A Note from the Playwright
Five women look out over the sea, waiting for someone, waiting for a decision to be made concerning one of them. As they wait, they kill time by chatting and playing, mostly playing, because their play is nothing other than the metaphor of a society where the rules are sometimes broken by oppression and power. While they wait, bonds are created, ties of affection, pacts that we are not always ready to conclude with people who differ from us by culture, color, or nationality. Bounds is a story about us, about all of us, about the truths we take for granted and about a society unable to exist without bonds, where the defense of the human being emerges, before any law, from the law of the heart that cannot tolerate compromises or oppression. Bounds is also about “the others,” about those to whom we open our doors, those whom we welcome because there is no other way to remain human. It is a story about cages, violence, dreams, a story that reflects our time, our own time, the actual living time that flows under our skin, a time that stands apart from the rules, obligations and prejudices that keep us from looking in the eyes of our neighbors.
—Tino Caspanello
Messina, Sicily, March 2020
Translated by Haun Saussy