From there begins a theatrical journey of voices, testimonies, poetry, music and dance, in which the word “migration” ceases to be an abstract category and becomes body, face, name, loss and longing.

Structured as a sequence of scenes, the play moves freely between different registers: documentary narrative, social protest, bitter irony, historical memory, the poetry of the journey and the harshness of contemporary reality.

The sea, the desert, immigration detention and removal centres, Ellis Island, the trains carrying Italian emigrants, the fields of Rosarno, the trafficking of Nigerian women: each place becomes another station along a single, vast human journey.

There is no “them” and “us”, only generations of men and women driven to leave by hunger, war, persecution, poverty, dreams and the need for freedom.

WITH NIGHT IN OUR HEARTS

Extraordinary stories of ordinary migration

With Night in Our Hearts is an ensemble theatre piece exploring migration, the right to asylum, the act of welcoming those who arrive, and human dignity. Both political and poetic in spirit, it crosses eras, seas, deserts, borders and memories, bringing the migrations of today into dialogue with those of the past: the journeys of contemporary refugees alongside those of Italians who once left for America, Northern Europe or the country's great industrial cities.

The play opens with a letter from Samir, a young Egyptian man whose body arrived in Pozzallo. In a few words of love, he entrusts to the future a hope that would never be fulfilled:

“If you are reading this letter, it means I am safe, and we will have a future.”

Particularly significant is the decision to alternate facts, real events and fragments of poetry. Historical and social information is never left cold or abstract, but embodied in dialogues, monologues and stage images that convey the emotional weight of migration.

The play does not seek the easy rhetoric of compassion. Instead, it strives for a deeper form of awareness. It reveals the violence contained in words, prejudice, bureaucracy and exploitation, while allowing something else to emerge alongside it: the luminous resilience of those who continue to search for a future.

The play's power lies in its ability to reverse our perspective. Those who judge, fear or reject today are asked to recognise, in another person's story, something of their own collective history.

The Italians arriving at Ellis Island; migrants from Southern Italy heading north to Turin; African labourers exploited in the fields; refugees confined in detention centres; women forced onto the streets: figures that appear distant from one another, yet are bound by the same search for a home, for work, for recognition, for the possibility of a life.

The final words gather together the deepest meaning of the play:

“With night in our hearts we set out, but today we want to embrace the sun.”

A sentence that transforms the pain of the journey into a declaration of existence, dignity and hope.

The play's social and humanitarian significance was also recognised by Amnesty International Italy, which in 2013 approved a request to grant its patronage to the production, authorising the use of its logo in materials and communications relating to the performances. In its letter granting patronage, Amnesty also expressed an interest in attending performances and promoting the initiative through its local groups.

With Night in Our Hearts, then, is much more than a play about migration.

It is a journey through fear and indifference.

It is an invitation to remember that every migrant carries a story before they carry a legal status; that behind every label—illegal immigrant, displaced person, refugee, undocumented migrant—there is a human being; that migration is not an accident of history, but one of the oldest patterns of human life.

More Images

Original music by Dario Balleggi and Marco Tiberti

Migration

They come at night

Cry in the desert

Dancing the embrace

Graphic design for the production: Fabrizio Faber Piredda