Campobello

Capitalism has established something brilliantly paradoxical within its own logic: the appropriation of resistance – and, with it, the hollowing out of that very resistance. Today, everything is political. Theatre, art, relationships, food, clothing. The transition to greenwashing, pinkwashing and diversity washing is smooth and comfortable. In this way, positivity can be complacently wrapped around oneself through everyday consumption. Theatre, too, has learnt how to present itself as progressive: add a #political, efficient communication and target-group marketing, and the question of relevance is already settled. Afterwards, an apéritif with a few taralli and Nocellara olives; in Zurich, oysters and Prosecco also go down well on the premiere table. After all, in these difficult times it is important to do something nice for oneself.

But if everything is political, then nothing is political any longer. Artistic actions that understand themselves as urgent therefore sometimes remain – almost inadvertently – without structural consequences. And not even out of ill will. Rather, because attention is mistaken for change, or because moral positioning suddenly takes the place of action. It is precisely here, in the midst of the desire for urgency and its simultaneous commodification, that a fine crack opens up: between the paradoxical logic of exploitation and the fault line of the political. Because here, even our innermost desire for justice becomes marketable – and the cultural sector is no exception.

The question for theatre, then, is this: what does the term “political” mean for the stage beyond its marketability? What kind of text, and what kinds of bodies, do not dissolve into discourse and affirmation, but carry within them a genuine explosive force?

In CAMPOBELLO, Eva-Maria Bertschy’s theatre finds a language and a form of action that are both poetic and strikingly direct. And it does so at a time when precarity has been displaced to places where bourgeois theatre rarely ventures. Bertschy and her team know the terrain they are speaking about. They have lived there, documented it and carried out research: in the village of CAMPOBELLO in south-western Sicily, where workers are employed in the olive groves under exploitative conditions, and where politics and business deliberately force them into dependent and dangerous working arrangements. They also tell of solidarity and love, which exist there too – and which are powerful and resistant. Of stories that articulate themselves because they have to. The production condenses a material reality of violence and racism. And yet, in its ultimate consequence, it is an evening about connection and solidarity. CAMPOBELLO not only reveals and reconstructs the links between Europe and North Africa, but also those between “you” and “me”. And ultimately, it also tells of the connection between the Swiss bella vita – who does not love Italo-pop? – and the very real price paid for it.

The social problem behind Western prosperity is, however, greater than mere ignorance. It is not that knowledge about global exploitation is lacking in the relevant places. Quite the opposite: we actually know all too well that, in the places where Europe likes to spend its summer holidays, working conditions in agriculture are directly connected to our consumption and to forms of exploitation that are economically intended. We know all too well that the history of migration between Europe and its former colonies in Africa continues there as a merciless reality: in raw violence and oppression. But all of this is difficult to bear, uncomfortable – it hurts and overwhelms us. Faced with all the information about our own entanglements, within which it has become almost impossible to find one’s bearings, it is easier to look away. Pop-inflected discursive theatre then seems less irritating than an admonishing finger; surely one should not have to confront global interconnections in one’s leisure time as well.

The political capacity of emotional involvement to mobilise has been exhausted; it no longer works. Successful repression, on the other hand, does. And as state and institutional policies increasingly shift these issues to Europe’s external borders, global conflicts are also disappearing more and more from individuals’ screens – and consequently from cultural institutions as well. CAMPOBELLO resists precisely this: being dissolved in the spin cycle of the neoliberal, content-free washing machine. The production brings into the theatre the reality we no longer see here. Rather than reconstructing politics merely through facts and documents, CAMPOBELLO creates politics on stage with a certain gentleness. Through bodies, voices, time and space.

For all its force, CAMPOBELLO is above all also a source of consolation. When global interconnections have become so complex and opaque that we have long known ourselves to be beneficiaries of modern slavery – while simultaneously suppressing that knowledge – this production, in the clarity of its position, ultimately seems almost relieving. It gives a gentle structure to that sense of overwhelm. The evening is also consoling because it tells biographies and connections that remain invisible in most places. Political theatre does not only hurt or provoke; CAMPOBELLO is not merely an accusation. It is also what theatre does best: creating community, attentiveness and sensuality. The fact that the green olives at the apéritif taste good is something we simply have to live with.

(c) https://winkelwiese.ch/zentrumfuerdramatik/mediathek/campobello-ist-kein-hashtag

Text + Direction Eva-Maria Bertschy With Abou Bakar Sidibé, Daniela Macaluso Set + Costume Design Lea Burkhalter Composition + Musical Direction Kojack Kossakamvwe Video Abou Bakar Sidibé Dramaturgy Luca Maier Sound Gabriele Gugliara, Nathan Tagliavini Lighting Design + Technical Direction Sylvain Faye Video Technique Moritz von Dungern Stage Construction Aurelio Ciaperoni Costume Maker Souleymane Diallo Assistant Director + Video Editing Tiziano Locci Production Letizia Gullo, Camille Jamet Guest Performance Support Stadt Zürich Kultur, Pro Helvetia – Schweizer Kulturstiftung Creation Teatro Garibaldi, Palermo, 17. Dezember 2025

Production HERproductions Co-production Fondazione Studio Rizoma Palermo, Theater Winkelwiese, Schlachthaus Theater Bern, euro-scene Leipzig, Prima Onda Fest / Genìa Lab Art Palermo, in collaboration with Arci Porco Rosso Palermo Funding Stadt Zürich Kultur, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Schweizer Kulturstiftung Pro Helvetia, Landis & Gyr, Anne-Marie Schindler Stiftung, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Corymbo Stiftung, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Tunis, Fabriktheater Zürich