Il tanatogramma della polis

Midwest Modern Language Association, Chicago, Illinois, 5 November 2010.

Session A 1. Teatralizzazione di un romanzo: i costumi di scena degli Indifferenti di Moravia Chiara De Santi, SUNY Fredonia 2. Pasolini e lo strappo nella coscienza dello spettatore Fulvio Orsitto, California State Univerisity-Chico 3. Lina Wertmüller regista-burattinaia Federico Pacchioni, University of Connecticut-Storrs Session B 4. Manzoni’s Count of Carmagnola and Kleist’s Prince of Homburg: History between Fiction and Factuality Maria Giulia Carone, University of Wisconsin-Madison 5. Teatro e teatralità nella poesia del primo Palazzeschi Daniele Fioretti, University of Wisconsin Madison 6. Mario Luzi’s Plays: A Plurality of Voices Ernesto Livorni, University of Wisconsin-Madison Session C 7. Distinctive Nature of Masques of Commedia dell’Arte in their Relationship with Food in 18th Century Paola Monte, Royal Holloway, University of London 8. Arlecchino is Lying: Deconstructing Goldoni’s II bugiardo Stefano Boselli, Gettysburg College 9. The Spectator in Dario Fo’s Performances: From the Foyer to the Post-Performance Debates Marco Valleriani, Royal Holloway, University of London

Theatre Journal, 1980

When this book was first published, its burden-that Greek tragedies make more sense when they are treated as plays for performance-was fairly novel, or at least it was preached more than it was practised. In the few years since then, it has become an orthodoxy, and stagecraft is now given due attention in nearly all new books. While happy about that, I am not happy that my name is cited as a 'ringleader' of those who maintain that we should concentrate on performance rather than words. I do not endorse that: the power of the Greek theatre rests on its extraordinary combination of word and embodiment. To neglect one is to impoverish the other. I trust that this book does not encourage anyone to set the performative dimension in competition with the verbal. I hope it does not seem fickle to say that there are things here which I would not write in the same way today. The revised bibliography gives some idea of how fast the water is flowing under the bridges of scholarship. I would also acknowledge more openly in chapter 1 the selectivity of any account of the 'author's meaning'. And in the last chapter I would stress more that it is the place of books like this to suggest and to prompt rather than to dictate to the professional theatre. The use made of my work by the National Theatre Oresteia in London in 1981-2 shows that such a relationship can work. This book is, in fact, about ancient Greek culture and about the theatre, and it is meant for the 'general reader' who is interested in either or both. I hope professional Hellenists will read it, but it was not written primarily for them. While I have had students in mind above all, students of drama or English literature or Classical civilization, any student who encounters Greek tragedy, anyone who is fascinated by the Greeks, who loves the theatre, anyone who is prepared to be enriched by the great literature of the past may find these pages worth while. But there is a condition. The core of the book (chapters 3-9) demands and assumes that the reader already knows all, or at least some, of the nine tragedies it concentrates on (they are listed on p. 22). Furthermore, it is probably best read with a translation (or text) open to hand, preferably a translation which has the line numbers in the margin (there are recommendations on pp. 197-8). This book is in no way a substitute for reading the plays themselves-and, if possible, seeing them. Indeed, I should like to think that the book has encouraged and will encourage theatres to stage these great dramas, and might help to find them audiences. I quote from the tragedies liberally. All quotations are translated and all the translations are my own. I am only too aware how stilted and imperfect they are; but I thought it essential to translate high poetry into something which suggests its lofty and arresting style. The language of Greek tragedy was not that of everyday speech, and I had rather turn it into bad verse than into pedestrian prose. In the earlier Preface I stressed how much this book owed to the inspiration and to the help of Colin Macleod. Since his death in December 1981, at the age of 38, everything that preserves his insight, however diluted, has become that much more concentrated. If this study succeeds at all in getting beneath the surface, that is owed to him. Magdalen College, Oxford March 1985 Oliver Taplin viii 1 The visual dimension of tragedy Behind the dialogue of Greek drama we are always conscious of a concrete visual actuality, and behind that of a specific emotional actuality. Behind the drama of words is the drama of action, the timbre of voice and voice, the uplifted hand or tense muscle, and the particular emotion. The spoken play, the words which we read, are symbols, a shorthand, and often, as in the best of Shakespeare, a very abbreviated shorthand indeed, for the actual and felt play, which is always the real thing. The phrase, beautiful as it may be, stands for a greater beauty still. This is merely a particular case of the amazing unity of Greek, the unity of concrete and abstract in philosophy, the unity of thought and feeling, action and speculation in life.

The subject of Michael Pisani's monograph is the 'great invisible mechanical apparatus of melodramatic music' in spoken theatre. 1 This is not music that formed part of the action (marches, dances), nor (sometimes the same thing) songs or choruses, nor indeed overtures or entr'actes, but rather the orchestral music unheard by the onstage characters, and often, Pisani argues, unnoticed by the audience: the music (or melos) that accompanied stage action or dialogue as a 'running emotive commentary' (p. 75), and has been seen as the precursor to what film scholars call the 'non-diegetic' realm.

2021

The article focuses on the solo performance "El Romancero de Edipo", created by Eugenio Barba together with the Spanish actor Toni Cots, and staged in several countries between 1984 to 1990. The performance was the very first monologue directed by Barba in his long-standing career. For Barba, it was also the first direct approach to the tragic myth, following an interest already cultivated around the figure of Antigone from the early Eighties onwards, in a moment of crisis and need for renewal for the groups of the “Third Theatre” movement, defined by Barba in 1976. For Cots, the monologue was the last and culminating part of his almost ten-year experience as an actor at the Odin Teatret, where he had also developed a personal actor’s training technique (in part based on Balinese traditional dances) and had accompanied Barba through the first research activities in the new field of Theatre Anthropology. With "El Romancero of Edipo", Barba explored the tragic myth and elaborated an original theatrical narration based on the creative process of the actor, within which lay the rhythm of the montage. The text was therefore sustained by a rigorous score by the actor and by a detailed line of physical and vocal actions, making use of simple but very effective scenic props such as a vase, a self-built mask, drapery, a wig, and a stick. In addition, the use of songs and melodies, as well as other literary sources, extended the performative language of the artwork, giving life to an innovative re-elaboration rich in transcultural influences. By analysing all these elements, the article ‘deconstructs’ the performance, retracing its sources and its development between the actor and the director.

Italian Culture, 2019

Translation Review, 2012

Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2016

The theatre genre of the sceneggiata originated in Naples, Southern Italy, at the beginning of the twentieth century in proletarian neighbourhoods located in the city centre. The key aspects of the sceneggiata were its hybrid format made of popular music and spoken drama, its highly melodramatic tone, and the overlap of the staged plots with the daily experiences of its intended low-income audience. This essay analyses the aesthetic and socio-anthropological implications of the sceneggiata for popular culture in Italy from the 1920s to the late 1970s, both in live theatre and cinema. In this article the author reveals that the multiple layers of meaning the genre conveyed show that, beyond its seemingly entertaining nature, the sceneggiata narrated in depth the social, cultural and gender dynamics of Naples. Raffaele Furno is a theatre director and Professor of Performance Theory and Theatre History in the College of Global Studies, Arcadia University, Rome.