Paola and I are married since June 18, 1989 and we have been living in the countryside, in Valsamoggia, at Ariette, a small farm on the hills, south-west of Bologna since then.
We are actors and farmers. We grow wheat and make it into bread. Not for sale, but to eat everyday and share with the audience we meet during our shows.
Maybe for that reason we were invited to create a new play for Matera 2019 inspired by mediterranean breads.
And we wrote a diary of daily life during 2019 summer (from June 18 to September 21) the 30th summer at the Ariette, to tell our present through the wheat. To tell the present time with its contradictions, intolerances, besides food, the relationship we live with land, animals, plants, mankind and the society we live in.
40 people sit around a big, low, u-shaped table. We are in the centre, sitting on the floor covered by grains of wheat and we prepare and cook tigelle (a typical bread of our territory) and read the diary. Candle lights and nothing else.
Far away an echo of an orchestra playing Summertime. Three months of diary, thirty years of life. Maybe a play. Maybe a vigil, as during summer nights, under the stars when we feel small, very small, like grains of dust in the fields.