Brave New Worlds : Shakespearean Tempest in Italian Prisons

My essay will explore how Shakespeare is a pivotal and much staged playwright among theatrical companies of convicts in Italy. Many of our chronically overcrowded prisons, which the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has recently defined humiliating and unlawful, have become, against all odds, a breeding ground for actors and directors, who very frequently appropriate the work of the Elizabethan playwright. Indeed, in prison are to be found the most innovative and vital staging of The Tempest in Italy today. Undeniably, the practice of performing Shakespeare in prison seems to have reinvented and reinvigorated the staging of the Elizabethan playwright: on the one hand, it has offered and continues to offer a fuller and less predetermined Shakespearian experience; on the other hand, it has restored his plays’ subversive and destabilizing nature and their capacity to articulate a wide variety of complementary/conflicting meanings, some of which challenge the establishment and the prison as institution. Moreover, I believe that a survey of Shakespeare theatrical practice in Italian prisons can help investigate and understand not only the aesthetic but also the political, social and economic consequences of the function of prison in the twenty-first century, and should be the first step towards an analysis of Shakespeare practice in Italian prisons in a broader context. By comparison with other European countries, we may also discover that some Italian experiences are unique and that they should deserve more attention.