Return home, community, prison. A choice that will probably change the destiny of a young life forever. A choice that a judge makes after social workers and reception staff have accompanied someone who has committed a crime for 96 hours and has to deal with the consequences. In Italy there are 25 CPA, or First Reception Centres, a place provided by Italian justice to host minors after being arrested in flagrante delicto, until the validation hearing with the judge, within the strict deadline of 96 hours. . And it is in these CPA that Angelo Campolo, actor, author and director from Messina, who has been engaged for years in a process of meeting and narrating fragile existences – migrants, minors in risky situations – conducted an investigation which became the theatrical subject of the show «96 hours», production of the Teatro Biondo of Palermowhere the work was on stage for two weeks, in the Strehler room, in collaboration with DAF Project as part of the memorandum of understanding between USSM Palermo, Teatro Biondo Palermo, Daf Project.
They make up the backbone of the show three stories inspired by testimonies collected by Campolo, who orchestrates the narrative on stage between laboratory moments, slices of life and intense stories. With him the actress Nunzia Lo Presti and three young people engaged in a process of “judicial testing”: Serena Di Verde (who then leaves room for Lavinia Coniglia, one of the actress students of Biondo’s school), Giovanni Minardi, Michael Nicola Mule. A journey into juvenile justice and at the same time an articulated reflection, shared with the public who grasps its nuances and tensions, on the theme of time, to be lived, to be built, which stops the moment a young person enters a CPA.
The social worker Rita Giordano tells how these places “work”, in the intense and always measured interpretation of Nunzia Lo Presti: real “houses”, not prisons, where there are dormitories, a recreation room, offices, spaces which welcome minors after the traumatic moment of detention. A delicate job, based on care and listening. It is from this listening that the stories on the scene are built. There is Dultay, who carries the stigma of belonging to the Roma ethnic group, and then there is Mirko, the only one who during those 96 hours, in the recreation room, used colored crayons to try to tell something about himself , because sometimes words carry too much weight to be said. In a continuous exchange between story and present, then, in an essential scenic space but expertly filled with signs that give strength and poetry – sets and costumes by Giulia Drogo, music by Giovanni Puliafito, assistant director Antonio Previti – the three young people then they become protagonists of intense moments of sharing, they compare themselves with the words of Hamlet, and reflect on their relationship with the city of Palermo, mother and stepmother, which welcomes them and sometimes rejects them, thus designing a different ending to their existences, on the trail , full of humanity, of the stories brought to the scene.
Meanwhile, a new affirmation for the show “To you and family” also signed by Campolo, and Giulia Drogo, produced by DAF Project, also focused on a reflection on juvenile justice starting from the experiences with the children of the “Free to Choose” educational program promoted by judge Roberto Di Bella, current president of the Juvenile Court of Catania : he is among the winners of the “For those who create – Live and national and international promotion” tender. On stage, with Campolo, the young singer-songwriter from Vicenza Giorgia Pietribiasi.