The Teatro Eschilo, owned by the Comune, is the oldest theatre in Gela. Of nineteenth-century origin, the present building is the result of a recent renovation of a structure already rebuilt in the first half of the twentieth century. Closed as unsafe in the second half of the 1970s, it reopened on 27 February 2013.
What to see
In the first half of the nineteenth century the wealthiest landowners of the town, with the municipal administration, decided to finance a small but elegant theatre for performances and concerts, on the ground where the church of San Giovanni di Dio with its attached Ricovero (almshouse) had stood, in piazza Sant'Agostino. It was inaugurated in 1832 under the name «Maria Teresa», later changed to «Giuseppe Garibaldi». The neoclassical façade has three round-arched entrances on a rusticated surface, with as many windows above and a large pediment; it was rebuilt imitating the original around 1920. The original interior, elegant and intimate, had a horseshoe-shaped hall with three tiers of boxes, decorated in gold leaf, with stucco and velvet curtains.
The walls, however, began to give way and the Comune decided to pull it down: the outer structure was rebuilt around 1920 and the hall around 1930, again horseshoe-shaped but very spartan, with about six hundred seats. The sources write that the town thus lost a genuine architectural gem of the nineteenth century. The first film screenings date from the early 1930s; in the later decades the decay became serious, but the theatre went on hosting rallies, dance displays, conferences, concerts and shows until it closed.
Visiting
Renovation works started in 2000 with municipal funds and resumed in January 2009 with European Community funding; in 2010, while an external emergency staircase was being built, the ruins of two religious buildings that once stood where the theatre now stands came to light, and the works stopped for a few months. The project called for a rectangular hall with two tiers of boxes, fifteen per floor, plus the gallery, with an orchestra pit, a large stage with a trapdoor, attention to acoustics and air conditioning. Programme, hours and box office do not appear in the sources consulted: ask the Comune di Gela.
Our editors' tip
Before it closed the theatre hosted a season of three comedies staged by the first company of Gela, «I Roccaverdina», directed by Biagio Pardo: Scuru by Nino Martoglio, Pensaci Giacomino by Pirandello and Gatta ci cova by Russo Giusti.
