There, in Ostia, where everything ended, and somehow something began. There where the life of Pier Paolo Pasolini died, exactly 50 years ago, but not his restless and prophetic voice, which still accompanies us today, necessary. There, between the Idroscalo of Ostia and the Port of Rome, in these days Pasolini will be remembered in many ways (even a football tournament, the sport he loved so much), and one of these involves Calabrian artists and realities. And here we must remember how deep and close Pasolini’s bond was with Calabria (which, moreover, is in turn celebrating his memory with two months of multidisciplinary meetings in Lamezia).
Today, at 7pm, the national premiere of «PPP – Amore e Lotta», a new 2025 production by Officine Jonike Arti, written by Katia Colica and directed by Matteo Tarasco, will be performed in the Lido Theater in Ostia. On stage – between the desk cluttered with papers, the inseparable typewriter, the dim light of a lamp – Americo Melchionda will be a very intense Pier Paolo Pasolini (moreover, their physical resemblance is impressive), Maria Milasi will be his mother Susanna, eternally waiting, and Andrea Puglisi will be his brother Guido, the partisan killed in 1945: Pasolini’s entire human and artistic story will be retraced, in the course of a long, an interminable night which is also that of 50 years ago, in a visionary journey “that intertwines biography and myth, love and struggle, body and word”. We talked about it with Katia Colica, from Reggio Calabria, playwright, actress and writer, creator of the beautiful “Balenando in burrasca” festival and tireless cultural animator.
Your love for Pasolini comes from afar, and well before this anniversary. Tell us about it.
«My love for Pasolini was born like this, as happens when you meet certain masters: by chance, but with immediate gratitude. Her words, read as a young girl, were slashes, caresses, alarms. He was the only one who said the things I sensed, but couldn’t yet name. Pasolini taught me that beauty is a form of revolt, and that writing can be a political act. Since then, he has never left me.”
In your opinion, what is Pasolini’s legacy, and what should we do to honor it?
«Pasolini left us an uncomfortable legacy: the freedom to tell the truth even when it is unpopular. He left us a language made of open wounds, of prophetic intuitions. To honor her, we must disobey; gracefully, but without fear. We must continue to look into dark corners, to be on the side of the last, and not to let ourselves be tamed.”
Pasolini had a special relationship with Calabria…
«Yes, Calabria was a place of resistance and truth for Pasolini. He saw there a rough, ancient beauty, and a popular dignity that he loved deeply. In Calabria he recognized the Italy that was disappearing under concrete and consumption. Bringing Pasolini on stage today, for a theater company in this land, is a way of saying that the relationship between those who make art and those who live on the margins is not over yet.”
How satisfying is it to be chosen for Ostia, in the heart of the celebrations of this anniversary?
«It’s a great emotion. Ostia is symbolic, almost sacred, for those who love Pasolini: it is where everything stopped, but also where we can start questioning him again, making him live again. A responsibility and an honor for the production, Officine Ioniche Arti, which achieved great team work: Matteo Tarasco’s precious direction gives shape and breath. Americo Melchionda revives the interrupted word; Maria Milasi conveys an atavistic, inhuman pain; Andrea Puglisi narrates the atrocity of wars. Antonio Aprile’s music is an intense parallel narrative. Antonella Bellocchio’s lights convey rarefied atmospheres. It is a choral work, as theater should always be.”
Then, after this intense “Pasolini” phase, which we hope will be long and happy, how will your story as a playwright and actor continue?
«I have just completed a brilliant text, inspired by my other teachers, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Karl Valentin. A hymn to precariousness in which the absurd and the comic intertwine. A man and a woman confront each other, or rather, collide, in a contradictory and paradoxical dialogue. A text about the desperate need to understand each other and the wonder of misunderstanding.”
The scenes of the show are designed by Melis-Lazzaro, the costumes are by Malaterra, the stage lights by Antonella Bellocchio and the beautiful original music by Antonio Aprile. The Ostia date marks the beginning of a national tour which will continue immediately with three performances in Rome, at the Teatro di Tor Bella Monaca, and then around the whole of Italy, bringing the voice of Pier Paolo Pasolini “to places where his word can still resonate as an act of resistance and love”. We really, really need it.