From the Mori case to Marta Russo, from Palamara to Moroni, Luca De Fusco brings to the stage the very idea of justice. A reflection on collective consciousness spanning more than 30 years of Italian history. From Dec. 9 to April 21 at the Torlonia Theater.
The light of facts is as threatened by human and time as history knows. Truth-seeking Italy has often stumbled in its own shadows, just in front of court cases that have shaken the population's sense of security.
Teatro di Roma relaunches the role of the stage as a space of collective consciousness with “Le Verità Sospese,” a project conceived by Artistic Director Luca De Fusco that transforms Teatro Torlonia into a contemporary agora. From Dec. 9 to April 21, four evening events bring some of the most controversial court cases in recent Italian history back to the center of public debate. De Fusco, together with Anna Ammirati, Alessandro Barbano and Goffredo Buccini, takes the audience to where justice cracks, truth shatters and social judgment overlaps with trial.
In a time when media narration risks replacing facts, theater becomes a place of critical questioning: not to rewrite trials, but to return complexities, doubts, errors and responsibilities. A “poker” of emblematic events (the Mori case, the Marta Russo case, the Moroni case and the Palamara scandal) is put back on stage not as a spectacle, but as an exercise of citizenship, as an invitation to look inside the shadowy areas of judicial power and its public representations.
Theater as an agora for civil debate
Leading the discussion and social reflection will be two influential names in Italian journalism, Alessandro Barbano and Goffredo Buccini, accompanied by actress Anna Ammirati, who leads the audience through testimonies, unresolved questions and divergent perspectives. Each meeting thus becomes a laboratory of critical thinking, a place where the community can return to question the fragile balance between justice and morality, between garantism and public opinion, between trial truth and perceived truth.
With “The Suspended Truths,” Rome Theatre reaffirms the civic function of art: not to entertain, but to enlighten. Not to close cases, but to open consciences. Especially those of younger generations, less conditioned by past prejudices and more willing to rethink the relationship between institutions, media and citizenship.
Justice as a moral duty to human beings
As Director Luca De Fusco explains, “the cases we have chosen to cover are never open court cases. The title of the cycle, conceived by Silvia Garbasino, makes this very clear. We do not want to reopen trials, but to reflect on what those events have meant for Italian society.” It begins on Dec. 9 with “The Honor of a General,” in which Mori himself will recount “the situation that led an anti-mafia hero to become indicted for mafia.” “We wonder,” De Fusco continues, "what remains today, for the country, of that historical phase. The same applies to Tangentopoli, which we address starting from Moroni's letter. We always start from a letter: Anna reads them in the opening and the episode develops from there. They are living testimonies, even when they belong to people who are no longer here, like Ambrosoli or Moroni." These are letters that tell real facts, living flesh, and bringing them to the theater means turning them into a monologue, a piece of theater.
Theater thus becomes an opportunity to also investigate the psychological and human aspects of the protagonists of the events. A new stage approach that guided the investigation of actress Anna Ammirati, to understand, when these events happen, “what moves in the human psyche? What goes on in the mind of a magistrate when he starts a job that can really destroy a person's life, innocent or not?” “I am living this project,” Ammirati stresses, “precisely from this point of view: I am interested in understanding the human being, what happens inside him. This is what involves me the most.” The theme of these shows is justice, and the title expresses the scope of reflection well. As Goffredo Buccini points out, "we are talking about closed trials that have, however, left a trail of controversy and, in some cases, doubt. It is a theme of blood and flesh, which runs through the daily news.".
The incubation of this project began a couple of years ago and matured from the shared reflections between Barbano, Buccini and De Fusco.
“I would like to make it clear,” Buccini stresses, "and I also speak on behalf of my colleagues, that this is in no way a political operation related to the referendum. It is our dutiful reflection. For me, the story of General Mori is particularly important: I have an affectionate relationship with the Carabinieri, and I find it significant that a man who should have spent 20 years explaining in universities how to fight the Mafia and terrorism had instead to spend 20 years explaining that he was not colluding with the Mafia. That says a lot about a country polluted by ideology.".
Buccini also invites us to reflect on the crucial role of the press, which needs to be accompanied by iron ethics: “This also concerns us journalists. Mori recalled how certain press has written some of the most vile pages of our history. We should remind ourselves of this every time we report on a trial: before us is a defendant, innocent or guilty, who has a family, friends, a world that is violated by the trial and by what we write. I say this first by making amends. It is a responsibility that we should never forget.”.
Dates and cases covered.
The Honor of a General - The Mori Case
Mario Mori, a Carabinieri officer trained by Dalla Chiesa, led decisive operations against Cosa Nostra, including the arrest of Totò Riina in 1993. Success against the Mafia, however, brings Mori to the center of three prosecutions: delay in the search of Riina's hideout, alleged aiding and abetting Provenzano's absconding, and alleged State-Mafia negotiations. In all cases he was acquitted: the verdicts confirm that no negotiations were conducted or favors provided to criminality. Mori remains a controversial figure in Italian history, a symbol of the tensions
Suicide by accusation - The Moroni Case
The story of Sergio Moroni is one of the deepest wounds of Clean Hands. A Socialist deputy and Psi leader, he committed suicide on September 2, 1992 after receiving two notices of indictment during the Mani Pulite investigation. In his letter to Giorgio Napolitano, he denounced a climate of pressure and summary trials that overwhelmed lives and families. His act remains a tragic symbol of that political phase, marked by intense conflicts between justice and politics.
At Wisdom, one morning - The Marta Russo Case
On May 9, 1997, Marta Russo, 22, a law student, was hit in the head by a bullet while walking in the university driveway. She dies five days later. The investigation quickly became one of the most controversial in Italian news: no weapon found, no credible motive, a dynamic never clarified. Despite the absence of material evidence and a certain link to the event, two university assistants, Giovanni Scattone and Salvatore Ferraro, who have always declared themselves innocent, are convicted of manslaughter and aiding and abetting. The trial leaves huge doubts open: no direct evidence, no decisive technical findings. A case that, to this day, remains for many the symbol of a judicial truth far from any certainty.
Hotel Champagne - The Palamara Case
Luca Palamara was the youngest president of the Anm and then the first to be expelled from it. In 2019, a Trojan installed on his cell phone reveals conversations showing his role as a mediator in appointments of top prosecutors. From there the Hotel Champagne scandal explodes, named after the place where the decisive meetings took place. The Csm comes out devastated. In 2020 he is disbarred from the judiciary, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court. He is charged with corruption. The trial ends in 2023 with a one-year plea bargain for trafficking in influence. But his story is far from over. And meanwhile, Palamara is about to publish a new book that promises to be full of new revelations.
Alessandro Barbano, journalist and writer, is the editorial director of «l'Altravoce.» He has edited «Il Messaggero,» «Il Riformista,» «Il Mattino» and the «Corriere dello Sport-Stadio.» He has taught journalism in several universities and is the author of ten essays dedicated to journalism and political and social issues, including «La gogna,» Marsilio 2023; «L'inganno,» Marsilio 2022; «Troppi diritti,» «Le dieci bugie» and the «Visione,» Mondadori 2018-2020, «Dove andremo a finire,» Einaudi 2011, Manuale di giornalismo, Laterza 2102. He has received prizes and awards, including the Bordin Prize for Judicial Information, awarded to him by the National Union of Criminal Chambers.
Goffredo Buccini, journalist and writer, is Corriere della Sera's columnist on foreign and domestic policy. As a reporter he covered the Mani pulite season, as a New York correspondent the fall of the Twin Towers, as editor-in-chief he edited the Roman edition of Corsera. He has published three novels and seven essays, most recently with Laterza: “La Repubblica sotto processo” (Bordin Prize 2024). He has an essay forthcoming for Neri Pozza on the decline of democracies and the rise of autocracies in the 21st century.
PHOTO BY MANUELA GIUSTI
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