A performance conceived and directed by Firenza Guidi
“1995. Eighteen years have passed since the first show about the Padule Eccidio, *Lacrime e Boogie*, was created and performed in the square in Massarella, in the church and on the Giannoni Terrace. Journalists from *Il Tirreno*, *La Nazione* and *La Repubblica* were present at the event; they had phoned to ask where the station in Massarella was.
Over the past 18 years, my commitment has been constant and tireless, focused above all on one goal: to continue gathering memories of that day, of that time, of that chapter of history experienced first-hand by my own family. My paternal grandfather, Giuseppe Guidi, and my uncle, Dante Guidi, were shot in Padule along with others. My uncle Firenze went missing in Russia and never returned, and my grandmother has been in perpetual mourning for as long as I can remember.
But it is not my story that is being told. Nor is it the story of the events at Massarella. I have interviewed people and collected memories in Stabbia, Cerreto, Fucecchio, Bassa, Cintolese, Larciano, Castelmartini, Ponte Buggianese, Casalguidi and many other places, all the way to Sant’Anna di Stazzema. My shows have followed one after another, telling these stories: Tears and Boogie, The Memory of the Grasshoppers, The Silence of the Ox, Two Red Bars of TNT Soap, Thunderclap, The Plain in Flames, Flowers of Blood, Neither Water nor Shadow, The Pigsty, to name but a few.
These stories, unique in their kind, are repeated. Because they are everyone’s stories: abuse, senseless violence against civilians, fear, disbelief in the face of what has happened, mourning. Families bled dry, lives destroyed, forced to start again, in body and soul, from scratch. As Ungaretti says, “Like this stone is my weeping/which cannot be seen/Death is paid for by living.”
Firenza Guidi
When
26 August 2018
10:00
Where
Piazza Sette Martiri – Massarella
Admission
free entry
Contact
for information: info@elanfrantoio.org
