wonderful band of collaborators willing to do anything—work in the shadows or risk themselves on stage beside their young people, like our tireless, diligent "young actor."
But I remember a meeting in early October when some were still asking: "Will we pull this off by carnival?" "The kids aren't reliable." "The time is short, with Christmas in the way." "Won't the script be too hard for them?" I said nothing and prayed.
The work was taking shape, and this shape was in great agitation. After Christmas, we pushed toward the final sprint, both on stage and off, with the leaders of different areas. With Bruna, we hunted for or created costumes. With Nicola, we inspected the theater props that existed and built new ones. With unexpected outside help, we sequenced the music. We rehearsed lines and movements again and again. Just like a real theater company, with the young people growing more and more energized but also more tense, a bit more moody, less reliable. We had to push them but also adapt to their rhythms.
We met three times a week and rehearsed for an hour, sometimes a little more, sometimes less, dealing with unexpected interruptions: the flu, physical therapy, birthday celebrations, little crises.
By January, the outcome was anything but certain. After the first run-through in the theater, we were still far from shore. But the poster had already been made by Meme's art team and was ready with the date set: February 19 at 5 p.m. Now we were past the point of no return.
Some volunteers still had doubts, and they were legitimate. But beyond Lucia, I had found strong, determined support in Paola, who remembered an earlier theater experience—an moving "Saint Francis" staged in the church with the same young people years before. She and Alfredo, with his guitar, were shaping the group singing parts. We were also blessed with Piera, the dance teacher, who every Friday had the group moving to hully-gully and twist. For this show, we chose the tarantella. And a tarantella it was. And then the young people brought their characters to life. There was "Pulcinella"/Carlo with a Neapolitan-accented monologue he had performed for us once on an outing, which we adapted and added to the script. And Massimo, the "prompter," who could use his thundering voice with echo effect. And "maid" Mirella, who despite her unsteady gait filled the stage with her piercing voice. And little Paoletta, lively "chorus member" wrapped in pink veils on her wheelchair. And Lidia, swaying like a "soubrette" in sequins and ostrich feathers, making you forget her deafness and her advancing years. And the two Silvies, and Rita and Annarita, almost seasoned actresses, ready to hold the stage with voice and gesture, just like the volunteer-actors. And Giuseppe and Giuliana and Tamara and Alessandro, the austere presenter, and Cecilia and Adele and Manuela, curly-haired baroque angels, and Fabrizio, who played the player piano though blind.
It was a triumph. What joy to see those young people laughing happily in the applause, embraced by their relatives who were happy and proud too. And what regret that I couldn't give everyone that satisfaction, even a small part, a word, a gesture so that a parent or sibling could say, "Look, my child was up there too—Antonio, Davide, Edoardo, Francesco, Gianluigi, Marco, Massimo, Nicki, Paolo...!" But every result can be revisited and improved. This is a challenge, and challenges help us grow.
I left this experience in the Group humanly richer, and the comment from an outside spectator—"There was only normal people on that stage!"—was certainly the most beautiful compliment, beautiful but wrong. On that stage—and off it—there were only extraordinary people.
Mara Martelli, 2007
