The game board and the DJ equipment sit on stage, the audience are in their chairs. Everything is roughly the same as it was at the beginning of yesterday’s episode of Around the World in Eighty Days - except for the fact that we’re no longer in a museum. Today’s episode, covering the journey of Mr. Fogg from Bombay, India to Yokohama, Japan, is set in Porta Giulia, on the lake side at the opposite end of the city, a 30-minute walk from yesterday’s location. For Daniele Villa, the author of the series of events, “this mirrors the idea of traveling around the world”. The park, the lake, the breeze and the trees serve as substitutes for locations on the other side of the world.

The DJ gets on stage, the music starts and the actors take their places. The second episode is about to begin. A swift “Previously on…” scene takes us through yesterday’s events and we’re quickly back to the present in the forests of India, where the young girl is about to be sacrificed on her dead husband’s funeral pyre. The Tourist Guide explains about modern concerns regarding arranged marriages for young Indian girls and the treatment of widows. To complete the mission, all the women in the audience are asked to stand up and clap their hands to a tribal rhythm. In the pyre, the dead husband stands up as soon as the flames start devouring the wood, sets the girl free and runs with her to Mr. Fogg. The dead husband was in fact Passepartout, who hid near the corpse. A few moments later we witness the three riding an elephant, heading toward Allahabad. We win an extra life for the game, “obtained when you save someone’s life”, it’s a 1-UP mushroom from the Super Mario series.

(caricamento...)

In chapter five, the girl is introduced to us. Miss Aouda: young, beautiful and kind, and, luckily, she has a relative in Hong Kong named Gegè who is willing to host her. Mr. Fogg selflessly offers to accompany her, as Hong Kong is on the way. A musical cue tells us that the protagonist may also have a particular interest for the girl, as the actors sing Frank Sinatra’s Somethin’ Stupid.

We get to Calcutta and as soon as Mr. Fogg steps off the train, he’s informed by the police that his presence is required at a trial. At the court we meet three Indian priests, accusing the protagonists of profanity but not because of the interrupted sacrifice, as everyone expected, but because Passepartout had his shoes on the pagoda in Bombay. We find out that Detective Fix witnessed the scene and sent the priests after the travellers to slow them down while waiting for a warrant. His plan is proved useless as Mr. Fogg pays his incredibly expensive bail to just get on his way. Fix doesn’t give up and keeps chasing the protagonist, who at this point is on the steamer headed for China.

Ariving in China, the original description of the Hong Kong harbour by Jules Verne is read by the actors that describes the beauty of the area as “created by English colonist genius”. As this words are read, someone dressed in the garb of the KKK walks on stage, giving the reader a “racism badge”. Through an anachronistic miscalculation, Sotterraneo highlights the difference between the attitudes of the present and those in Verne’s age. The audience is asked many deaths were caused by “English colonist genius” but the correct answer is that the actual number can’t be calculated because of its scale worldwide. A telegram lets us know that the warrant for Mr. Fogg has finally reached Hong Kong, so the protagonists must leave soon.

The story switches to Passepartout’s point of view, having been sent by Mr. Fogg to the harbour to book the next steamer. Detective Fix follows him and, after introducing himself, takes the butler to a shady tavern where he gets him to take some drugs, stopping him from letting Mr Fog know that the boat to Japan was leaving early. We are drawn into Passepartout’s trip, represented by a man in a panda costume dancing on stage to I Don’t Like the Drugs but the Drugs Like Me by Marilyn Manson.

(caricamento...)

In the meantime, Mr. Fogg and Aouda, who missed the steamer, find a schooner to take them to Japan in what turns out to be a very dramatic and dangerous crossing. All the travellers get to Japan – with the actors and the audience taking a group selfie with Japanese merchandise to remember the event - but so does the warrant.

Luckily, it has no value outside of the British Empire. Fix continues the chase Mr. Fogg, even if he is unable to arrest him. The party is reunited in a Japanese circus and they decide to sail for the United States. A worker from Porta Giulia Responsible walks toward the lake and boards on a boat. The actors joins him and sail across the lake, waving a sign reading “See you in San Francisco”, with the man in the panda costume dancing on the grass in the background.

Tomorrow’s leg of the journey will take us from Yokohama to New York, bon voyage!