Let us take, as an example, an evening in July 1995. The theatre is a small central square in a Tuscan village, with a bank of raked seats holding around two hundred spectators. The scenery, for the most part, is just the houses which happen to front the square, including one with a small balcony garden with a mixture of herbs and decorative bushes: together with various alleyways, it will be exploited for entrances and exits. This year (unlike some) there is also a scenic construction in the middle of the square, a mound of cubes decorated with intriguing cryptic signs. There is a quite complex lighting rig erected on gantries (so performances do not start until after dark); and the sound system will turn out to be equally sophisticated, offering at different moments either background music or some sonic interplay with the onstage dialogue.

There is no programme or cast list: as a community enterprise this presents itself as determinedly anonymous, even though many of the regular spectators (and all the journalists) do in fact know most of the main actors by name and reputation. If you are here for the first time, the impression of a seamless collectivity is marked and impressive.