The Cathartic Value of Applied Theatre
A Case From ER Professionals in Bergamo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/nts.v36i1.152976Keywords:
Applied Theatre, catharsis, COVID-19, ER professionals, Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, Il Tempo della Cura, BergamoAbstract
As known in theatrical literature, one way for communities to heal their traumas is through Applied Theatre (AT). Presenting a case of a theatre workshop promoted and attended by several healthcare professionals of the main hospital in Bergamo, this article shows AT as a resource and tool for professionals dealing with trauma, grief, and loss. Bergamo was the epicentre of the first outbreak of the pandemic in Europe. COVID-19 hit the entire community, dramatically putting the hospital and the ER at the centre of the crisis. Several doctors and nurses organized a theatre workshop a few years later to heal from the trauma and present their story in a theatre play Silent Days, Sleepless Nights, for the city. The article contributes to the literature on Applied Theatre in the post-pandemic era by showing the cathartic power of theatre and its potential for healing from COVID-19 trauma. Returning to tragedy in the classics, AT should be understood as a tool for communities when they experience a shared condition of fragility. The catharsis in the communal sharing of experiences through the staging of the scenes and the construction of a common narrative horizon were the elements through which the meaning and overcoming of painful memories were substantiated.
References
American Psychological Association. 2023. “Posttraumatic stress disorder.” APA Dictionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/posttraumatic-stress-disorder (2.12.2024).
Aristotele. 2000. Poetica: Testo Greco a Fronte. Translated by Domenico Pesce and Giuseppe Girgenti. Milano: Bompiani.
Attili, Grazia. 2020. “Riflessioni evoluzionistiche sulla salute mentale di medici e infermieri con pazienti COVID-19: L’impatto di alcuni goal corrected control systems”. Cognitivismo Clinico, 17(2), 136-48.
Barello, Serena, Lorenzo Palamenghi and Guendalina Graffigna. 2020. “Burnout and Somatic Symptoms Among Frontline Healthcare Professionals at the Peak of the Italian COVID-19 Pandemic”. Psychiatry Research 290, 113129. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178120311975 (18.11.2024).
Benatti, Simone V. 2020. “Love in the Time of Corona.” Annals of Internal Medicine 172, 628.
Boal, Augusto. 2008. Theatre of the Oppressed. Translated by Charles, A., Maria-Odilia Leal McBride and Emily Fryer. London: Pluto Press.
Boje, David M., Grace Ann Rosile, Jillian Saylors and Rohny Saylors. 2015. “Using Storytelling Theatrics for Leadership Training.” Advances in Developing Human Resources 17: 348-62.
Buoro, Sabrina, Fabiano Di Marco, Marco Rizzi, Fabrizio Fabretti, Ferdinando Luca Lorini, Simonetta Cesa and Stefano Fagiuoli. 2020. “Papa Giovanni XXIII Bergamo Hospital at the Time of the COVID-19 Outbreak: Letter from the Warfront…” International Journal of Laboratory Hematology 42, 8-10.
Carmassi, Claudia, Valerio Dell’Oste, Eric Bui, Claudia Foghi, Carlo Antonio Bertelloni, Anna Rita Atti, Rodolfo Buselli, Marco Di Paolo, Arianna Goracci and Paolo Malacarne. 2022. “The interplay between acute post-traumatic stress, depressive and anxiety symptoms on healthcare workers functioning during the COVID-19 emergency: A multicenter study comparing regions with increasing pandemic incidence.” Journal of Affective Disorders 298, 209-16.
Carmassi, Claudia, Valerio Dell’Oste, Filippo Maria Barberi, Carlo Antonio Bertelloni, Virginia Pedrinelli and Liliana Dell’Osso. 2022. “Mental health symptoms among general practitioners facing the acute Phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: detecting different reaction groups.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19 (7), 4007.
Cozza, Michela and Silvia Gherardi. 2023. The posthumanist epistemology of practice theory. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cziboly, Adam and Adam Bethlenfalvy. 2020. “Response to COVID-19 Zooming in on online process drama.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 25 (4), 645-51.
De Vecchi, Massimiliano. Unpublished written text collected during the ”Il tempo della Cura” workshop Bergamo, 2020. Translated by Laura Lucia Parolin and Carmen Pellegrinelli. Authors’ archive.
Doerries, Bryan. 2015. The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today. New York: Vintage.
Du, Jiang, LU Dong, Tao Wang, Chenxin Yuan, Rao Fu, Lei Zhang, Bo Liu, Mingmin Zhang, Yuanyuan Yin and Jiawen Qin. 2020. “Psychological symptoms among frontline healthcare workers during COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.” General hospital psychiatry 67, 144-5.
Flora, Jeanne, David Boje, Grace Ann Rosile and Kenneth Hacker. 2016. “A Theoretical and Applied Review of Embodied Restorying for Post-Deployment Family Reintegration.” Journal of Veterans Studies 1, 129-62.
Freie, Paulo. 2005. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York and London: Continuum.
Fryer, Nic. 2022. “Hope and Helplessness in the Post-Covid Drama, Theatre and Performance Classroom.” TaPRA, University of Essex, Colchester, 12-14.09.2022.
Houlihan, Barry and Catherine Morris. 2022. “Introduction–performing in digital in the COVID-19 era.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 27, no 2, 157-67.
Il Tempo della Cura. 2023. “Giorni Muti, Notti Bianche.” Il Tempo della Cura Website. https://iltempodellacura.it/ (3.12.2024).
Jiang, Lulu and Farideh Alizadeh. 2023. “Community-based theatre: Critical pedagogy for promoting social connectedness recovery in the post-pandemic era.” Cogent Arts & Humanities 10, 10:1, 2198311.
Jiang, Lulu, Farideh Alizadeh and Wenjing Cui. 2023. “Effectiveness of Drama-Based Intervention in Improving Mental Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Period.” Healthcare 839, MDPI.
Kang, Lijun, Simeng Ma, Min Chen, Jun Yang, Ying Wang, Ruiting Li, Lihua Yao, Hanping Bai, Zhongxiang Cai and Bing Xiang Yang. 2020. “Impact on mental health and perceptions of psychological care among medical and nursing staff in Wuhan during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease outbreak: A cross-sectional study.” Brain, behavior, and immunity 87, 11-17.
Massó-Guijarro, Belén, Purificación Pérez-García and Cristina Cruz-González. 2021. “Applied Theatre as a Strategy for Intervention with Disadvantaged Groups: A Qualitative Synthesis.” Educational Research 63, 337-56.
Mehrotra, Chetna, Sooraj Amin, Roshan Karkera and Viral Champaneri. 2020. “Application of Applied Theatre Online with children and its Effects in the Indian Perspective during COVID Age.” Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal 5, 15, 1-13. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ptoj/vol5/iss1/15 (3.12.2024).
Miller, J Jay and Jennifer Reddin Cassar. 2021. “Self-care among healthcare social workers: The impact of COVID-19.” Social Work in Health Care 6: 30-48.
Nacoti, Mirco, Andrea Ciocca, Angelo Giupponi, Pietro Brambillasca, Federico Lussana, Michele Pisano, Giuseppe Goisis, Daniele Bonacina, Francesco Fazzi and Richard Naspro. 2020. “At the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic and humanitarian crises in Italy: changing perspectives on preparation and mitigation.” NEJM Catalyst innovations in care delivery 1, 1-5.
Parolin, Laura L. and Pellegrinelli Carmen. forthcoming. “Changing Narrative Through Theatre. The ER Staff´s Theatre Covid Play.” In François-Xavier De Vaujany, Kätlin Pulk, Pierre Labardin (eds.). Historicity and Organization Studies: Describing Events and Actuality at the Borders of Our Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pellegrinelli, Carmen. 2024. “Giorni Muti, Notti Bianche.” Altre Modernità 32, 298-325.
Pellegrinelli, Carmen and Laura L. Parolin. 2021. Bergamo Resiste: Storia di Superbergamo, Solidarietà e Attivismo al Tempo del COVID-19. Busto Arsizio: People.
Pellegrinelli, Carmen and Laura L. Parolin. 2023. “Alice in Wondertheatre: an Affective Ethnography” in Michela Cozza and Silvia Gherardi (eds.). The Posthumanist Epistemology of Practice Theory: Re-imagining Method in Organization Studies and Beyond. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 151-76.
Pellegrinelli, Carmen and Laura L. Parolin. 2024. “Il tempo della cura. Un progetto di medicina narrativa attraverso il teatro di comunità.” Other Modernities, Vol. 32, 279-97.
Pellegrinelli, Carmen, Laura L. Parolin and Marina Castagna. 2022. “The Aesthetic Dimension of Care: Arts and the Pandemic.” Organizational Aesthetics. Vol. 11 (1), 180-98.
Reilly, Shannon E, Katherine L. Zane, William T. McCuddy, Zachary A. Soulliard, David M. Scarisbrick, Liv E. Miller and James J. Mahoney Iii. 2020. “Mental health practitioners’ immediate practical response during the COVID-19 pandemic: Observational questionnaire study.” JMIR Mental Health 7, e21237.
Rodi, Stefano. 2023. “Bergamo, ovazione a teatro per medici e infermieri che hanno portato sul palco la tragedia del Covid”, Corriere della Sera 3/4/2023, 40.
Semponis, Constandina Pozirekides. 2018. From Ancient Wars to the Modern Playground: Catharsis as a Product of Applied Theatre Through Greek Choral Conventions for Children with PTSD. Northridge: California State University.
Shanafelt, Tait, Jonathan Ripp and Mickey Trockel. 2020. “Understanding and addressing sources of anxiety among health care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Jama, 323 (21): 2133-34.
Srinivas, Srividya. 2020. “Rethinking Community in India: An Exploration of Applied Theatre Practice in the Online Space during the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Virtual Conference “Role of Applied Theatre in Indian Society” 12-13.12.2020.
Tam, Po-Chi. 2020. “Response to COVID-19 ‘Now I send you the rays of the sun’: A drama project to rebuild post-COVID-19 resilience for teachers and children in Hong Kong.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 25 (4): 631-7.
Taylor, Philip. 2003. “The Applied Theatre.” What is “Cinderella” Hiding? Theatre/Ideology/Young People, Arizona State University Department of Theatre, Tempe, 20-22.2.2003.
Weibelzahl, Stephan, Julia Reiter and Gesa S. Duden. 2021. “Depression and anxiety in healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Epidemiology & Infection 149, e46: 1-10.
Performances:
Giorni Muti, Notti Bianche. Theatre Performance written by Carmen Pellegrinelli and directed by Silvia Briozzo, interpreted by doctors and nurses of the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital ER, 16-18-26 March and 15 April 2023, Bergamo, Italy. https://iltempodellacura.it/lo-spettacolo/ (3.12.2024).
Interviews:
E., one of the doctors interview spring 2023. Interviewed by the authors. The private archive of the authors.
Massimiliano De Vecchi, one of the doctors interview spring 2023. Interviewed by the authors. The private archive of the authors.
R., one of the doctors interview spring 2023. Interviewed by the authors. The private archive of the authors.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The copyright belongs to the authors and Nordic Theatre Studies. Users can use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal but only for non-commercial purposes. Users are allowed to link to the files, download the files, distribute the files on a local network (preferably by links), upload the files to local repositories if their institutions require them to do so, but not republish the files without proper agreements with the journal and the author.
