From the Matteotti crime to 8 September, this is how a journey through the end of fascism tells us about Italy today

The history of Italy has gone through days born like many others, even in times of conflicts and dictatorships. It’s a Roman Tuesday in fine weather June 10, 1924before the afternoon of the kidnapping and assassination of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti make it one of the Italian days of dishonor. It begins as yet another Sunday of war July 25, 1943summer pass that the long night just ended at Palazzo Venezia, home of the last session of Grand Council of Fascismwill make the fatal date of the beginning of the end of Benito Mussolini.

Two crossroads of our history that tell the Italy of yesterday and at the same time that of today, for the first time led by a direct political force heir to the post-fascist tradition, a country divided as then Metropolis try to understand also with The fallthe version in documentary film of the book published by Feltrinelli and of the theatrical show with which Ezio Mauro traces the news from the end of fascism. A tale of many voices, edited by Matthew Macor with Cinzia Comandé and some names from the Gedi group, – Lirio Abbate, Annalisa Cuzzocrea, Massimo Giannini, Laura Pertici and Conchita Sannino, from an idea by Gerardo Greco – which falls between the eightieth anniversary of the collapse of the regime and the centenary of the crime which certified violence as an instrument of identity and government. And also for this reason, in some way, it explains why “fascism and its end, in fact, are inventions and stories of us Italians”.

New episode of the journey as a “history reporter” of the former director of Repubblica, who in 2021 had retraced the daily news of the days of the division of the left with Damnation, 1921 – The left divided at the dawn of fascism and in 2022 the beginning of the twenty-year period with The year of fascism, 1922 – Chronicles of the March on Rome, The fall in version documentary film takes the form of a choral story mixing texts and images, period videos and today’s readings in the places of that time, from Villa Torlonia which was the residence of the Duce at Villa Savoy of the last act of the Twenty Years. The tour of the theater show, produced by Elastic and distributed by Retropalco, followed around halls and auditoriums throughout Italy, above, below and behind the stage, from the premiere at the Teatro Toselli in Cuneo to the rehearsals of the Roman evening at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, and reflections on the author’s chronicles of recent months . Which makes the fall of the regime, exactly like his manifest crime, that of Matteotti, an instrument for understanding what will be, and in part is.

This is how the events of the time unfold on stage: the King’s indecision and plots Victor Emmanuel IIIthe last lunch and the dialogues between Duce and his wife Rachelethe aims of the hierarchs and the bewilderment of Mussolini’s faithful driver, Ercole Boratto, arrested by the Carabinieri to prepare the capture of the Duce. And then the long night of the Grand Council, the body that Mussolini had wanted of constitutional rank, the last remnant of democracy that will serve the King as the only basis to distrust and bring down the man alone in command. Or the upside down country ofSeptember 8Mussolini’s German escape, Hitler’s revenge and the royal escape from Rome.

But voices, faces, deeds of the protagonists of the time, in this journalistic experiment of recounting events from eighty years ago as if it were live, seem to also want to lead us to reflect on the events of today. “At the end of its course, fascism extinguishes itself almost suddenly, it curls up on itself – is the reflection of Ezio Mauro, in a pause during the Roman rehearsals of the show – also for this reason it is striking today that the lesson of that time is every day so disregarded, that even today suggestions, slogans and schemes of fascism are still resorted to, and that it is also men of power who do so”.

The contexts are very different, that of 1943 as that of 1924, Europe is very different, the characters of the tragedy of the fall of 21 years of regime are distant yet so familiar, “fortunately worlds so distant cannot be compared”, – explains the former Director of Republic – but the impression is that this right in power takes every opportunity to make this phase of conquest of the government of the country a sort of “year zero”, a third Republic equidistant from the divisions of the past, between the history of fascism and that of Resistence.

“I wouldn’t want the one conceived by a prime minister like Giorgia Meloni, who still fails to distance herself from the nature of fascism, but only from individual episodes, to be a new Italy in which all the stories are the same and we start again from the beginning, when we know this is not the case”, is Mauro’s conclusion. “This is said by the dishonor of the escapes of that time, and above all by the sacrifice of those who fought for freedom and to leave it to future generations, which is us. And we should be mindful and aware of it.”