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Emblematic title (anagram of TROIA, as the author ironically defines herself? does it allude to a hypothetical RAI 8? or to the ATRIUM from which one imagines being confined?).
With this show (Reperto R(a)IOT - Ediz. BUR - DVD - year 2005), one of the most incisive and gutsy female satirists of the peninsula, engages in a scathing 360-degree satire imagining Italy in a hypothetical year 2104.
A future far enough where an unlikely android guide invites us to visit the "Museum of Resistance" (it is Guzzanti herself in funny outfits that seem a mix between Star Trek and the Spiderwick gnome). Here she illustrates, room by room, the rise to power of Dictator Berlusconi (never openly named, I imagine to protect herself from further lawsuits), the collapse of the then-nonexistent opposition (while today... ah ah ah) that allowed the rise to power by avoiding the promotion of ad hoc laws, against the conflict of interest, all closed in internal struggles etc etc.
But she also talks about the "awakening" of the people who, after being subjugated for years, will dethrone him and finally take back control of the country.
Ah, blessed utopia. It sounds like a nice fairy tale, but the beautiful game doesn't last long.
And indeed, after 15 minutes of the show, amidst songs, music, and costumes, Sabina bows out.
It will take another 10 minutes (between the audience at Paladoza in Bologna and that in Perugia - where the DVD was filmed in 2004 - shocked and surprised at the "brevity" of Guzzanti's intervention) to bring her back and thus steer the show onto a more "traditional" register, essentially made up of long monologues on current issues: Vespa and his Porta a Porta, Annunziata, Left-wing intellectuals, De Filippi, The Vote, D'Alema (really massacred!), the Gasparri law, the Red Brigades (a very delicate topic but handled intelligently) and, to conclude, the beloved Prime Minister.
The DVD closes with a sort of "partisan song," a true anthem to Resistance and to always keep eyes open to the abuses of Power: the track "I Ribelli della Montagna" sung with Elio, Fiorella Mannoia, and the singer of Ustmamo.
A DVD that is, in some ways, prophetic, which did nothing but "foreshadow" by 6 years the social, economic, and cultural collapse of a country, in an evident vegetative state, which is now obvious to everyone...
The book (attached to the DVD) is nothing more than the literary translation of the texts of the homonymous show.
Where's the difference then? you might ask, my little readers...
That the written page (written to be fair by Sabina herself, with the participation of Curzio Maltese, Marco Travaglio, and Carlo Gabardini), on the one hand, allows for a better grasp of certain jokes that in the show almost take a back seat.
On the other hand, precisely, the book, like all books (which force us to the effort of internalizing the thoughts of others in a mute one-way exchange), impoverishes the spectacular side of the show clearly omitting the music, Sabina's mimetic expressions (unbeatable when impersonating D'Alema, Marini, and Berlusconi), the visual aspect, the choreography, Bucchi's splendid cartoons projected in the background, and the enthusiastic participation of the audience. Not to mention the Songs, enjoyable also from the musical viewpoint (beyond the lyrics).
Two different products then, of which, if forced to choose, one could well sacrifice this printed version in favor of the film that offers much more.
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