December 2024 I was lucky to support new writing from Viola
Bruni, a Bristol based theatre maker, dancer
and circus arts specialist. This took the form of a Scratch Theatre performance
of some scenes from a play she is working on:
“La Lotta” ( meaning the Fight or Struggle).
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Viola is lucky to have two Mums, Rosa and Nina. La
Lotta tells the story of their fight for
women’s and workers’ rights in Italy during the 1980’s and their subsequent
incarceration for supporting a militant left wing organization. It was a privilege to play Nina and realise,
through Viola’s writing, how much Nina’s
and Rosa’s activism in Italy in those days reflected our political struggles here in Britain.
Firstly Nina and Rosa, like myself, felt the need to escape the repressive
conventions of the communities we grew up in:
family expectations of a simple job and inevitable marriage and
community traditions based on religion and respectability. Effectively small
town narrow mindedness!
I think our struggles and desire for change were often the
same, particularly in term of women’s and workers rights and freedoms. As a drama teacher and trade union member in
East London we all supported the Miners’ Strike in 1984 and made up food
parcels to send to their families. We
were strong on anti-racism campaigns and we stewarded the ‘Rock Against Racism’
Concert in April 1978 in nearby Victoria Park organised by the Anti-Nazi League. This did not put mine or my colleagues in
direct danger from the authorities as Nina and Rosa found themselves. But what
we became aware of was the extent that the security services, known as MI5 in
the U.K., spied on, phone tapped and
photographed anyone on the political left or supportive of Irish Nationalism. The
police, particularly the Special Patrol Group, were known for their violence towards
black and South Asian communities, gay and lesbian communities, workers on
strike and anti-racist activists.
Exploring Viola’s work on La Lotta has given me insights into the Italian experience of protest and resistance at that time. We all knew about civil rights in the 1960’s in the U.S.A.and the 1968 student protests in France but the activism in other European countries was not well reported unless bombs were involved. We all knew and loved the work of playwright Dario Fo but that was about it within my arts-orientated community.
In my play “Age Queer” (2021) I foregrounded the political activism of my
two protagonists, Alan and Norma in the 1980’s and how this is institutionally suppressed
in later life. So it has been a real pleasure
to engage with Viola’s work focussing on the desire for freedom and respect people
of my generation fought for.
