by Alessandra Ressa
Acclaimed ‘Magazzino 18’ by Simone Cristicchi is back at the Rossetti theater to tell the heartbreaking story of the Istrian, Fiuman and Dalmatian exiles after WWII
Ten years ago Italian actor, author and songwriter Simone Cristicchi visited Warehoused 18, Magazzino 18, inside Trieste’s old port. So moved was he by what the old, forgotten warehouse had preserved for over 70 years that he decided to tell the story through an original play, Magazzino 18, on stage this week at Rossetti theater from 9 to 12 February, ten years after his first critically acclaimed world première.
What Cristicchi found in that old warehouse over a decade ago were piles upon piles of furniture, suitcases, photographs and heartbreaking personal objects that belonged to the thousands of Istrian, Fiuman and Dalmatian exiles, forced to leave their homes and land between 1945 and 1954 when they were officially handed to Yugoslavia after World War II.
They stored their belongings in Trieste’s port because they thought they would get them back one day, while they were relocated in the many refugee camps in Trieste and all over Italy. But those objects stayed there, in the dark and damp rooms of the warehouse, forever waiting. Magazzino 18 tells the story, long forgotten, and more often than not deliberately not told, that captures the very heart of the suffering and travails of the almost 350,000 Italian refugees in an original drama exceptionally assembled by Cristicchi.
Ten years ago, the première was preceded in Trieste by political tension, the wound is still considered open for many Triestini. The show, however, was unanimously acclaimed both in Italy and abroad.
To celebrate the first successful decade of Magazzino 18, the show is back in Trieste, directed once again by Antonio Calenda, with the musical accompaniment of the orchestra of Teatro Verdi and the guidance of Maestro Valter Sivilotti.
To book your tickets for Magazzino 18 https://www.ilrossetti.it/it/spettacoli/magazzino-18-3131
To learn more about the Istrian, Fiuman and Dalmatian exiles, read our articles on InTrieste: https://intrieste.b42.it/2021/02/10/magazzino-18-remembering-the-istrian-fiuman-and-dalmatian-exiles/ and https://intrieste.b42.it/2022/03/16/triestes-largest-refugee-camp-in-padriciano-the-silent-witness-of-the-tragic-past/
