| CODE | ITL2003 | ||||||
| TITLE | Il teatro italiano | ||||||
| UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||
| MQF LEVEL | Not Applicable | ||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Italian | ||||||
| DESCRIPTION | A. Study-Unit Description: Italian theatre stems from very ancient roots, originating as far back as in ancient Latin and Greek times. From time immemorial travelling players moved from one town to the next and still today Italian theatre is based on the idea of tours with no fixed theatre company in any one town. Italy’s last great writer of drama was Goldoni, with the progression from the masks of the “Commedia dell’Arte” to the personified character. Later in the second half of the XIXth century, bourgeois drama became more and more prominent. Themes were mainly the family, adultery (the husband-wife-lover triangle was a recurring theme), social relations and failure of communications. But it was Pirandello (1867-1936) who marked a very great breakthrough for Italian theatre by introducing to the absurd roles imposed by bourgeois society. This writer removed the mask behind which every one of us defends his own convictions to conceal his real self, and unveiled the naked truth, a concept reflected in the general title of his entire theatrical production, Maschere Nude. Pirandello also introduced a technical innovation, the “theatre within the theatre”, which revolutionised traditional forms of drama. After 1861 most citizens of Unified Italy still spoke in dialect and very few people were versed in proper Italian; this led to the rise of dialect theatre across the country. But dialect theatre flourished above all in Naples thanks to the De Filippo brothers. In scripts written by Eduardo (1900-1984), poor and lower middle class characters act out everyday situations filled with melancholy. This theatre’s success is bound up with the expertise of this writer-actor in giving voice to the lower middle class aspirations of his audiences who were emancipated, amid contradictions, by way of characters often on the edge of society, who embarked on improbable feats of social climbing. Eduardo’s theatre echoes the real-life experiences of his audiences sitting in the stalls, to whom he conveys unreserved solidarity. Another significant name in the history of Italian theatre is Giorgio Strehler who with Luchino Visconti was founder of modern stage direction in Italy. In the Fifties other interesting theatre directors made their mark such as Luigi Squarzina, Mario Missiroli, Giancarlo Cobelli and Aldo Trionfo; from the Seventies and Eighties important names include Luca Ronconi and Massimo Castri. Today the Neapolitan tradition is still very much alive thanks to Eduardo’s son, Luca De Filippo, while Dario Fo, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, is still a key figure in Italian theatre. B. Study-Unit Topics: • The Quattrocento: the age of multiform theatres; • Court fests; • Commedia dell’arte; • Mimes; • Theatres of the Settecento; • The theatre of Opera; • The great playwrights; • D’Annunzio; • Pirandello; • The futurists and fascist theatre; • The post-war; • Strehler, Ronconi, Fo and Carmelo Bene; • New theatre and the avant-garde; • The area of the stage; • The language of theatre. Study-unit Aims The study-unit aims to acquaint students with: • A) the main Italian playwrights and theatrical trends and movements with readings, viewing of videos and stylistic analyses of important pieces and theatrical language; • B) a specific movement/s and/or author/s; • C) a particular theatrical work/s. Learning Outcomes 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: a) appreciate Italian theatre in all its forms: text, stage directions, trends, directors; b) distinguish different theatre genres: mime, melodrama, comedy, tragedy, satire. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: a) appreciate theatrical performances both as reader and as spectator. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings (availability at the Library or otherwise is indicated against each entry) Reading List Angelini Franca (1998), Teatro e spettacolo nel primo Novecento, Roma-Bari, Laterza. * Barsotti Anna (1988), Eduardo drammaturgo (fra mondo del teatro e teatro del mondo), Roma, Bulzoni. * Farrell Joseph & Scuderi Antonio (2000), Dario Fo: Stage, Text and Tradition, USA, Southern Illinois University. * Farrell Joseph & Puppa Paolo (2011), A History of Italian Theatre, UK, Cambridge University Press. * Macchia Giovanni (1994), Pirandello o la stanza della tortura, Milano, Mondadaori. * Meldolesi Claudio (1984), Fondamenti del teatro italiano. La generazione dei registi, Firenze, Sansoni. * Puppa Paola (1990), Teatro e spettacolo nel secondo Novecento, Roma-Bari, Laterza. * Taviani Ferdinando (1995), Uomini di scena, uomini di libro. Introduzione alla letteratura teatrale italiana del Novecento, Bologna, Il Mulino. * Tessari ROBERTO (1996), Teatro italiano del Novecento. Fenomenologie e strutture 1906-1976, Firenze, Le Lettere. * * AVAILABLE WEBSITES: - I testi di Gabriele D'Annunzio sono disponibili al seguente indirizzo: http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/d/d_annunzio/ - Su Luigi Pirandello: http://www.italica.rai.it/argomenti/grandi_narratori_900/speciale_pirandello.htm - I testi delle opere di Luigi Pirandello sono disponibili al seguente indirizzo: http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/p/pirandello/index.htm - Su Visconti e il neorealismo: http://www.italica.rai.it/cinema/neorealismo/visconti.htm - Il sito del Centro Studi – Archivio Pier Paolo Pasolini: http://www.pasolini.net/index-CentroPasoliniBologna.html - Il sito ufficiale di Dario Fo con un link all’archivio di documenti on line: http://www.dariofo.it/ - Il sito ufficiale della Fondazione Carmelo Bene: http://www.fondazionecarmelobene.it/ - Il sito ufficiale dedicato dal Piccolo Teatro di Milano a Giorgio Strehler: http://www.strehler.org/page/index.php?sez=0 - Il sito dedicato al teatro napoletano dall’Università di Salerno: http://www.teatro.unisa.it/ - Una scheda biografica e alcuni approfondimenti su Eduardo De Filippo: http://www.archivio.raiuno.rai.it/schede/9025/902508.htm |
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| ADDITIONAL NOTES | Pre-requisite Qualifications: At least an intermediate level in Italian or permission from lecturer holding the study-unit. | ||||||
| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Joseph Eynaud |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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