THE MOTHER

THE MOTHER ["Una madre"]

A dramatic monologue

by Franca Rame and Dario Fo

translated by Ed Emery

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For all queries regarding performance rights, please contact

Agenzia Tolnay : info [@] tolnayagency.it

For all queries regarding the text, please contact the translator at:

ed.emery [@]thefreeuniversity.net

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[The Performance Text]

I... I don’t just need your attention: most of all I need your... imagination. Yes... imagine it. You are at home, having supper with half an eye on the TV news. All of a sudden a photo appears on the screen. A voice says:

"This is one of the terrorists caught after the killing". Christian name, surname. "Ruthless criminal. He perpetrated horrendous crimes."

You stare at this passport-style photo... Jesus! It’s somebody you know. Your heart suddenly stops... stops dead. My God! It’s him! It’s not possible, not possible.

It’s not just somebody you know by chance... maybe one of your neighbours’ kids. No. No. It’s... your own son.

It’s you I’m talking to... Your own son. Impossible, you say? Crazy? Why? You haven’t got children? Well then, your brother... or your sister. Imagine it. Just imagine. Yes. Exactly. One of them... her... him... a terrorist.

And it’s not a mistake: he was caught with the gun in his hand. He’d been shooting. He wounded a policeman, seriously. Imagine it. Please, make the effort. Yes, I know... It’s unbe . Your child, or your... your brother... You know him, you talk to him every day, you know his ideas. He’s got a temper, but he wouldn’t harm a fly. He’s against violence of any sort. Against it. He even wanted... to be a conscientious objector... he wanted...

There you are: this is exactly what... what I used to think every time I saw the face of one of those youngsters arrested, in the papers or on TV. I used to tell myself:

"My child will never be one of them. Never!"

But that young man that you’re looking at on your TV now, who looks like a decent enough person, that is my son.

Yes. That’s my child. I... I made him. I gave birth to him. I fed him. No, no... not from the bottle, you must be joking! I breastfed him. From my own teat. Because I thought: ‘Supposing he grows up peculiar? What if he becomes a... a... deviant? It’s all be because of not breast-feeding him. Nipple deprivation.’

Then, while I was pregnant, I read some books. I... llearntthat a baby should play with its own poo. Otherwise it may grow up disturbed. Yes, yes, and with its pee too: it helps them to get rid of aggression. I let him do it. Laveuve recommends it as well, in one of his articles. "Fecal period: let babies play with their own excrement. Let them taste it. Let them throw it at each other."

In this way they’ll get used to the shit that people will throw at them when they grow up!

I... I really gave my child everything: I breast-fed him, I cuddled him, I brushed my skin against his, I let him smash cups and glasses, just like the... the pediatrician said, so as to stop him ending up neurotic. I let him play with his poo for as long as he liked. But... he has turned out violent.

He could have settled for joining a gang of hooligans: setting fire to buses, raping a girl or two... Just to let off steam. At least judges are understanding about things like that. But no: he’s a terrorist. A terrorist.

I’m in torment: I can’t figure it out. Where did it all start? When? I run back over our entire life, as if it was a movie. Over and over again. I run through from the beginning... But I can’t... can’t find...

Today he... is 24. Ours is a democratic family: we’ve all been involved in politics at some stage. The lad grew up with... with our ideas. Student protest at school: everyone was involved in it. In... in his room he had all the posters of the big heroes of the moment: Mao Tse Tung, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh. Vietnam... Vietnam... I remember in particular one poster that you must all remember seeing. A Vietnamese. A young Vietnamese girl holding a sub-machine gun, standing in front of a gigantic American pilot with his hands up. Goliath, toppled by a young girl.

See? The impossible can happen, can’t it! How very clear it all was, then. So very simple. On one side were the goodies: they were poor, but they had the right ideology: human beings come first, along with generosity, equality and freedom. On the other side were the baddies: bullies, greedy, rich and corrupt. With them, their cars came first, and... personal profit. They’re evil. Evil always loses. And "good" always wins!

I know: you’re thinking what I’m thinking. Rhetoric. Triumphalist populism. Yes, yes, looking back on it now it’s easy to pass comment, to say we went too far, we... got it wrong. Obviously, all of you saw it coming, right from the start: you knew that we were going to come a cropper. All of you? Well, lucky you! Congratulations!

But I think I’ve got the right to a few... a few doubts. Yes. For example, just a few days ago, in a public meeting, I was listening to a well-known intellectual, an expert in youth problems, one of those people who always know everything, who always understand things way before anybody else. He was passing judgement on ‘68, on the stupid things done. And what a lot were done! He was criticising the childishness, the triumphalism of ’68: a lot of little Lenins playing at revolution. Then, a few days later, I happened to pick up a copy of an old newspaper. In it there was a picture of him, him, our "expert": he was wearing a crash-helmet, with a camouflage jacket and an iron bar in his hand. One of the armed stewards defending the student demonstrations at the State University in Milan. Part of the servizio d’ordine. A "Katanga". Yes, that was their name, wasn’t it? Katangas. Now he’s got himself a good job: he’s in charge of cultural broadcasting on Channel 3: "A Gourmet Chat"! Our "Katanga" is now teaching us how to cook meatballs!

Speaking of the servizio d’ordine, do you remember the demonstrations? The demonstrations... I wish I had a film projector here with me, so as... so as to show you a film of one of the demonstrations of that period. Even the earlier ones, the ones organised by the Communist Party. Maybe the one organised by the dockers... the Genoa dockers... when the people were killed in Reggio Emilia. Just to look back, to remember what a lot of people were involved, how strong we were.

And what about the funerals. Do you remember the funerals? When one of our youngsters, young boys and girls, were murdered by the police, by the fascists. Burning anger, deep pain, unbearable tension, the coffin carried shoulder-high. Nobody felt ashamed... of crying... with clenched fists raised. And... our flags... our red flags... And... and... our slogans... You remember the slogans we used to shout? Did we shout them just to scare old ladies and shop keepers, or... were we fully aware of what... we were saying? If we shouted them nowadays... we’d be put in prison. You were there as well, weren’t you? Or maybe not... maybe it was just me and my son, disturbing the peace and disrupting the public order?

Anyway, look, I’m quite serious. I’m going to switch on a projector and show you some of the pictures from a demonstration which ended in a pitched battle right here... here... in our town. You might recognise some... familiar faces. And... and you might even see your own!

No, don’t worry. Don’t worry: I’m only joking. I couldn’t pull a stunt like that on you. All of a sudden, a judge would appear from nowhere – Calogero-style. He’d grab all the pictures, he’d immediately start investigations, and he’d issue a hundred or two hundred arrest warrants. And I’d be billed as the usual Bulgarian spy. Relax... Relax.

I wish you could go through what I’m going through now. Wracking my brain, trying to understand where, when and how it all began. Because, you see, at home we used to talk with the boy. We used to talk, and discuss. Obviously, we didn’t always see eye to eye: sometimes we’d have big arguments. Sometimes it all ended up in ugly scenes. It must have happened to you, I’m sure. For instance, one night he came home with a friend. He asked:

"Mum, can Aldo," (that was the boy’s name), "stay for a few nights?"

"Of course he can: your friends are always welcome. Yes, of course. "

But then you start to wonder. Hasn’t he got a family of his own? I asked:

"What’s the matter? Did you have a row with your folks?"

He was embarassed... a bit evasive... but then the real truth came out: this Aldo was scared that an arrest warrant was about to be issued against him.

"The police have arrested some of the comrades from his organisation. But he left the group ages ago. He’s got absolutely nothing to do with it now. I promise you, Mum, he’s definitely innocent. "

So I said:

"But I don’t understand. You, young man, if you are absolutely innocent, what are you afraid of? You just go to see a lawyer, he takes you to see a judge, and you tell him the truth."

At that point my son burst out laughing as if I had just told him the funniest story he’d ever heard.

"But where do you think you’re living, Mum? I can almost see it in the papers: ‘Young man, twenty-four, gives himself up to a judge. The judge is moved to tears, gives him a kiss and sends him off to a remote high-security jail’."

"Look, son: I really think you are over-generalising. There are plenty of very honest and correct judges around."

My son couldn’t stand it any longer – probably because I then said something so stupid that I can hardly still believe that I said it. I said:

"Obviously, if the young man has something to hide, or something a little bit shady, then I can see why he comes to hide here."

"The real reason, Mum," (and he said it really angrily), "the real reason is that you have joined the Party of the People With Clean Hands. The Pontius Pilates of this wonderful society of people who are dead from the neck up. Rule no. 1: be suspicious of everything and everybody. Don’t get involved. Play it safe. Civil rights. ‘Be careful, son, they’ll take you for a sympathiser’. This shit government has got inside your heads and created a psychosis against... against plague-carriers. Yes. We’re like plague-carriers. In the Middle Ages, when someone died of plague, their friends, relatives and acquaintances were walled up in the same room with them."

Then, at this point, he calmed down and added, in a controlled voice:

"For the short time that I still have to live on this planet, I don’t want to join the sleeping masses. I want to do something, at any cost. "

Just like that. "At any cost". At the time, I didn’t attach any importance to this "at any cost". In fact I hardly noticed it. But now, of course, in the light of what’s happened, it’s obvious that this "at any cost" had a very precise meaning. One of those... "common-sense" style psychologists, an Alberoni kind of person, with his big Ugo Foscolo whiskers, would probably comment:

"Madam, your son was possessed by a fear of darkness. He solved his personal insecurities about not being anyone by throwing himself into violent, spectacular action."

It’s easy for him, the ratbag, it’s easy. I... I feel awful. I feel as if I were a letterbox into which people drop postcards, messages of all kinds. I watch the television... I read the papers, I listen to people... the few who are still willing to talk to me. And they all try to convince me that some kind of horrible cancer has lodged in my son’s brain. That this idea of the armed struggle sprouted spontaneously, like a poisonous fungus. All of its own accord, eh? Without anybody, anybody giving a hand. Without anybody pushing him a bit. Little by little, the fool sprouted wings and turned into the Angel of Vengeance. Bit by bit. Then he threw himself into exacting justice for the powerless, sleeping, stupid masses. All on his own.

No... I... with respect. Without arrogance, I humbly ask you to respect my intelligence. How could he have done it all on his own? How can it be that nobody – I say not one of us, of you, of them – feels that they have even the slightest responsibility for what has happened?

Should we blame it on reading the wrong books, eh? Misreadings of Lenin? And what about the show-trials? They last ages, and they serve to divert attention from the hundreds of Fascist killings, such as Brescia, Bologna, the Italicus train bombing, Milan... Didn’t they have an effect?

Injustice, I say. Injustice! All over the place: scandals, unbridled corruption; thousands of workers thrown out of work; people without houses; thousands of youngsters alienated and criminalised.

That’s enough! Stop it, please. Stop annoying me. What is this? A rally? How long do you intend carrying on with this sermon? Things are rotten – we’re well aware of that. But you’re not going to claim that any of these things had an effect...?’YES!! They did have an effect.

I’m sorry. I apologise for making you embarrassed. I can almost guess... what you’re thinking. "Poor dear, she’s beside herself: she is a mother, after all. Poor woman – with her son in such a mess, you can’t expect reasoned political arguments from her. Let her get it off her chest, poor dear."

No, listen... I’m really not interested in that "poor dear" stuff. Let’s take another example: another lad, a friend of my son’s, a comrade who grew up with him, a pillar of strength. He was involved in politics in a practical sense. An extraordinary lad. He was a militant in the Young Communist Federation. Now he’s a drug addict. Heavy drugs. Can you explain what went wrong with him? Misunderstanding Lenin in his case too? He’s shooting two grams of heroin per day.

He had almost finished his degree course in Engineering Sciences. He was already working in his dad’s firm. But then he went haywire. And when he has withdrawal symptoms, in order to stop him going out mugging, dealing drugs, burgling, killing, his father gets into the car and – himself – goes looking for the stuff. He’s in touch with all the dealers in the area. All of them. Then, two months ago, the police got him. The father, I mean. They arrested him and charged him with dealing in and possession of narcotics. This wonderful new law!! And nobody in the family could care less: not the son, of course, but not even the father. Nor his wife. A little while ago, that family would have preferred to have their throats cut rather than lose respectability. Now they don’t care. They’re just two miserable people enslaved by their junkie son.

Before I discovered that my son was a terrorist, I used to think: "If I was in their shoes, I would lock him indoors and chain him up. Yes, I’d chain him to a chair and smash his head with a hammer". No way would I go out buying the stuff for him! It’s all their fault. They’ve been too soft with him. Molly-coddled him.

A few days ago, I met that... that woman. We talked about our experience and our pain. At a certain point she comes out with this: "I envy you, because at least your son believes in something. Mine cares only about needles and shooting-up".

"What are you talking about? What you are saying is horrible. My son believes in a crazy utopia. My son shoots people, he’s a killer. Your son isn’t hurting anyone apart from himself."

"Do you really think so? Look at the two of us: do I and my husband still look like human beings? Are we alive? Certainly, nobody will ever arrest my son for having done away with us. Look at the two of us: we’re ghosts. If I could back to when I was pregnant, I would have had an abortion. Damn him!"

She said that "damn him" with such feeling that my flesh still creeps to think of it.

"I feel the same way. If I thought I was going to have another child, I would strangle him. I promise you. It’s all the fault of those bastards who made up the motherhood myth."

I went to the prison in Sardinia, to visit my son.

I had such anger within me. I thought: he’ll not get.a single tear from me. Not one. I will tell him: "This is exactly what you deserve, you fanatic. Are you satisfied now?" No. I won’t tell him even that. No emotional display, no pity, because I went... I went to see the corpse of one of those young policemen murdered by my son’s comrades. Yes, I went to the funeral parlour. Because it’s too easy to complain about things if you don’t see them at firsthand.

I arrived at the prison, a high security prison. It was frightening even from the outside, let alone inside. I had a couple of cases with food and clothes in them. I turned up at the window they told me to go to. The officer told me:

"Sorry, ma’am: nothing’s allowed in. According to regulations, Article 90."

"Well, but... I’ve only brought some food. Everything is properly sealed, as per Prison Regulations."

"Sorry. Article 90."

"All right then..."

I went and sat in a corner. The other relatives were not giving up as easily as that: some of them shouted and yelled and got angry. One woman in particular was shouting at a policeman during the argument:

"Don’t call my son a terrorist. My son is a Communist Fighter!"

I was afraid for her. Then they turned another woman away. They sent her away, and I didn’t understand why. Her son was there, and she had her Visiting Order. They... they refused to let her in. She had to go all the way back to her small village, up by Reggio Emilia.

Another four relatives were turned away as well because the people they were visiting had been transferred to another prison, but... nobody would tell them which one. I was lucky. I had a visiting order; my son was there and... they let me go in.

First of all I went into a little room. There was a woman in charge of searches. She said:

"Get undressed."

I didn’t understand. I said:

"But... what do you mean, ‘get undressed’?"

"Get undressed completely, madam. For the vaginal and anal search."

"You must be joking. Why on earth should I do something so... so disgusting? What right do you have to ask me? I’ve already been searched with the metal detector. I’ve got absolutely nothing on me apart from this dress and my handbag. I will be talking to my son through glass. This is just plain harassment, personal violence. "

"Prison regulations, Article 90. If you want to go in, get undressed; otherwise you can go home."

I see. That’s it, I suppose. Imagine it... you must imagine it. I felt I was being treated like... like an animal. I got undressed, but all the while I was thinking:

"Alright, then, I will get undressed. But I’m telling you, you’ll regret it, I promise you. As soon as I get out of here I’ll report it. I’ll write to the papers. Oh yes I will."

But then I just felt like laughing: write to the papers? But what newspaper is going to publish anything on what I am going through now? I... I am only the mother of a terrorist. 65% of people in Italy are in favour of capital punishment... I... I opened my legs and let her get on with the job.

"Remove your hairpin, your necklace, your watch, lock your handbag, cigarettes, and everything else in here. Here you are: take the key. This way, please."

I went in: long corridors, iron bars, gates, keys. I’ve never seen so much iron all in one place.

Finally I entered a... a huge hall, divided down the middle by a sheet of glass from floor to ceiling. A very thick glass. And every four feet of this glass was divided by an iron bar, to define your space. On the other side of the glass were the prisoners. On this side, men, women, relatives were shouting their heads off to make themselves heard. There was no internal phone, no microphone, nothing. The din was like being in a crowded railway station.

"Where is my son? Excuse me. Where ... ?"

I see him almost immediately. He’s over there, behind that sheet of glass. I go over. Here he is... I look at him, again and again. I recognise him... not from his face, which is swollen and bruised, but from his jumper... He kept his hands in his pockets... He never took his hands out of his pockets. I only... understood why later... he’d had them broken during a transfer. Not because of a riot, not at all. They’d been taken in a van and beaten up. Or rather, they’d been beaten up and then taken in a van. How many... how many years will he get? 20? 30? Isn’t that sufficient punishment? Why all this... this glass... all these beatings? Why not kill them on the spot, as soon as they catch them? Just shoot them in the head.

Oh no, of course, that can’t be done. Sorry. I keep on forgetting that we live in a democratic country... in theory. The Germans are so much better at these things. There the terrorists are just killed outright, at Stammheim.

I look at my boy through the glass. My child. You know, the first time I saw him, when he had just been born, I watched him through glass then too, the glass of the aseptic room at the hospital. I don’t know if you find the same: my boy has grown up, has become a man, but I still see him as a child. Even when I dream of him, that is the way I see him. I always dream of him when he was little.

A few nights ago I dreamed about him being brought to trial: he came into the court escorted by two carabinieri. One on either side, holding him. He looked like about five years old... no more than that.

When he saw me, he tried to... to smile. Then he burst into tears. The judge said to me:

"Please, madam, would you pick him up and make him stop crying. Otherwise I’ll have to suspend the proceedings. I have to question him."

They sat me in the witness box, in front of a microphone.

"You have to cooperate, madam."

"I beg your pardon? In what sense do I have to cooperate, your honour?"

"In the sense that you have to convince your son to collaborate. We shall take his youth into consideration. He must tell us everything he knows: names, surnames, addresses. In other words, he has to repent. He has to inform.

"My son a repenter, an informer?"

Precisely, madam. Think of Fioroni, of Sandalo. They committed unspeakable crimes, but once they decided to cooperate with the authorities, we freed them. Now they are happy, rich and abroad."

"But your honour, my son joined the Red Brigades only recently. You said so yourself. This was his first action."

"Yes. But unfortunately this will not be to your boy’s advantage. This new law on supergrasses is an advantage only to those who personally organised the armed squads, those who enrolled the members and armed them, who pointed out which legs, which heads to shoot at. Think of Savasta, madam: what a marvellous case. He murdered I7 people and informed on 240. That’s a repenter in the real sense. In a couple of years he’ll be free. Yes, obviously we sentence people like him to years of imprisonment, but in two years time he’ll be out. When he enters the courtroom to witness – likewise with Barboni, Peci and Viscardi – the carabinieri stand to attention. Even we magistrates stand up as a sign of respect. Soon they’ll be playing the national anthem for them!

"Anyway, let’s get back to your... get back to your lad here. Let’s see if we can help him a bit. Here we have a list of names: he has to indicate which ones he knows. If he hasn’t met them in person, it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s only heard of them, that’ll do. Finally, if he’s not really sure about them, it doesn’t really matter either, because we shall arrest them, and then we’ll see what come out at the trial. "

"But your honour, what do you mean: ‘we’ll see what comes out at the trial’? That way you run the risk of involving innocent people; you run the risk of a blow-up."

In my dream, as I said the word "blow-up", it was just as if I’d said a magic word. From underneath the judge’s bench, smoke started pouring out. I got frightened.

"What is it? A bomb attack?"

"No. Keep calm. It’s just steam from the radiator valves." The carabinieri jumped on me.

"Madam, your son’s no longer on your lap. Where is your sm? You were responsible for him; you were in charge of the defendant-child. Where have you hidden your child?"

"Wait a minute. I haven’t done anything. I’ll look for him."

I drop to my knees, under the smoke. I find my child Here he is. I’ve caught him.

"Your honour, here he is. Oh my God! No, this can’t be my son. This is the drug addict boy. His body is covered with burns, he’s bleeding. What happened? What happened?"

"They have tortured me. They’ve burned me all over, my testicles as well. I’ve got the names of five policemen. I’m going to report them."

"Silence! Shut up. Shut up! Your honour, here’s my boy. I caught him, I’m handing him over to you. I’ve done my duty as a responsible citizen who trusts our democratic institutions. Here you are, sir... Oh, I’m sorry, your honour. I’ve held him too tight. I’ve strangled him. He’s dead."

[Ends]

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Please be aware that this translation can only be performed with explicit permission in writing from the agency representing Dario Fo and Franca Rame, the Danesi-Tolnay agency in Rome.

Last updated: 11.viii.2012

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