Pisa. On a dull and cold January morning of the Pandemic Year 2021, the 250-years old Baroque theatre was locked, its gates now shut. The government has “restored the law” using steel panes, bolts, and locks.
The Theatre “Ernesto Rossi” had laid abandoned for more than 60 years, forgotten and rotting. In fall 2012, a crowd of proud and loving citizens opened and cleaned up the ancient building, which became the Teatro Rossi Aperto (Open Rossi Theatre).
For eight years, three months, and 20 days, the TRA hosted theatrical plays, music concerts, installations, exhibitions, book presentations, charity events, workshops, movie screenings, and an international short film festival.
Was the law broken? We (most definitely) don’t think so. We had the duty to give back to culture, arts, and above all to people the stage they deserved — and needed. A crossroads of arts, languages, and relationships, the TRA has always kept an open channel with the local and regional government. Fruitlessly.
Meanwhile, Pisa fell in love with the TRA, the city’s oldest theatre. Whoever got the chance to step in or glance at it was left in bliss, citizens and international guests alike.
“Just like water, just like air,” read a banner hanging outside the Theatre Valle in Rome in June 2011. The occupation of the Valle prompted a national cultural and political wave claiming culture was a common good.
This wave caused many other abandoned cultural places to reopen. All of them now shut, the TRA being the last one.
All this happens in the middle of a health crisis that is forcing people apart. Origins of social fragmentation, though, are older than Covid19: the TRA was stubbornly practicing a solution to that, trying to satisfy a common need, just like water, just like air. Taking advantage of the anti-covid measures, the government has chosen to dash any hope for the future.
The TRA was a Theatre of Choices, and it still is. Some choose to abandon and forget, some to open and share. Make the right choice, let us reopen the Teatro Rossi, sign our petition on riapriteilteatrorossi.it!