Artistic Discoveries in European Schoolyards

Plays Database

Babel (Book of errors 1-7)

The old King Nimrod, the only survivor of the Big Disaster, sees his town Babel growing and growing. Unity is no longer evident. So he decides to build a tower as high as the sky, as a symbol of prosperity and understanding.
What do young Haran, Ylon and Sem think of it? Haran is dreaming of a paradise regained, Ylon is desperate about the vanity of life, and Sem is looking for his own position to Nimrod and the others.
The ancient God, observing that the tower is being built, is irritated, and sends another language to the town of Babel to disturb the building the tower. Despite this friendship and love sometimes bring the inhabitants a bit closer together and the building of the tower goes on. Will it be finished?

Babel[Book of Errors 1-5] is a play for 12-14 years old kids, about the struggle between the longing for understanding and unity on the one side, and the eternal mistrust and the development of individual identity on the other. Humor and bitterness alternate in the playful fantasy based on the biblical story of Babel, written for the cooperation between Teatro Elsinor (Milano) and Theater De Citadel (Groningen). Although being played in two languages, both the Italian and the Dutch audiences can understand every word of the misunderstanding.

Here come the European Boat People

The performance is based on a kind of creative and amusing, even dramatic, turning upside down of the actual worldwide situation. It imagines that a series of factors, such as climate change and the discovery of new materials, will cause the collapse of Europe and of all the Western countries, which will be replaced by the African countries as the new economic rulers. So, rafts and crafts of all kinds change their course, bringing Italians and Europeans to search for jobs (dirty, dangerous, humiliating or whatever) in the new leading countries of the world.
The performance is about two migrants: Giorgio comes from Milan, Northern Italy, where he was previously an employee in the glittering fashion industry; Carmine comes from Southern Italy, from the Calabria Region, He has already emigrated once before. The first time, he went with all his family to Germany, the country once considered to be the engine of Europe, where he worked at the Mercedes Company. The two migrants, travelling different routes, meet on a cold Christmas night on the Southern Sicilian shores, in a remote and hidden place, whilst waiting for a raft, which will take them to the rich African shores.
The night is special, the sky is starry, the wait is long, the fears as well as the hopes are endless. Thinking about the world and life in general, they become friends, sympathetic and curious about each other’s past. Like Mary Poppins’ bag, Carmine’s suitcase contains all the ingredients of the typical Christmas Eve dinner, traditional food and also coffee, because a man coming from the South always brings along the coffee machine. Time passes among memories and reflections, fears and dreams and the ghosts of our times take off in a sad and conceited way. There is time to weave branches found on the beach, to leave a little crèche in a rock gorge and to ask Baby Jesus for a new life. Maybe the raft will arrive at midnight and maybe they will leave through the immense, unknown and dark sea. The things value has changed, the Western richness has proved not to last forever, the wheel has turned and will do so again, scoffing at humankind. During this special night there is also place for fireworks, because we, the human beings, are like this: we want to believe that one day the world will be different.