Il Piccolo Eliseo reopens amidst a climate of uncertainty

At the Piccolo Eliseo, precariousness is staged in its purest and most grotesque form. “Turbati come siamo, pallidi di preoccupazioni”, directed by Lucia Calamaro, officially kicks off the 2026/2027 season at the historic Roman theatre after six years of inactivity. Against a white backdrop, Barbara Chichiarelli, Daniele Parisi and Gioia Salvatori shower the audience with buckets of anxiety, indecision and the whole vast range of turmoil that causes millions of Italians to wake up every day fearing they are not good enough.

Two forty-year-olds in precarious employment, lifelong friends, scrape by on odd jobs and PhD studies, whilst bills, unpaid fines and the feeling that filling the shopping trolley is no longer an everyday task but an adventure with an unknown outcome pile up on the kitchen table. “I’ll manage today, but what about tomorrow?” As a self-employed person, I have no certainties – what if they don’t call me back for work? An external voice, invisible yet as heavy as granite, ceaselessly rattles off the litany of tax-related fears that grip the protagonists.

Asking the state for help does not seem to improve matters. A three-metre sheet illustrates that tangled web of benefits and subsidies that the government of the day introduces (or scraps) to protect the most vulnerable. It is an imperial bureaucracy where dust mingles with legal quibbles, giving rise to infamous columns of files, as in the dystopian world of "Brazil", Terry Gilliam’s 1985 science-fiction hit. The protagonists, unwitting standard-bearers of the microcosm of the working poor, are stuck halfway and do not know whom to ask for a lift. With a four-figure monthly salary in their pocket, they are neither wealthy enough to live comfortably, nor poor enough to benefit from state aid. The eligibility criteria, after all, are strict: their ISEE does not meet the threshold and they have no dependent children. But how can one bring a child into the world without the certainty of being able to guarantee them anything other than a temporary state benefit?

Calamaro’s show makes us laugh whilst witnessing a slow but relentless slide towards a strange form of poverty, made up of men and women with two degrees and master’s qualifications, yet unable to define themselves or find their bearings in the present. According to Istat (data from April 2026), 10.2 per cent of those in employment aged between 18 and 64 are at risk of in-work poverty, broadly in line with the 10.3 per cent figure from 2024. It is a generation adrift: a ballast tied to their ankles drags them towards the bottom, yet they still have just enough strength to stay afloat. Chichiarelli, Parisi and Salvatori are on the brink of falling, embodying fifty shades of perceived and imminent poverty. The characters range from a PhD student uncertain about her future career path (earning 3,000 euros a year) to a single-income earner struggling with fixed expenses. The state expresses a willingness to assist: “The potential is there.” Yet intervention would be simpler if their hardship were more visibly apparent. At least give it a go! Otherwise, who’s supposed to help you? The audience in the theatre is enjoying itself, but demographically speaking, it doesn’t match the demographic this show is about. Where are the forty-somethings in precarious employment in the evenings? At work, or at least trying to be.