Concept

 

PIIGS is a theater performance inspired by a little-known text by early 19th-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, "Discourse on the present state of the morals of Italians."

The text describes the "spirit" of our country, with an awareness of the times, a disenchantment, and precision as to leave stunned. It is not difficult to trace the germs of an attitude towards life still very present among our people; its roots are deep and difficult to eradicate.

The assumption is that social harmony will rest on a small but providential cultural illusion because human life and all containment structures built to administer it don't really make any sense if we study human history from a "cosmic" perspective. Yet the illusion of "society" is important because it holds together the structure of the modern world and protects us from chaos. But Italians, for historical reasons that we all know very well, do not have any real "society", and therefore no illusion, no structure to save them from jumping into the void, from inertia, from the bitter awareness and resignation. While in the meantime we are in Europe and the cultural and geographic boundaries of our bitter "philosophize" stretch, making the conflict even sharper. 
But above all, what does PIIGS mean?

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