The Work Ecosystem: Job and Wild Capitalism in the Italian Theatre

In Italy, there are many factors of uncertainty and precariousness: fixed-term contracts, low salaries, impoverished middle class, deaths at work, etc. Theatre, which is also a complicated and often low-paid work ecosystem, offers new perspectives on our reality, reflecting on its internal processes or using its own tools to tell what is happening in the real world. This speech analyses three case studies from contemporary theatre, to show how different forms of dramaturgy can interpret the theme of job and reflects on the reality: "Il Capitale" by the group Kepler-452, inspired by Marx, tells the story of the GKN, a factory near Florence, closed in 2021 and whose workers were sacked by email, in which real factory workers are on the stage; "Bidibibodibiboo", written and directed by Francesco Alberici, based on a true story about bulling in a multinational company, uses the technique of autofiction to construct an ironic dramaturgy in which the comic element and tragic-cynical overtones provoke a typically postmodern derailment; "Chi ha ucciso mio padre", directed by Deflorian/Tagliarini with Alberici, the Italian version of Edouard Louis’s namesake book and show, where job and society are guilty of the impossibility of reconciling between a father and his homosexual son.