For Alberto Racanati, living as an immigrant in Kansas City is a lot like living in limbo.
Even after living in the U.S. for more than a decade, away from his home country of Italy, Racanati still feels a sense of transience.
“I kind of live in this space in between,” Racanati said. “I'm not from here, not from there.”
It’s Racanati’s goal to capture that immigrant experience in his upcoming show — named after the Spanish word for “suitcase” — “Maletas: An Immigrant Story.”
The multimedia production is Racanati’s brainchild — he composed the music and drew from his connections with Kansas City’s music and visual arts community to build his team. It includes Jose Faus, originally from Colombia, who wrote the poetry.
“I'm trying to tackle as many art forms as possible,” Racanati said. “I want it to be as immersive as I can.”
The production, which received grant funding from ArtsKC last year, will play at Greenwood Social Hall on Saturday, Nov. 14 and Sunday, Nov. 15.
‘A nondescript story’
“Maletas” unfolds over four parts, following its unnamed main character, played by Faus, as they experience displacement and culture shock as an immigrant.
As Faus wrote the poetry that the protagonist would recite, he said he frequently thought of the ocean.
“The last memory I have of leaving my country, Colombia, was being at the ocean,” he said.
Some of those personal memories — of home and the family kitchen — informed his approach to “Maletas.” Faus immigrated to a historically Mexican American neighborhood in Kansas City when he was 9, and the food, music, and culture there were so different to him, he said.
“Even though we lived on the Westside, when I went to school there weren't that many kids that spoke Spanish,” Faus said. “So there was always this sense of: How do I fit in?”
While the plot draws from Racanati’s and Faus’ immigrant experiences, the main character remains intentionally unnamed.
“The show is not my story specifically or anybody's story,” Racanati said. “I want this to be a nondescript story.”
The production revolves around the protagonist’s relationship to a literal suitcase that is built into the stage.
“I started thinking about the idea of taking one object of memory that, more than anything else, represents being transient, being in movement — which is a suitcase,” Racanati said.
After the young protagonist and their family move from their home, they must deal with bullying, which pushes them to assimilate and abandon the culture of their home country. The protagonist enters the final years of their life dealing with memory loss.
“The whole story ends with this person finally completing the cycle of assimilation, by forgetting completely where they came from,” Racanati said.
Though it’s not the happiest of endings, he said, it’s what can happen to someone who moves to a different place and settles there for many years.
“Kind of like a constant becoming of somebody who is displaced and transient, and how restless and exhausting that can be,” he said.
“I became a citizen one year ago so, as far as the legality of it goes, I am as integrated as I can ever be,” he said. “And I don't say this in a negative connotation, but: I will never be an American, I will never have the outlook of somebody who was born and raised here.”
‘An impression of loss’
Faus wrote his poetry to match Racanati’s score, which will be amplified with singing and instrumentation from trumpets, cello and drums.
“It's an impression of loss, of longing, of adapting, and, always, resilience,” Faus said. “And that can be political when you're denied your own history.”
But Racanati wasn’t necessarily intending to make a political production, he said. Instead, he hopes “Maletas” can spark a curiosity in people.
“Immigration is something that is intrinsic to the human experience,” Racanati said. “It's always existed and will always exist in some sort of way, and so I want to talk about people more than I want to talk about politics and systems in place.”
“Maletas: An Immigrant Story,” 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14, and Sunday, Nov. 15, at Greenwood Social Hall, 11750 Bellevue Ave., Kansas City, Missouri 64108. More information at GreenwoodSocialHall.com.
