The Bolognese collective Ateliersi is known for scenic writing that transfigures the object of reality through their poetic and musical recomposition. In [gæp] What is a GAP?, a modern-day child relates to the visions, thoughts and actions of Pin, the naughty protagonist of The Path to the Spiders’ Nests, Italo Calvino’s debut novel set during the Italian Resistance. Ahmed offers the public a group game: a literary bingo made up of sentences taken from Calvino’s book. Whoever guesses missing lines and hidden meanings actually wins books. The sentences now become a sort of code like the one the insurgents used to communicate; they can also generate the semantic misunderstanding between gap understood as a “rift” and as an acronym for the Patriotic Action Groups (Gruppi di Azione Patriottica). The young protagonist plays himself, starting from a playful dimension, to provide answers to the first questions borne out of one’s being in the world that arise in adolescence.

Production: Ateliersi, in collaboration with Agorà
Set design: Fiorenza Menni
Script and game design: Andrea Mochi Sismondi
With Rossella Dassu, Eugenia Delbue, Ahmed Lejri and Andrea Mochi Sismondi
Music: Hazina Francia and Vincenzo Scorza