We Played Rome
“Its been a long flight,”
I tell Kevin at the wheel as he shuttles us
Out into midnight Auckland.
We’re bound for Mt Albert.
“So where you boys been then”?he asks.
Where have we been?
We played Rome man.
We played Rome
Where the centuries pile upon each other
And monumental marbles
Throw their glories into the faces of the gods
We played the mineral monolith at Sapienza
Where deep in the black and green seamed marble
You can hear the fear
In that cloistered chamber
Where crimson fascists
Hung up their brute arms
For the dispossessed.
We sang our opera.
And standing backstage in that
Monumental edifice
I small woman of the earth came and spoke of how
At the age of eight she was taken by her family to the mountains near Cassino and
They watched the American bombs
Fall like pearls from the planes.
Then they went to search amongst the ruins for what remained of their lives
And her father was killed at that time.
When she was eight.
And she said“Your opera is beautiful
I don’t speak English but
I understand everything.
And thankyou for giving this to us thank you”.
As she left I turned away and standing in the corner I wept
The agony of how big my life had become pushing up inside me.
We have a saying in our work-a-day studio practice as teachers of theatre
“Let the work do the work”
And we played Cassino.
They made us Citizens of the City and said
“You are now part of the story of Monte Cassino”.
Cassino
Where the bones of the earth break open the forehead of the mountain
We danced and sang where
Our tipuna battled and never made it back
Tairawhiti
Taitokarau
Taihauauru
TeWaipounamu
On Cassino’s rocky flanks
Her ribs lay flayed by those
Antipodean Ulysses and
The bones of battle lie upon one another.
Thanks Dad for taking me to that place where you never returned
I saw you there, huddling from fire and iron
Hungry, afraid, going deaf from the guns.
I looked at the mountains you looked at.
At Cassino, where the shoulders of the earth shrug up against the hanging moon
Our act three opera warrior lay dying
Opera style and
A comet seared the dome of heaven
And we laid to rest the last ANZAC to die at Monte Cassino,
But it was a pretending, life affirming death.
Is this the right thing to do?
To ape in art our tipuna’s dying,
Can those lives be measured in a song?
Because
That’s all I have
The ancients told the stories of their forebears in dance.
So did we.
We went into the place of bones and memory
And found the stones that stand for men
And there we sang.
Your soldier’s tongue is earth.
You are the missing piece
That memory can’t replace
Our grainy photograph
In your soldiers uniform.
To treasure only memories
And fatherless children.
Now we have found you
Lover, man-child, father, son
Beloved fallen soldier
Fallen, fallen soldier.
Celebrated poet, conscience of critique Maria Lanciotti
Wrote much of The Juniper Passion at Cassino
Including this:
For The Juniper Passion dance company one word comes to mind: indescribable: eight elements with one soul.
She also wrote;
Rowing against.
Against the absenteeism of a society distracted and disengaged,
Against the Cassandras and dropouts,
Bereft against bureaucracy and bureaucratic fashion,
Against the skepticism and logic (illogical) of consumerism,
Against the phlegm of the institutions and against the concept of convenience of said 'crisis'.
Rowing against the distrust upon which this society feeds;
A madness, in short, an irrational obstinacy.
Instead this opera feeds the faith to push away disillusion.
Because someone had to take steps to welcome you in our
Beautiful, suffering Italy, a proposal for such a significant and artistically powerful event.
Culture is not an empty word, when to pronounce it is
Valeriano Bottini,
Mad as a Hatter.
This opera can lead to 'outbreaks' around the old Europe,
And build a centre for a collection of innovative proposals:
A launching pad
For a new
Takeoff.
Right down in the bottom of my
Desiring to be Buddhist Soul
Stands the bleeding prickle of my antagonism,
And you
Maria Lanciotti
Can see it.
Yea we played volcanic Lake Nemi
Where despotic Caligula romped,
Married his sister and appointed his horse
Prime Minister.
It’s long been known that his floating temples to excess were lying,
Shallow in the clear water
And the dusty echoing museum housed the raised ships
Until the Nazis burned them in spiteful retreat.
Now there are drawings and iron remains
And along the western wall, the ruins of Diana’s temple from the 5th century BC.
We set up and joined the circular parade
Ephemeral as history
A quintessence of sight and sound
Then Brief, Now Vanished.
In the room at Colle Ionci where we did internet and discussed endless detail
There hangs a re-rendered detail from Caravaggio’s painting
Rest on the Flight to Egypt.
It is of The Holy Family fleeing the murderous edict of Herod
And resting, Joseph reads the music an Angel plays on a violin
Whilst Mary cradles the babe.
And standing beneath this at our final party,
When I called for silence in order to acknowledge our hosts with our koha of pounamu
We stood beneath this painting and
I was asked
“Why did you call it The Juniper Passion?”
“It sounded right” was my reply.
And then we were told….
“This story of shelter beneath a Juniper is not new to us, in fact here in this room, in the painting behind you the Holy Family shelters beneath Juniper. The legend has the branches bending to protect the baby that came to save the world”
For a moment we all sat in reverential silence
And dared to dwell with Caravaggio, the religious legend, and origins of Italy.
And then we laughed, and on went the party.
Yea we played Rome man
We’ve got the dust of the coliseum on our jandals
The roar of blood hungry Romans and flesh tearing beasts
Ringing in our ears
We have imagined the disassociated grace of the first giraffe to Canter across the dusty boards of that fantastic arena
Ring upon ring of unstinting desire
Howling for unprincipled execution.
We danced for impeccable Romans
At the Romanian Academy where the boys did not hold back.
We jumped drunk and resonate for street crowds at the
Infiarata Genzano and
Listened with pride as our company rang the rafters in the
Palazzo Sforza Cesarini.
Yea we played Rome man.
Gotta put that on the CV.
“Well, sounds like youse had a good trip” says Kevin as he lifts my case down from the trailer.
“Welcome home eh”
“Thanks” I say.
“Its good to be back.”
Back to my hearts desire.
From Rome to Home.
It is good.
July 2013