Milite ignoto tells of the first, true moment of national unity. It is, in fact, in the trenches of blood and mud that the “Italians” met and found themselves together for the first time: Venetians and Sardinians, Piedmontese and Sicilians, Apulians and Lombards united by the fear and the disorientation of an event which was much larger than them.
A disorientation that was intensified by the confusion of dialects which echoed in those trenches. “For this, I imagined all of the Italian dialects brought together and mixed into an invented language - writes Mario Perrotta - a language in flesh and blood. The result was a new language which lent the show an unknown sound that nonetheless touches the deepest viscera of our country”.
“I chose this title, Milite ignoto (unknown soldier) - because the first world war was the last war where the soldiers still had some value, whereas from that war onwards soldiers have become, in fact, unknown, forgotten as human beings with a name and surname, a face and a voice”.