The project by Davide Della Chiara and Natasha Czertok was conceived in collaboration with the cultural association Basso Profilo within the project Rigenerazione Urbana – Urban Regeneration, and with the contribution of Fondazione Teatro Comunale – Municipal Theatre Foundation. The first edition of SUccede Qui – It Happens Here won the public contest “Giovani per il territorio -Youth for the territory” sponsored by the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Emilia-Romagna Region in 2014 and led to the presentation of the play in episodes: “The story of a player who rediscovered her soul – “Storia di una giocatrice che ritrovò l’anima”.
The project consists of a dual path: a site-specific weekly theatre workshop – led by Davide Della Chiara and Natasha Czertok for two years in the Wunderkammer area in via Darsena in Ferrara – and a storytelling initiative involving the Primary School Poledrelli, several local associations of the territory, as well as the committee Zona Stadio, the social center Acquedotto and many citizens of the area.
The artistic project was developed in a district that contains, in one single square kilometer, more than 20 different ethnic groups: the Garden District of Ferrara (Quartiere Giardino). The area is afflicted by various situations of petty crime, dealing and consumption of drugs, prostitution often consumed in the car parks and around the buildings. The community has became increasingly disinterested about these phenomena and about the processes of collective life; it just wants the “cleaning” of the neighborhood. The press does not hesitate to draw attention to every small, sometimes insignificant episode, causing a serious adverse effect on the area concerned.
The second output of the project is the play I.N.F.E.R.N.O (HELL) freely inspired by ‘”Hell” by Peter Weiss, a work written by the German writer exiled in London during World War II. In this reading the words from the text fit the condition of those who are driven, by necessity, to leave their homelands in search of other places where finding their fortune.
It wants to represent a provocation and, as such, to offer food for thought. The main subject of the work is the City, a space to think about in a poetic and metaphorical way. The City is understood as a system, able to satisfy the individual’s needs. The City is made up of people claiming their rights. The City where, too often, virtues are forgotten and vices are promoted.
In the drama we listen to the voices of people living in the territory and catch words and actions that would make real and believable what we are going to play in the streets. At the end of the work, we realized that it could find correspondence in other Italian cities especially in this period in which Italy is interrogating itself, and in such a radical way, about the meaning of the word “welcome”.