I teatri sotterranei milanesi tra la fine del XIX secolo e la prima metà del XX

In Milan, between the late XIX and the first half of the XX century, many theatres were built, with the configuration – innovative at the time – of the underground performance hall. The most interesting aspect, on which this poster wants to focus, is to outline how the different halls, like for example Olimpia, Eden, and Diana, were connected to each other, through performances, trusts, companies, and actors and founded a real theatrical circuit (underground and different from that of art theatres) and a community network of spectators and events, as if there was a different teeming and active world under the city. Where has that proliferation of downtown Milan theatres gone today? These halls, which still exist today, have been transformed into a fashion house, a bar, a store and a parking lot, built precisely where there used to be a theatre, a common fate, that sees the transformation of these buildings initially into cinemas, later into spaces of commerce and consumption. Unveiling the invisible becomes therefore necessary not only for theatrical history, but also History and leads to an understanding of how an entire society used to live and participate in city life for almost a century.