Monticchiello was increasingly trying to place its local problems and attitudes in the larger context of contemporary society and the modern economy—always with comparative reflections of the quite different peasant world which the villagers carried in their memories.

What did they perceive as characterizing Italian society in 1984?  A mania for games and gambling.  As a form of entertainment, perhaps, but also for material gain.  A form of greed which maintains the consumer economy, and raises impossible utopian dreams.  Dreams about how the village might develop in the future.   Visions provoked by TV games and competitions, by the football pools, by all kinds of betting both legal and illegal, by casinos and gaming houses which had become more frequented than ever before.

The people of Monticchiello decided to inspect this whole phenomenon in an autodramma, trying to be realistic and keep their feet on the ground, maintaining an ironic critical view of what was happening to them.  Under Andrea Cresti’s direction, under a warm Tuscan sky, they brought this theme into their village square in order to remember, to understand, to hope, and to laugh.