As she considered the plot and meaning of the play, she had to make deliberate choices in her translation. For instance, the direct translation of the play's subtitle, “Una storia vera, se volete” is “a true story, if you wish.” However, this is not how she chose to translate it. 

To Guzzetta, the "question of truth" in the play doesn't have anything to do with whether the abuse occurred. Rather, it's a question of "what do we do with the truth?"

“No one knows what to do with it," she said. "There’s this idea that the whole truth can never be known, but not because there's doubt about the facts, but because the whole idea itself is so confounding and upsetting, and there's so many stakes like betrayal, so to face the full truth, there are too many sides to it.”

A look into the play

Musso begins the play by breaking the fourth wall, something she continues throughout the performance. She tells the audience that the people they see on stage are not fictional characters. They are real people, recounting real events, real trauma. 

Beginning in a bar, Musso meets with her friend Roberta, who confesses that she and her husband are separating. Roberta tells her that nothing was going wrong in their relationship, nothing out of the ordinary for them. 

It’s then that Roberta reveals the real reason behind their separation: Her husband has been sexually abusing their daughter, Chiara. 

As Chiara grew older, she became more conscious of the abuse. The older she got, the more she didn’t want to be near her father. He couldn't get away with the abuse anymore. 

When Roberta and her daughter attempted to seek justice, the legal system failed them. The case was sealed due to a lack of evidence, leaving Roberta forbidden to speak about it. It was her desperation to process the truth that urged her to turn to Musso, who she asks to write a play about it.

The play recounts Musso’s internal dialogue as she considers doing the play. At first, Musso resists. The idea of sexual abuse, let alone incest, is extremely taboo, something so terrible that she says it doesn’t seem right to have a play about it. 

However, as Roberta continues to reveal the layers of silence from family, doctors, police and friends, Musso realizes this is a story that must be told.

Throughout the performance, conversations between Musso and Roberta go over Chiara’s childhood — her unexplained bruises and scratches and the constant bursts of anger.

It was Chiara’s anger that Roberta sought doctors and therapists for. They would tell her, "You’re not listening closely enough to her." They knew what her father had done to her, but the taboo surrounding incest and sexual violence was so strong that it was too painful for them to intervene and help.

Roberta felt that Chiara’s anger was her fault — part which was somewhat true. Chiara didn’t know how to fully get through to her mom; she didn’t know how to outright tell her what her father did to her. She was angry that her mother didn’t know. 

Musso draws a direct parallel to Sigmund Freud’s Seduction Theory, which initially argued that many cases of hysteria stem from childhood sexual abuse, particularly parental abuse. However, Freud later retracted this theory, claiming these accounts were fantasies rather than reality. 

Musso theorizes that this reversal was because Freud was shut down for bringing up such taboo content, suggesting that this contributed to the ongoing societal refusal to acknowledge the prevalence of sexual violence, a silence that still persists today. 

“It’s disturbing,” Musso said in an interview with The State News. “We don’t want to know that our fathers, the figure whose purpose is to protect us, is deeply betraying us. So even more than the actual abuse, that betrayal is an even more serious fear.”

Guzzetta added that for everyone, it’s just easier to be silent.

Unlike traditional theater, Musso takes a contemporary approach to storytelling. This play does not rely on an elaborate set, but rather its sharp, deliberate and raw dialogue. 

The entire performance consists of two actresses and a collection of chairs. At the beginning of the play, the chairs are placed outside of a carpet on the floor. 

These empty chairs represent family members, psychologists, doctors and legal officials who were aware of the abuse but remained silent. But Musso said the chairs are also for the audience, as they aren’t just there to watch the story unfold — they are a part of it.  

Little by little, the chairs are called to action inside the carpet, and one after the other, they fall down.  

“The chairs don’t really have a role in the story because they don’t want to have one,” Musso said. “No one takes responsibility to hear Chiara because nobody wants to be close to the pain.”

Bringing 'Dentro' to the U.S.

Guzzetta said she felt it was important for this play to be seen across the U.S., and especially at MSU. 

“We know statistically that sexual violence is incredibly common, but incest, I think is not so common,” Guzzetta said. “But in doing this project, I have learned actually how common it is. So, to me, the project is like a prayer. It's like an offering, a recognition, to say 'we see you and we hear you.'"

Guzzetta has always been familiar and fond of Musso’s work, she said, and for Musso, it wasn’t difficult to convince her to tour her play in the U.S.

“I'm very happy to be here,” Musso said. “I was here when I was an exchange student, when I was very young. I feel very close to the United States as a country, a strange country with strange people. I don’t know why, but I feel a connection with this country. A deep link.”

Guzzetta feels a similar link, but with Musso’s work. 

“Musso’s theater, more broadly, opens up a different way forward to the world that isn't dominated by a logic of reason, a logic of power and relations,” Guzzetta said. “It opens up a different way to be in the world, in community."

This, Guzzetta said, is an option she thinks people need.

"We need other ways to be with each other in a world that isn’t dominated by our phones, dominated by hierarchies and wanting power. It's an important kind of logic for me.”