ABSTRACT
In a climate of overcrowding, dwindling state and European Union (EU) funding, and institutionalised boredom, the Italian prison system has routinely embraced theatre programmes, drawing on a basic modicum of resources needed to stage plays. Shakespearean corpus of plays from which to draw ensures that productions profit from the added cultural value enshrined, in Italy, in the name of their originating author: in the bid for limited amount of press attention available for prison theatre programmes, Shakespeare's name trumps any other playwright's. Shakespeare's greatest hits, on contrary, are deemed more suitable for the programme than those of most other European playwrights. The longest-running project had its origins in 1988 at La Fortezza, a prison located in Volterra, under the auspices of Armando Punzo, whose most successful adaptation remains Mercuzio non vuole morire, in which the character deeply resents Shakespeare's decision to kill him off early in play in order to concentrate on sentimental love story between Romeo and Juliet.
