ORGANISED ANXIETY

A Glimpse of the Script

[.......]

There. He moved. The baby's moving!

He's almost sweet when he's asleep, isn't he? So adorable...

All curled up like a Neapolitan Mastiff puppy.

Drooping lips.

Gallons of drool all over the pillow.

You'd never imagine that, in the blink of an eye, he could lunge at you and tear you apart, stripping the flesh from your bones the way you strip a chicken leg.

My puppy's like that too.

Sometimes he comes bounding over, wagging his tail happily, jumps all over me, licks me everywhere, tries to get into every part of me, restless, clumsy...

But you know how it is. You forgive puppies for being a little rough.

Then his eyes open wide.

He recognises me.

He remembers that somewhere in my blood there must still be a drop or two of Eve...

And you know what happens when an animal smells blood. It loses its mind.

And that's when I realise that nothing remains of that wonderful smile he wore when he first came into my life.

Nothing.

Only fangs.

Saliva.

Knuckles.

Shoes.

He tears me apart and leaves me lying on the floor, lifeless, like a bone stripped clean.

And then people wonder why a woman gets anxious.

On stage, the powerful performance of Laura Bozzi, poet and remarkably versatile actress, becomes body, breath, fracture. It forces those watching to stop being mere spectators: because when confronted with this organised anxiety, feeling moved is not enough.

We have to recognise it.

A double bed. A woman asleep. A motionless shape beneath the covers. At first, the scene seems to offer the audience a glimpse into the intimacy of a home. But it takes only a few words for that home to split open like a wound.

Organised Anxiety is a monologue about violence against women, but it chooses not to tell that violence only at its most visible—the slap, the scream, the assault. It looks for it earlier. In the cracks of everyday life, in words spoken under one's breath, in excuses repeated until they begin to sound true, in fear transformed into method, habit, a strategy for survival.

The protagonist speaks to the audience with sarcasm, lucidity and desperation. She accuses them, provokes them, drags them into the room. Then, almost without noticing, she begins to tell her story: school, her pupils, her son far away, ordinary phone calls, recipes, broken windows, minor domestic accidents.

Everything seems ordinary.

Everything, instead, is permeated by a constant sense of danger.

The title holds the cruellest key to the story: anxiety is not emotional disorder, but the organisation of fear. It is the endless calculation of what can be said and what is safer left unsaid. The attempt to protect a child, preserve the image of a family, find an explanation even for the inexplicable.

It is the invisible prison of someone who learns how to survive inside a relationship that consumes, isolates and blames.

With writing sharp enough to move between irony and the abyss, Onatzirò creates a work that allows the audience no comfortable distance. Violence is not a news story to be discussed afterwards over coffee. It is a language, a system, a daily poison that can live behind a closed door, beside a smile, inside an apparently ordinary family.

A double bed centre stage. She is asleep. Beside her, a shape beneath the covers. On one side of the stage, a high chair with a doll sitting in it. On the other, a chest of drawers. Dim lighting.

What are you doing here? Sordid, pathetic voyeurs!

Always ready to go rummaging through other people's sheets, hunting for some juicy little story. Tireless consumers of gruesome family dramas to discuss with your friends over coffee or a beer.

You—so quick to heap all your contempt upon the monster of the day, yet utterly incapable of seeing the monsters you yourselves create.

Come in! Make yourselves comfortable! Mi casa es tu casa!

He's still asleep. Poor thing, he's had an exhausting day!

You know how it is. They changed the invoicing system at work and everything went to hell. And at this time of year! Year-end accounts!