On the afternoon of Thursday 18 May, celebration and theatre entered the 'Maero' RSA in Manta. The facility for the elderly in Via Bertero, belonging to the Sereni Orizzonti group, organised together with the Acb Eventi association of Manta, coordinated by Annachiara Busso, an afternoon of some significant theatrical readings.

The spring air favoured the full success of this initiative: an intense reading of stories and tales from the past, which involved a large group of guests of the facility. The guests were presented with stories from a book by Stefano Benni, 'The Bar Under the Sea'.

In the book, an unnamed man (later called 'the Guest'), while wandering for unknown reasons in the imaginary port of Brigantes, follows an old man to a fantastic place, a meeting point for twenty-three mysterious patrons, each of whom undertakes, over the course of one night, to tell a story.

The reading intensely involved the residents of the facility, to the point that at the end of the activity some of them recounted some fairy tales that were read to them when they were children. The meeting ended with a moment of conviviality, with pizza and orangeade to the delight of all present.

"The work of elderly care has been changing a lot in recent years," he said. Marinella Racca, facility manager - "The time has come to change the concept that the elderly person in a facility should only be cared for in his or her primary functions: that is only part of our work, but we also need to rediscover the person, his or her interests and pleasures. That is why we got in touch with this association: the memories of the fairytale world allowed our guests to become children again for a while".