Allen Ginsberg's Indian Journals Adapted for Theater at Rome's Terme di Diocleziano

From December 11 to 15, 2019, the Aula Ottagona of the Terme di Diocleziano in Rome will host "Diario Indiano," a theatrical performance directed and performed by Vita Accardi. The show adapts verses and prose from Allen Ginsberg's "Indian Journals: March 1962 – May 1963," chronicling the Beat poet's 1962 journey from Bombay across India, including visits to the Himalayas, sacred rivers, and the Dalai Lama in exile. Accardi, granddaughter of artist Carla Accardi, collaborates with artists Massimo Bartolini and Luigi Ontani, and composer Alvin Curran, who provides the musical score. Bartolini's intervention lightens the text's drama, gathering a group of Indian-origin youths in an action between play and Greek tragedy chorus. Ontani evokes the goddess Kali, reflecting on life and death. Curran's music leads the text into abstract, transcendent territory. The Aula Ottagona, the last of four halls in the Diocletian Baths complex and a significant archaeological site not always open to the public, provides the setting. Accardi connected the octagonal hall to Ginsberg's 1965 reading at London's Royal Albert Hall, where the audience sat in a circle, inspiring her to stage the performance in this circular space. She notes the resonance of Beat Generation words within Roman walls and statues, offering shelter to the narrative of Indian places of equal aesthetic force.