Speed Up!

'Ccelera!, a seemingly crass and boorish eulogy to the motorcar, to speed and to adrenalin, is the story of a young man from the North East of Italy who, having grown up in the heyday of hero Gilles Villeneuve, becomes a racing driver himself; a man with petrol in his veins, now approaching the last bend.

The monologue is performed and written by the actor and dancer Maurizio Camilli of the balletto civile. 'Ccelera! is his first work as a playwright and has already won him acclaim with Tuttoteatro.com awarding him the Dante Cappelletti Prize in 2005 (Premio tuttoteatro.com alle arti sceniche "Dante Cappelletti").
In the heart of a deliberately unspecified area of North East Italy, a young factory worker dreams of becoming a racing car champion, an ace at the wheel. He lives and works in a grey world finding diversion in the illegal races he competes in as he trains to fulfil his dream. He invests his all in this patch of land where living in the fast lane has become a habit. Not only is this the region with the highest record of road accident victims, it has also produced and continues to produce many of the best racing drivers in Italy (the “Piave breed” as they once were called).
As the last bend stretches before him and he begins his advance towards the end, it seems as if time and space are suspended, as if he were moving in slow motion. And with every metre of the track another memory, another image resurfaces; fragments of dance, fragments of speech in constant succession, each causing the same existential doubt to re-emerge. Heart in mouth, at every inch of the track, he must face the dilemma: accelerate or not accelerate, live or die.