Interview and photography: Erin McKinney
Every Saturday we’re spotlighting remarkable local females who could change the way we look at the world. This Saturday is Laura Bussani’s turn, a versatile artist living in Trieste.
Tell us something about yourself. What was it like growing up in Trieste?
My mother is Polish from Poznan and my father is from Trieste. They met in Budapest and then I arrived!
I spent my childhood between summers in Poland and summers in Grado pineta. I am always drawn to my second land, and when I can I travel to go there!
How did you get into acting?
I was getting my Literature degree at the university, attending classes and doing well on exams.
But one fine day, upon entering the university, I noticed a poster for auditions to be admitted to the Civica Accademia d’Arte Drammatica Nico Pepe in Udine and that was Laura’s last day at the university! I got in and after 3 years I graduated.
What are you working on at the moment?
I work a lot at Teatro Miela. I just finished doing a show which I particularly love and that always excites me called Cik Pause. It’s a comedy but it can also bring a few tears. It starts from my childhood memories, in Poland, at my grandmother Basia’s house, an avid smoker of Klubowe without filters, who worked as a seamstress at the Teatro Nowy in Poznan. From those memories of walks taken with her to go shopping, of lines of people outside food shops, of the smell of soap and coal, of performances that enveloped me with the scent coming from the stage, a series of characters was born, more or less smokers, who talk about their relationship with cigarettes and the meaning of the cigarette break, also understood as a break in the daily routine of life.
Fantastic.
And then there are the AperiPupkin Kabarett evenings, which are comedy shows “with less rehearsal than a porn film” that take place every two Mondays a month. I DJ at the bar during the aperitivo and then perform some of my favorite characters on stage. There is a band and other performers, such as my “Horrible Sister” Erin McKinney!
How do you come up with the characters for your performances?
Well, let me start with Armida, the 146 year old woman always eager for sex and fun! My grandmother Tina, also a great smoker, inspired me with her voice and way of speaking. It was with my grandparents that I started speaking in the Trieste dialect, and Tina inspired me for the old-fashioned voice and terms she used! Such as “bel el mio strucolo!” (my beautiful sweet). Ines, on the other hand, takes her cue from the stereotype of the “babazza from Trieste” with a rather annoying voice, “nice as a root canal treatment without anesthesia and funny as a kidney stone, obsessed with nails and scientific magazines!” The other characters are the result of nocturnal creative thoughts, which make me get out of bed at any time of the night, to take notes and mark a few jokes!
What are some of your favorite things about Trieste?
I can simply answer that I love the sea and the fact that you can reach the Carso on foot! I like Osmiza, I like rodoleti (bread and some sandwich meat) with a glass or 2 of terano wine, I love sardone impanato (breaded sardines) and a glass of Friulano. I like talking with all of the elderly people. Ok I’m not that young but I’ve been doing it since I was!
Me too!
I also like the Bora that sweeps away the humidity and the smog! I like this sort of bipolarity of people here who go from “ranzide” (rotten, mean-ed.) into “cocole” (nice-ed.) in no time at all! And I don’t like when it’s the other way around, which unfortunately isn’t uncommon! I like Trieste! There always comes a time when you want to escape from here, but then you always need to come back!
