The Tradition of the Actor-author in Italian Theatre

Donatella Fischer

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351191654
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Languages

"The central importance of the actor-author is a distinctive feature of Italian theatrical life, in all its eclectic range of regional cultures and artistic traditions. The fascination of the figure is that he or she stands on both sides of one of theatre's most important power relationships: between the exhilarating freedom of performance and the austere restriction of authorship and the written text. This broad-ranging volume brings together critical essays on the role of the actor-author, spanning the period from the Renaissance to the present. Starting with Castiglione, Ruzante and the commedia dell'arte, and surveying the works of Dario Fo, De Filippo and Bene, among others, the contributors cast light on a tradition which continues into Neapolitan and Sicilian theatre today, and in Italy's currently fashionable 'narrative theatre', where the actor-author is centre stage in a solo performance."

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Actor-Author in Castiglione’s ‘Il Cortegiano’: ‘lo esser travestito porta secouna certa libertà e licenzia’
• 2 ‘Perché molte cose stanno ben nella penna che nella scena starebben male’: Reading Between the Lines of the Surviving Ruzante Texts
• 3 Isabella Andreini’s Stage Repertoire: The ‘Lettere’ and ‘Fragmenti’
• 4 ‘Commedie fortunate…’: ‘Le due comedie in comedia’ di Giovan Battista Andreini
• 5 The Actor and the Author: Renaissance Theatre in England and Italy
• 6 Goldoni, Gozzi, e il lavoro conl’attore
• 7 Napoli tra Ottocento e Novecento: dalla drammaturgia dell’attore alla drammaturgia dell’autore e ritorno
• 8 Il dilemma del teatro: ‘La parte di Amleto’ di Eduardo De Filippo
• 9 Characters in an English Adaptation of Napoli milionaria!
• 10 La scrittura ‘sul pubblico’: The Fo-Rame Method
• 11 Franca Rame’s Dowry: How the Rame Family Tradition Lives on in the Theatre of Dario Fo and Franca Rame
• 12 Il ‘funerale dell’orale’. Carmelo Bene: la scena e la scena dellapagina
• 13 The Actor-Narrator
• 14 Marco Baliani’s Theatrical Storytelling of Wonderment
• 15 Sguardi su una Napoli contemporanea attraverso il teatro di Annibale Ruccello
• 16 Il buio in fondo alsacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone
• General Bibliography
• Index