«Un day, as a child, I was on the ferry to Procida (at the time the prison was still active): a prisoner, handcuffed and under guard, greeted me. Dad let me approach him: without fear, without prejudice». Perhaps the key to understanding lies precisely in this remote childhood episode Armando Punchits mission. «I think my father has something to do with it, but in another sense» specifies the director, performer and playwright. «He was optimistic, always active. In front of every problem he repeated: “It’ll be solved, don’t worry” ».
A new headquarters
In fact, Punzo has had to face many problems since 1988, when he had – first in Italy – the intuition to create a permanent company in the prison of Volterra. But perseverance paid off, as demonstrated by the last two successes, The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement 2023 assigned by Theater Biennial and the realization of a project for which he fought for 22 years: a hall, in the Medici Fortress (headquarters of the prison), designed ad hoc byarchitect Mario Cucinella.
«Today we live with a feeling of powerlessness, with the conviction that any revolution is impossible. And instead you can do a lot, a lot. There are concrete utopias. As Ernst Bloch argues in The principle of hope, utopia is not something illusory: it is an engine, an exceptional nourishment».
Armando Punzo and the Compagnia della Fortezza in the courtyard of the Volterra prison (photo Stefano Vaja).
The electrocution
How did yours mature?
More than maturation, I would speak of electrocution. After some theatrical experience in Naples, at the L’Orientale University, in 1983 I arrived in Volterra with the Gruppo Internazionale L’Avventura, which drew on the avant-garde, Jerzy Grotowski. When it broke up, I decided to stay and found there‘Cultural Association Carte Blanche.
Carte Blanche? Carte blanche to whom?
Carte blanche for us to imagine, to invent something that didn’t exist yet. It was a crucial moment, I had to decide who to be “when I grow up”. One day I looked up, I saw the prison and I said to myself: there could be people with whom I can fulfill my aspiration (collaborate with non-professional actors) and explore the relationship between the most closed place by definition, without prospects, and the language of the theater, which is the maximum of openness and has the power to rethink the world in its DNA.
It won’t have been easy.
A daily battle, to get the project accepted by the institutions, but also by the prisoners… Now, out of 180, 85 are members of the Compagnia della Fortezza, both as actors and as creators of costumes and sets. And the prison no longer represents “the unknown”, it is an integral part of the city of Volterra: a lively place, full of activity, it’s not just us. The issue of prison houses in Italy remains unresolved because, in the vast majority, they are left to themselves and to a punitive logic, without integration with the territory.
Doubts about “Mare fuori”
A moment of Armando Punzo’s show “Naturae” (photo Stefano Vaja).
But now there seems to be more sensitivity, as demonstrated by the success of the series Sea outon a juvenile detention facility.
I have not seen it but, in general, these operations do not interest me, they are related to entertainment. I didn’t even hear the film by the Taviani brothers nearby (Caesar must dieawarded in Berlin in 2012, ed), who also spoke of a theater group in Rebibbia. When I started, the question wasn’t: caring kindly for people in confinement. Coming from Grotowski, I started from the question: how much a prisoner am I? How much are we all prisoners? If we don’t go through a process of awareness, as Gurdjeff explained (philosopher and mystic, ed), we “sleep” in our life, dragged by the daily grind, adapting and never taking it in hand.
His theater, therefore, is not social-therapeutic, re-educational…
It can also offer results from that point of view: what happens to anyone who approaches culture with curiosity, willing to question themselves, happens. But the real final recipient of our shows is the audience: I’m an artist, that’s what interests me.
Aniello Arena and Cannes
Armando Punzo in the show “Naturae” (photo Stefano Vaja).
However, the story of Aniello Arena remains paradigmatic: sentenced to life imprisonment, thanks to acting he began a journey that led him to be the protagonist of Reality by Matteo Garrone and to freedom.
Aniello has been with us for 16 years and, with his story, he further convinced me that we were on the right track.
But what is the working method?
We meet every day from 9 to 19 (sometimes until 21), with a two-hour break for lunch, in a cell that is our little theatre. Since September we have been involved in a new project: the – provisional – title is Humanities, will be staged here in the Fortress in July. We read, we reason, we compare, we try to understand what form to give. Slowly we approach the rehearsals, the collaborators arrive, we take care of the costumes, the sets, we create the models. But the conversations are a bit 360 degrees: we often pick up a book that guides us from the beginning, The word of the birds, the Sufi poem by Farid al-Din ‘Attar. It shows – in extreme synthesis – that the meaning of existence lies in the journey, in facing difficulties while evolving.
Permanent happiness
The genesis of Naturaewhich will inaugurate the 15 June Venice Biennale 2023?
Naturae it is the conclusion of an eight-year journey. We started from Shakespeare’s texts with a critical eye: hats off to the playwright, of course, but why consider the fact that those characters, those intrigues still seem to completely reflect us as “extraordinary”? You ask yourself: so, can’t you change? Hence ours After the storm, in which a manager thinks back to the stagings of the past and concludes that we need to remove this type of humanity from the scene and imagine a different one. It ended with him walking away by the hand of a child. Ten days after the last reply, we asked ourselves: where are the two going? Is she just a nice gimmick?
And what did you conclude?
We threw ourselves into the stories of Borges, an author who requires intellectual effort, not “gut” adherence. After two years, it came out Bliss. We created this large lake in the prison courtyard… Magnificent! But then the same question: and now, where to go? After four years we have arrived at Naturae, the valley of permanence, where “naturae” stands for the various parts of the human being that must be discovered and activated to achieve permanent happiness. For a ride fromhomo sapiens athomo felix.
His “permanent happiness”?
Stay within this creative path. It’s not about happiness as we usually understand it, which comes in an instant and goes away in an instant. We are always justified in looking at the worst: and why society attacks us and why we have no money and why politics and why war… Shall we stop at this or look for something else? By dint of looking at the worst, you become the worst and, inevitably, you reproduce it. If reality is terrible, in the theater we don’t have to run after it to copy it: we have to produce another reality, dream of a new man.
“An idea bigger than me”
Armando Punzo in the show “Beatitudo”.
No personal costs in a voluntary recluse routine?
I consider myself very lucky to have encountered culture, prison and to have lent myself to “an idea bigger than me” (this is the title chosen for the book-conversation written with Rossella Menna for Luca Sossella Editore, ed), that won’t end with me.
We bet he already has another goal to accomplish.
A tour of Europe by the Compagnia della Fortezza (the major festivals have been asking us since 1992, even the Queen of Holland has invited us!). Technically it is possible: if we are in France or Germany, the actor-prisoners can go back to sleep in the local prison, as happens during Italian trips. The question is political.
However, they will not be able to stop her…
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