Translator: Peggy Berthier Auditor: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner
By and I go out of prison for about ten years
and my offenses are not attempted mugging,
but repeated attempts to make theater, education, therapy
and something that looks like art.
The first time I entered the jail was in 2008, I remember it perfectly,
because for the first time I saw the inmates, criminals from the truth,
and were there before me, and that I was wondering:
“I wonder if they have passed off or stolen, you will not have mica killed someone”,
because it really seemed impossible,
were the perfectly normal people in front of me,
and boys, men, some were even downright cute.
Since then I have not stopped, and if you ask me why
is because I believe that in no place like in jail
my act has led the transformation.
I come from the theater, where everything is transformation,
story and characters, materials,
yet nowhere like in prison
I could taste the transformative power of theater
and not on objects or stories, but directly and incisively
in the nucleus of people, who for a while ‘time play at the actors.
So I decided to bet on this transformation
and this is the idea that I think it makes sense to tell you today:
how has utility and a way to bring transformation in prison,
through the tools of theater and drama therapy.
Dramatherapy that dramatic in name alone,
because it is actually an artistic mediation therapy
using precisely the tools of theater and drama
to work on prevention, care, education
and rehabilitation.
If you think about it, we as civil society give to the prison a mission,
which is a transformative mission, as if it was the hat of a magician,
a cylinder in which we put inside a handkerchief
et voila, we pull out a rabbit.
We ask the prison to contain the people, do some magic
and give us back the people turned into honest people, for good.
We had put in course of offenders.
This magic does not always work,
unfortunately often it does not work either, since the data of the high recurrence.
It is a transformative mission that we take in a prison,
and so I asked:
what are the tools of drama and theater that may be useful
and in some way help to bring about this change, this transformation,
that we as civil society legitimately expect that to happen in there,
therefore, a change from a criminal to a good person.
I think there are many of the tools of theater, the theater practice,
that may be useful to operate on this change.
Ve will tell some but in my opinion are the most significant.
First: to make theater it is hard, it makes a great effort.
I imagine that few of you know all the work
behind two-hour show.
I also work in terms of its physical sweat from actors
who are on the stage.
Here, many of the detainees actors,
with which I work, we work with us in prison,
are people who in their life have not struggled one day,
because in prison you go there to despair,
including a lack of cultural and material means,
but it is also for the sake of an easy life.
I know people who have never raised at 6:00 am
to go to work at 7:00,
because the money later this month to enter the channels easier and more comfortable.
When you theater all this does not work.
If you do a show, or come to the tests, or take the evidence,
or studies memory, or try 120,000 times that single gesture, that joke,
the score of movements, or simply a show you do not create.
If you do not come to the trial,
you can not think of sending one street urchin who face trials
and you’re at the end of the opening night to take the applause,
because it does not work that way.
This is exactly what we are teaching these inmates
in the theater: that both work, so get.
We are teaching the effort to achieve a result that is not obvious,
but it is a result that has to be sweaty and earned,
and we are teaching a discipline.
And I believe that, inside the magician’s hat,
it’s good that a discipline in some moment is learned, we can learn.
Another of the tools from the theater
is that of being able to work on collaboration,
which it is different association to commit a crime:
is the conspiracy that the group work in other areas
They have some shared principles,
but are definitely different methods and purposes,
because the theater par excellence is not for profit,
not for profit even for those who do the job,
then let alone everyone else, in fact.
In theater, if you’re not, if you do not do what you gotta do
could jeopardize the performance of all.
In prison could make you pay,
but make you pay do not buy anyone.
If your partner behind the scenes do not remember the joke,
does not know when to come in, behold, what is your problem,
because it does not go of his show, it leaves your show, your show.
There is only our, at that time.
He said his mistake, his distraction, is something that should concern you
and to which you must remedy.
Because you can not run, save your skin:
at that time there’s your skin, there is only our skin.
I believe this is the germ of civic sense, of a liability,
missing or has been lacking in those who commit crimes,
and we’re trying to do this:
to teach these people, through theater,
to take care of the other, the things of others as if they were my own,
because they are mine at that time, are ours,
because we are a theater company and we are a great polis, a company.
And then there’s another issue that is particularly dear to me:
theater allows to rehabilitate his image of himself.
It makes a lot of talk in the pedagogical and educational field
of the importance of providing children in the growth phase
positive images of themselves and thus improve self-esteem.
You imagine that the theater, prison – also the scene – is full of children,
who have muscular bodies, Buff, tattooed, bad and ugly at times,
but they retain a child in spirit
that so many times has been traumatized,
because in prison you go there for the sake of that comfortable life,
but in prison there are those who end up there
because it has no chance of another fate.
Some people in there did not experience anything other than violence, if not delinquency.
Some people have always lived on the edge of legality, of lawful.
Who in your life has just learned to fend for himself
to give, take blows,
and above all there are those who have never heard him say:
“Good boy! Compliments! Va ‘that thing you did! You’ve been good!”
This is my basic question:
“How are we going to turn, to ask for a change
to people who know only of themselves to be good for nothing,
of little good, criminals, villains? “
“How can we ask him to stay in the right,
if this person knows only of itself to be a delinquent
because no one has ever said, when he was so big,
that there was a different possibility? “
“How can we ask someone to stay in the right,
this right if he just does not know it? “
The theater allows many of these detainees
to perceive for the first time in another way,
to take a round of applause, to take a compliment.
You try to imagine to put you in the mirror
and not be able to list a good thing, value,
you have done in your life.
What motivation would have to keep in justice?
A bit ‘of months ago we brought in prison in Busto Arsizio
a company of 10 detainees, and there were more than 500 people to see us,
Perhaps they wanted to see what he had these ugly mugs.
They have discovered that they are normal people,
some even good actors.
And when the curtain opened was heard from the audience upbeat
the voice of a little girl called Dad.
This little girl had seen her dad Willy on the stage, coming out to play.
This little girl her father Willy
seen him for three years only one hour per week, into the interview room,
which is a decorated room, but it is the room of a galley,
there are other people.
And her father hears it for 10-15 minutes per week, by phone.
You think how well he did to this child
see that night his dad Willy, there beautiful on the stage,
bravo, applauded by all who knew acting, which made her laugh.
For that child, his dad that night was back to being the superhero
that every dad should be for a daughter.
And try to think
how well did this dad being able to see so from their families.
A family that was disappointing, which is far
and which can not take care,
a family to which definitely feels guilty.
This means changing your self-image.
This means make it possible to perceive in a different way,
in a way that is good, constructive, socially acceptable and accepted,
and this for a prisoner, which will soon become – sooner or later –
will become an ex-con, it is important to do so.
They must be able to imagine with a good internal potential,
to be able to adhere to that change,
and likewise it is important that the company might imagine
a positive potential in people.
Because otherwise how do we reinglobarli,
how can we then redeployed constructively?
This is what we are trying to do within the prison Arsizio,
for ten years with our theatrical adventure
and we made an association recently to be able to do a little ‘better.
It’s called “The door”
because we have an idea of prison it is like a kind of large ship,
which leads people to freedom in another freedom, a future freedom.
We want to be on this path,
because this route is the most significant possible
and to make sure that the arrival of the next Freedom
it’s a little ‘better than the last.
What we are doing through the tools of theater
and drama therapy is rehabilitation.
Retraining, which means
return to an environment of dignity people who have lost their dignity,
They are rightly paying for what has been done;
but as long as this dignity is not in some way restored,
I think it is not possible in any way for real change.
In the words of my great friend Pino, held long-standing,
who bought a tot of wisdom: “Retraining is to restore dignity.”
In my words, re-educate it is to return to the beautiful,
because I’m also the one that others see me
and if for a whole audience evening instead of seeing the unfortunate, the criminal,
Me, sees a good actor, capable, who knows how to make people laugh, who knows how to cry,
who knows how to excite and it may be that I choose to join
what for one evening the others have seen,
good in that picture of me that others have seen
and it may be that I choose to change and return to believe it can be.
(Applause)
(Thank you)
(Applause)
By and I go out of prison for about ten years
and my offenses are not attempted mugging,
but repeated attempts to make theater, education, therapy
and something that looks like art.
The first time I entered the jail was in 2008, I remember it perfectly,
because for the first time I saw the inmates, criminals from the truth,
and were there before me, and that I was wondering:
“I wonder if they have passed off or stolen, you will not have mica killed someone”,
because it really seemed impossible,
were the perfectly normal people in front of me,
and boys, men, some were even downright cute.
Since then I have not stopped, and if you ask me why
is because I believe that in no place like in jail
my act has led the transformation.
I come from the theater, where everything is transformation,
story and characters, materials,
yet nowhere like in prison
I could taste the transformative power of theater
and not on objects or stories, but directly and incisively
in the nucleus of people, who for a while ‘time play at the actors.
So I decided to bet on this transformation
and this is the idea that I think it makes sense to tell you today:
how has utility and a way to bring transformation in prison,
through the tools of theater and drama therapy.
Dramatherapy that dramatic in name alone,
because it is actually an artistic mediation therapy
using precisely the tools of theater and drama
to work on prevention, care, education
and rehabilitation.
If you think about it, we as civil society give to the prison a mission,
which is a transformative mission, as if it was the hat of a magician,
a cylinder in which we put inside a handkerchief
et voila, we pull out a rabbit.
We ask the prison to contain the people, do some magic
and give us back the people turned into honest people, for good.
We had put in course of offenders.
This magic does not always work,
unfortunately often it does not work either, since the data of the high recurrence.
It is a transformative mission that we take in a prison,
and so I asked:
what are the tools of drama and theater that may be useful
and in some way help to bring about this change, this transformation,
that we as civil society legitimately expect that to happen in there,
therefore, a change from a criminal to a good person.
I think there are many of the tools of theater, the theater practice,
that may be useful to operate on this change.
Ve will tell some but in my opinion are the most significant.
First: to make theater it is hard, it makes a great effort.
I imagine that few of you know all the work
behind two-hour show.
I also work in terms of its physical sweat from actors
who are on the stage.
Here, many of the detainees actors,
with which I work, we work with us in prison,
are people who in their life have not struggled one day,
because in prison you go there to despair,
including a lack of cultural and material means,
but it is also for the sake of an easy life.
I know people who have never raised at 6:00 am
to go to work at 7:00,
because the money later this month to enter the channels easier and more comfortable.
When you theater all this does not work.
If you do a show, or come to the tests, or take the evidence,
or studies memory, or try 120,000 times that single gesture, that joke,
the score of movements, or simply a show you do not create.
If you do not come to the trial,
you can not think of sending one street urchin who face trials
and you’re at the end of the opening night to take the applause,
because it does not work that way.
This is exactly what we are teaching these inmates
in the theater: that both work, so get.
We are teaching the effort to achieve a result that is not obvious,
but it is a result that has to be sweaty and earned,
and we are teaching a discipline.
And I believe that, inside the magician’s hat,
it’s good that a discipline in some moment is learned, we can learn.
Another of the tools from the theater
is that of being able to work on collaboration,
which it is different association to commit a crime:
is the conspiracy that the group work in other areas
They have some shared principles,
but are definitely different methods and purposes,
because the theater par excellence is not for profit,
not for profit even for those who do the job,
then let alone everyone else, in fact.
In theater, if you’re not, if you do not do what you gotta do
could jeopardize the performance of all.
In prison could make you pay,
but make you pay do not buy anyone.
If your partner behind the scenes do not remember the joke,
does not know when to come in, behold, what is your problem,
because it does not go of his show, it leaves your show, your show.
There is only our, at that time.
He said his mistake, his distraction, is something that should concern you
and to which you must remedy.
Because you can not run, save your skin:
at that time there’s your skin, there is only our skin.
I believe this is the germ of civic sense, of a liability,
missing or has been lacking in those who commit crimes,
and we’re trying to do this:
to teach these people, through theater,
to take care of the other, the things of others as if they were my own,
because they are mine at that time, are ours,
because we are a theater company and we are a great polis, a company.
And then there’s another issue that is particularly dear to me:
theater allows to rehabilitate his image of himself.
It makes a lot of talk in the pedagogical and educational field
of the importance of providing children in the growth phase
positive images of themselves and thus improve self-esteem.
You imagine that the theater, prison – also the scene – is full of children,
who have muscular bodies, Buff, tattooed, bad and ugly at times,
but they retain a child in spirit
that so many times has been traumatized,
because in prison you go there for the sake of that comfortable life,
but in prison there are those who end up there
because it has no chance of another fate.
Some people in there did not experience anything other than violence, if not delinquency.
Some people have always lived on the edge of legality, of lawful.
Who in your life has just learned to fend for himself
to give, take blows,
and above all there are those who have never heard him say:
“Good boy! Compliments! Va ‘that thing you did! You’ve been good!”
This is my basic question:
“How are we going to turn, to ask for a change
to people who know only of themselves to be good for nothing,
of little good, criminals, villains? “
“How can we ask him to stay in the right,
if this person knows only of itself to be a delinquent
because no one has ever said, when he was so big,
that there was a different possibility? “
“How can we ask someone to stay in the right,
this right if he just does not know it? “
The theater allows many of these detainees
to perceive for the first time in another way,
to take a round of applause, to take a compliment.
You try to imagine to put you in the mirror
and not be able to list a good thing, value,
you have done in your life.
What motivation would have to keep in justice?
A bit ‘of months ago we brought in prison in Busto Arsizio
a company of 10 detainees, and there were more than 500 people to see us,
Perhaps they wanted to see what he had these ugly mugs.
They have discovered that they are normal people,
some even good actors.
And when the curtain opened was heard from the audience upbeat
the voice of a little girl called Dad.
This little girl had seen her dad Willy on the stage, coming out to play.
This little girl her father Willy
seen him for three years only one hour per week, into the interview room,
which is a decorated room, but it is the room of a galley,
there are other people.
And her father hears it for 10-15 minutes per week, by phone.
You think how well he did to this child
see that night his dad Willy, there beautiful on the stage,
bravo, applauded by all who knew acting, which made her laugh.
For that child, his dad that night was back to being the superhero
that every dad should be for a daughter.
And try to think
how well did this dad being able to see so from their families.
A family that was disappointing, which is far
and which can not take care,
a family to which definitely feels guilty.
This means changing your self-image.
This means make it possible to perceive in a different way,
in a way that is good, constructive, socially acceptable and accepted,
and this for a prisoner, which will soon become – sooner or later –
will become an ex-con, it is important to do so.
They must be able to imagine with a good internal potential,
to be able to adhere to that change,
and likewise it is important that the company might imagine
a positive potential in people.
Because otherwise how do we reinglobarli,
how can we then redeployed constructively?
This is what we are trying to do within the prison Arsizio,
for ten years with our theatrical adventure
and we made an association recently to be able to do a little ‘better.
It’s called “The door”
because we have an idea of prison it is like a kind of large ship,
which leads people to freedom in another freedom, a future freedom.
We want to be on this path,
because this route is the most significant possible
and to make sure that the arrival of the next Freedom
it’s a little ‘better than the last.
What we are doing through the tools of theater
and drama therapy is rehabilitation.
Retraining, which means
return to an environment of dignity people who have lost their dignity,
They are rightly paying for what has been done;
but as long as this dignity is not in some way restored,
I think it is not possible in any way for real change.
In the words of my great friend Pino, held long-standing,
who bought a tot of wisdom: “Retraining is to restore dignity.”
In my words, re-educate it is to return to the beautiful,
because I’m also the one that others see me
and if for a whole audience evening instead of seeing the unfortunate, the criminal,
Me, sees a good actor, capable, who knows how to make people laugh, who knows how to cry,
who knows how to excite and it may be that I choose to join
what for one evening the others have seen,
good in that picture of me that others have seen
and it may be that I choose to change and return to believe it can be.
(Applause)
(Thank you)
(Applause)
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