Garage theatre

Forget red velvet and rows of seats. In Catania theatre happens in hidden courtyards, converted garages and private gardens where the only set is soft light and a few salvaged chairs. No stage to divide, no stalls to rank anybody. Just the same room, the same hour, the same light for everyone.

The audience sits on the floor or on cushions, glass in hand. The actors come in through the ordinary door, the one you used to get here. The distance between watching and performing is the width of a breath — and you feel it, in the way a line lands, in the way the silence weighs.

The pieces are written, directed and performed by local artists who have deliberately chosen the small form. Not for lack of means, but out of conviction. Intimate theatre is not minor theatre — it is theatre that touches you from close up, that gives you no time to drift, that asks you to be present.

Afterwards, people stay. Prosecco, conversation, that rare sense of having shared something with strangers who are no longer entirely strangers. It is often the part that is worth as much as the performance.

You will find it in the old-town districts — San Berillo, Civita, the baroque courtyards that in summer become improbable and perfect. The architecture becomes the set without meaning to: a column, an arch, a wall of lava stone. Announcements come late, usually on Instagram, usually with very few words. Follow them. It is worth it.