The early moments of Spettacolo, the latest documentary from the team behind the acclaimed 2010 work Marwencol, may cause travel lust. As the film gets underway, old brick buildings serve as a backdrop for European architecture and vistas, practically begging viewers to hop on Airbnb, HomeAway, or some similar service just to survey the current options.

But like the unflinching Marwencol—a critically adored film that details the work of artist Mark Hogancamp, who suffered brain damage after being jumped in a bar and then created a 1/6th-scale backyard model of a WWII town as a form of self-therapy—Spettacolo wants to take its audience well beyond this surface. By the end of this charming but philosophical film—which debuts theatrically this month and screened at the 2017 Toronto Hot Docs Festival—viewers may find themselves thinking twice about that next dream Airbnb rental.

Tradition via chance

Set in tiny Monticchiello in the Tuscany region of Italy, Spettacolo focuses on the Teatro Povero di Monticchiello (the Poor Theater). For 50 years, this town (population: 136) has staged a communal play that a majority of Monticchiello’s residents typically participate in. Don’t mistake this for your run-of-the-mill community theater production of Grease, though. The annual play in Monticchiello stands as part art, part therapy, part pleading Facebook wall post: rather than perform an existing work, every year residents hold town meetings to formulate a story about their current lives to produce and perform.

“I think it was just by chance,” residents say in the opening narration. “There was no plan... We turned our lives into a play, and our piazza became a stage. And at a certain point we realized the play wasn’t just an annual event; it was a lifelong event. So our life became one lifelong play.”

From the very beginnings of this idea, Monticchiello appears to have subscribed to radical honesty. Early shows in the 1960s dealt with a particularly dark (and somewhat recent) historical event when Nazi forces descended on the town to root out and apprehend local dissidents during WWII. Over the years, productions have highlighted themes like feminism’s early struggles in Europe and the double-edged sword of urbanization for a place like Monticchiello. These plays do not sugarcoat life in rural Italy.

Spettacolo follows the Poor Theater in the run-up to its 50th annual performance. Monticchiello has changed a lot in a half-century. The people in their 70s who founded the play still participate, but now they have to worry about health issues. One founder has only been able to handle background roles recently as he navigates Alzheimer's. Another founder, Andrea, is still the only director this theater company has ever known. “No one born has been able to replace him,” a resident notes.

So beyond the typical drama putting on a show entails, the older guard has started worrying about the future of Teatro Povero. And this year, the drama itself encompasses plenty to worry about, too. European financial institutions have been collapsing while outsiders seem to be waiting to pounce and turn Monticchiello into another destination town. Frankly, the people here want to write a play about how awful life has become.

“We feel powerless amid this never-ending crisis, and sometimes it seems like speculation and cynicism are the only laws left,” Andrea says during a town meeting, summarizing various proposals he’s fielded. “To us, it feels like the end of the world, and so I say, let’s talk about the end of the world. Is it this or not?”

Times are a-changin’

A small documentary about a tiny stage production in rural Italy may not sound Ars-y at first blush, but Spettacolo continually hints at technology being one of the primary forces jeopardizing Monticchiello’s prized cultural event. The film never overtly comes out and says so, but its press release does: “Monticchiello’s annual tradition has attracted worldwide attention and kept the town together for 50 years, but with an aging population and a future generation more interested in Facebook than farming, the town’s 50th-anniversary performance just might be its last.”

On screen, the in-progress Teatro Povero script speaks dismissively of the culture of “virtual capital” being carried out by Europe’s large financial institutions. Younger residents that seem disinterested in carrying on the play are often shown with heads in their screens. Participants may have mixed feelings about technology, but they acknowledge the next generation does have a choice and therefore the power: “The future of the theater—like always—is in the hands of the young, just like life,” a man says.

Even Andrea’s own son foregoes a full-time commitment to the production. Instead, he lends a hand with stage management late in the run-up because he wants to run a successful bed-and-breakfast rather than inherit his father’s commitment. “Imagining Monticchiello without the play would be a tragedy,” he says. “But I believe tourism is the future of Monticchiello.”

Spettacolo makes the play look like a truly remarkable thing, both in terms of its logistics (finding roles for a majority of the townspeople, creating scripts and staging from scratch, etc.) and its artistic value. Throughout the documentary, the filmmakers give us glimpses of shows and plots from the past, and Teatro Povero has come up with plenty of intriguing ideas while genre-hopping from historical drama to meta-fiction to sci-fi allegory. In one particularly memorable edition, everyone in town is presented as working for the supermarket. You can only enter town if you have a shopping cart. But the supermarket only offers one product—something called “Zollet,” delivered in a nondescript, opaque carton. So long as people don’t ask questions, everyone enjoys fulfillment and employment. Ultimately, of course, characters come along to challenge the status quo and insist on opening a Zollet... only to discover everyone has been blindly enjoying and creating pieces of their land packaged for mass consumption. (Later in the doc, one resident laments this fear playing out today: “Every bit of heritage being sold—is it better a farmhouse fall to ruins or be repaired with someone else’s hands?”)

Spettacolo largely has the same goal as the Poor Theatre—to challenge us to coldly examine our own lives. Hopefully, the end of the world isn’t coming, but has the need to simply survive the daily grind caused you to let go of traditions or ideals you valued? If not, has the latest shiny toy forced you to move on from those things instead?

Having grown up in a suburb with its own oddball traditions—Jessup, Pennsylvania, is one of two places on Earth that celebrates St. Ubaldo Day with an all-day affair in which teams of grown adults hoist statues on their shoulders and race down main street—Spettacolo hit home. I haven’t been back for a Saint Ubaldo day in a decade, probably longer. That tradition never felt like my thing. And if I’m being honest with myself, I never really entertained the idea of living near home if opportunities existed elsewhere. Jessup isn’t as small as Monticchiello, and likely the area will always have a critical mass of longtime residents steeped in and passionate about its traditions. But technology has undoubtedly made moving and finding jobs elsewhere easier, and the ramifications of such changes can complicate institutions that depend on local or collective cultural memory, know-how, and passion.

Ultimately, no right answer exists when pondering these things; a “good” decision regarding commitments looks different for every individual and every situation. For Monticchiello and its stars of the stage, their hopes about the future and change prove equally complex. “I believe that a tradition that’s old like this one will inevitably end,” Andrea admits. “And I also believe that it’s good that it ends—that it ends before it loses all meaning.”

For what it’s worth, The New York Times notes that the bulk of Spettacolo was shot during 2012, after the filmmakers themselves happened to stumble upon the area while touristing through Italy. Today, Teatro Povero is at least still active on all social media channels and seems ready to hold its 2017 performances. In fact, if you’re interested, you can find travel info and accommodations through the group directly online.

Spettacolo is currently enjoying a limited theatrical release in New York City while continuing its festival run. Upcoming showings include Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum and Boulder, Colorado’s International Film Series. All currently arranged screenings can be found on the official film website.