Based on Mussolini’s famous persecution of homosexuals, musical drama San Domino by Tim Anfilogoff and Alan Whittaker tells the story of a group of men sentenced to five years confinement for degeneracy on an island fortress of San Domino.
One night in 1939, Carlo, Claudio and their friends are arrested. Condemned without a trial, they arrive on San Domino: a prison island solely for gay men. Mussolini’s regime had unwittingly created a part of Italy in which men were expected to be openly gay. For all the indignity and squalor of prison life, men previously forced to live in the shadows now have no need to hide who they are. But in the background war is looming…
San Domino, with actor-musicians conjuring up an intimate tragi-comic world of love, loss and the struggle just to survive, runs from Tuesday 5 to Saturday 30 June at Tristan Bates Theatre.
