At Milan’s Franco Parenti theatre, Shards of Chaotic Memory in Multicoloured Ink (Schegge di memoria disordinata a inchiostro policromo) runs from 20 March to 13 April. This new play by Gianni Forte, directed by Fausto Cabra, focuses on the case of Billy Milligan who, in the late 1970s, abducted, attacked and raped three female college students, before being arrested and put on trial. The case hit the headlines in America, due to Milligan’s unlawful behaviour, but first and foremost because of the trial’s verdict. He was the first person in the United States to be acquitted on grounds of insanity, having been diagnosed with a multi-personality disorder, later classified as DID (dissociative identity disorder). The psychiatric report indicated that Milligan had 24 different personalities. This intriguing story is the subject of Daniel Keyes’s non-fiction book, The Minds of Billy Milligan (1981), and in 2021 Netflix made the successful docuseries, Monsters Inside; the 24 Faces of Billy Milligan. For this retelling of Milligan’s story, Gianni Forte has penned a psychodrama, structured in short scenes, each of which represents and explores shards of Billy’s troubled mind. The young man’s rollercoaster existence unfolds, seemingly at random, on an almost empty stage, where video projections, including stage directions and images, appear from time to time on a backdrop. The play is brought to the stage by Raffaele Esposito who embodies several of Milligan’s multiple personalities, while Anna Gualdo and Elena Gigliotti superbly play multiple roles (the raped women, the police investigator, the psychologist, the nurse at the clinic, Billy’s mother, a narrator figure). The play kicks off with a second-rate stand-up comedian telling second-rate jokes – it later transpires that the figure is Billy’s stepfather who badly abused him as a child. In another scene, multiple headshots of Billy appear on the backdrop, while he talks to a psychologist who seeks to find out which of his multiple personalities was responsible for the rapes. She threatens to carry out gastric lavage and physically mistreats Billy who is visibly frightened, but also refuses to give in. He bravely declares that he wants to be the one to write the end of his story and nobody else. Another of Billy’s identities is precisely a very self-confident young woman, whom Esposito morphs into in the flick of an eye. In what are fast paced scenes, every so often the two actresses turn into narrator figures, reminding us that this is theatre and make-believe. As Billy punches himself in the nose with his handcuffs, making what looks like blood run down his cheeks, the Narrator points out that this isn’t blood, but tomato juice. Such metatheatrical strategies serve to distance us from the onstage action, especially necessary in the rape scene, when Billy angrily throws his victim to the ground and simulates attacking and raping her. We also hear the victim’s account of her harrowing experience as she reveals in graphic imagery the trauma such violent action can bring about. All this, while the Beatles’ song “I need your love” plays softly in the background. The final scene shows Billy with his mother, who denies she was partly responsible for his unhappy childhood and claims she was unaware of his stepfather’s abuse. This clash between mother and son remains in the mind, following her poignant statement, “A son inevitably ends up putting his own mother in the stocks”. Raffaele Esposito’s nuanced interpretation of Billy is exceptional; through his body language and a sensitive interpretation of the script, he manages to convey the character’s multiple personalities, his feral nature as well as his softer side. Anna Gualdo and Elena Gigliotti also give fine performances, switching seamlessly between roles. Mimosa Campironi’s soundtrack, featuring rock music from the 1970s and a video design complete this truly compelling staging created by Fausto Cabra. Shards of Chaotic Memory in Multicoloured Ink is a new production by Teatro Franco Parenti.
Raffaele Esposito and Anna Gualdo in Shards of Chaotic Memory in Multicoloured Ink by Gianni Forte, directed by Fausto Cabra.
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This post was written by Margaret Rose.
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