Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site
Main
Page This family-friendly site celebrates Italian culture for the enjoyment of children and
adults. Site-Overview
This is a shot of the interior of the famous 'Il Teatro San Carlo' in Naples. Click on the image to go to their
website. This is an interior shot of 'Il Teatro Reale
dell'Opera' in Rome. Click on the image to visit the website for
the opera theatres of Rome, of which this theatre is one. This is the impressive atrium of the historic 'Il Teatro della Pergola', built in 1556, in Florence. Click on the
image to visit their site. Click on the image above to view a slide show of
the history of 'Il Teatro Manzoni' that mirrors the history of Italian
theatre. This Milan theatre is the home of Italian Variety, but
also of modern Italian drama. Check out their homage to top stage actors, too. The Pirandello Web site is the most complete site
about Luigi Pirandello. It is in Italian. It has a detailed
biography, many commentaries on the historical significance of his
works, an explanation of the recurring themes in his works, and all his
plays, books, short stories and other writing online. Click on the
image of Pirandello above to go to the site. Another site with
Pirandello works, both plays and prose, is the
Biblioteca dei
classici italiani.
Click on this image of Luigi Pirandello to read a
short biography in English. The site offers biographies of many
playwrights, discussing not just each writer's life, but his most
influential works as well. The Roman theatre stage area in the above image is
an example of the roots of Italian theatre. It is a direct
descendant of Greek theatre, which shaped Roman theatrical traditions,
which evolved into the later Italian theatrical traditions. Click on the image to go to the
Theatre History
site's summary of Pirandello's most famous play, 'Six Characters in
Search of an Author'. To read more about Italian theatre, click on
the link at the bottom of the Theatre History's page. Click on the 'Three Plays' title above to go to
three plays by Luigi Pirandello that you can read online. The
plays are: 'Six Characters in Search of an Author', 'Henry IV',
'Right You Are! (If You So Think)'. If you wish to read them in the original Italian, Project Gutenberg
lets you read then for free on-line, or download a copy, offering
various format suitable for e-readers. Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore
on-line, or in
various formats Enrico IV
on-line, or in
various formats 'A vilanza by Nino Martoglio and Luigi Pirandello (in
Siciliano)
on-line, or in
various formats
Click on this image of Carlo Goldoni to read a
short
biography in English. And click here
to read about Italian Theatre before and during the time of
Goldoni.
Click on the image above to go to an
online text in
Italian of Goldoni's play 'La locandiera'. Click on the image of Goldoni above to link to a
site in Italian that offers
free e-texts to download of many of
Goldoni's over 150 works. I've found this
excerpt online from 'The War' translated for the Royal Shakespeare
Company in Britain. It is not a typical Goldoni comedy of manners, but instead a commentary on the often less than honorable behavior
of soldiers in the field. Topical...
There is a new translation into modern American English of 'A
Servant of Two Masters' ('Arlecchino, servitore di due padroni') that has been enjoying successful runs
throughout the States, bringing an accessible and very entertaining
Goldoni play to modern audiences. The translation is by David Zarko, an
esteemed playwright and theatrical director. Visit his website
for more
information, an excerpt and contact information. Tommaso Salvini is Italy's most illustrious
stage actor in the 19th century. Click on his image to read a
brief biography, and excerpts from his entertaining autobiography.
Adelaide
Ristori is one of Italy's most illustrious stage actresses in the
19th century. Click on her image to read a brief biography, and
excerpts from her interesting autobiography.
For
theatre fans, the 'Playbill' site is a must. You'll find news and production
information about the New York and London theatre scenes, and a few other
smaller theatre districts. Click on the logo.
Click
on this logo to go to the British Theatre Web's dull but informative
site about the London theatre scene.
When discussing Theatre, it's a
good idea to cast one's mind back to the days before film, radio and
television. Theatre was the primary mass entertainment medium
before those modern inventions. The stars of the day were the playwrights, the leading men and
their leading ladies, the comics, and the theatre company directors. The company directors put the theatrical group together,
picked the material, rehearsed them, and then took them on tour locally,
nationally and even internationally if they had a sponsor willing to pay
their way in exchange for a percentage of the takings at the theatre box
office.
Most theatrical companies boasted a star to draw the audiences.
The stars sold playing card sized images of themselves to their fans,
either pin-up shots or in the costumes of their most famous
characters. Sometimes, if the star was big enough, and smart
enough, the star was also the company director. The material a theatre company performed had to include old
standards that an audience could count on to be entertaining. That
meant Shakespeare or an adaptation from classic literature. Just
like for today's pricier film entertainment, the material had to be
bankable. But there were new playwrights as well. Some
formed their own theatre groups and directed their own plays.
Others joined up with established actors and theatre companies who made
names for themselves by acting on the cutting edge of their
art. The age of theatre is not over. It still survives in the same
forms as before, however it is no longer the only game in town.
While theatres today still rely on old standards, new plays are put on
regularly and are sometimes the proving ground for future films. A good story with
compelling characters and strong dialogue is, as always, worth telling
in whatever form it will reach an audience. Having said all that...are you still with me? Italian
theatre has a long and illustrious history, and is still going strong.
Click here for some
articles on Italian theatre's past. And click here
to read about the ancient past: ancient Rome's theatrical
heritage. Following are some of the illustrious theatre people from the past,
and information on Italian theatre today, in case you want to enjoy some
performances while in Italy. Luigi Pirandello (b.1867 - d.1936) won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1934. During his long and prolific career he
wrote novels, short stories, plays, poetry and essays. Pirandello's writings dealt directly with life's most complex issues,
such as identify, belief, sanity, and the integrity of self. His
works dealt with what it is to be a human being, and what it is
that robs us of our humanity. These are themes that resonate
today, which explains why his works are still read and his plays are still
performed. His most famous and influential play is Six Characters in
Search of an Author. The characters in the play question
why they were created and what their role is to be. They arrive at
a point where they want to leave the author who created them behind, and
go in search of better roles for themselves, roles of their their own
choosing and then of their own making. The play's parallels to life are well drawn. We, too,
are created, by our parents, and we are shaped by our society and family
who knowingly or not push us to play certain roles in life. All
children who grow into adulthood come to a point when they want to go off
on their own, make their own decisions, and form their own opinions,
especially about who they are and the role they will play in
life. The play also puts forth the idea that we can never really know our
own character, but instead, we know only the fiction we have created
for ourselves, and there is the fiction we create for others. These
fictions are not necessarily the same because who we believe ourselves
to be, is not always what others believe us to be. The theme is picked up again and again in later works by
playwrights and filmmakers such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, David
Mamet, and Woody Allen, and Quentin Tarentino. The list of Woody Allen plays and films,
alone, that feature
characters stepping out of a fiction into his fiction, is a long
one. Links to Pirandello's plays and a biography can be found with
the images in the left column of this page. Carlo Goldoni (b.1707 - d.1792) was a comic dramatist, who
wrote plays we today call 'comedies of manners'. They
pointed out the ridiculousness of a rigid social etiquette that conflicted
sharply with human nature. The plays feature complex and humorous
situations that can arise when trying to conform to strict social rules while
giving in to our unruly natures. This is a common theme of comedies to this day. The conflict
between our base natures and the veneer needed to function in society is
fertile ground for artists. The recent film American Beauty
is a dark comedy on this very theme, for example. Goldoni's plays have been compared to Moliere's farces, not only
because they were written originally in French around the same
period. Both writers are from the age of self-mockery, as
opposed to the previous age of education and propaganda, and Pirandello's
later age of self-examination and realization. Goldoni is proudly called the
Italian Moliere. Before Goldoni, Italian comic theatre was performed with masks
(commedia dell'arte) representing caricatures or stock
characters, and saddled with laborious plots and improvised scenes. After Goldoni,
Italians enjoyed comedies with realistic, if exaggerated, characters in
normal dress, speaking normal language, from a script. His revolution had to be performed from France, where he fled
to avoid hostility and ridicule from the entrenched theatrical
stars and owners. But his revolution was successful, and long-lasting; his
plays are still performed and enjoyed throughout Italy. You can
even visit his birthplace in Venice which has been made into a museum
celebrating his works (Casa di Carlo Goldoni). I've a page dedicated to Commedia dell'Arte,
if you'd like to know more about it, and the stock characters.
Lots of fun stuff there. The characters are still represented
today at Carnival time. To read more about that, visit my
Venice Carnevale page. Links to Goldoni's plays and a biography can be found with the
images in the left column of this page. Tommaso Salvini was Italy's most illustrious stage actor from the
19th century. He toured the world, and even played in the U.S.
twice, both times in Italian. His first tour of the U.S. was with an all Italian troupe, and it was
a smash hit even if the audiences could not understand the
dialogue. He performed classic plays that the audience knew
well,
so they enjoyed his performance as if it were an Italian opera: unintelligible
to all but a few, but beautiful all the same to many. His second tour of the U.S. was with American actors performing in
English to his performance in Italian. This, too, was a smashing
success. You can read about it in his humble autobiography, parts of
which were reproduced in a collection of
the better acting autobiographies from the 19th century. I've
created a PDF e-book from the public domain text of this book, and
reproduced the section about Mr. Salvini on a page of this
website. He is an entertaining writer, and gives a clear picture of the life
of a traveling actor of the time, including the rivalries with, and pride
in, contemporaries. Adelaide Ristori was one of Italy's most illustrious stage actresses
from the 19th century. She performed around the world, and even in
English on the London stage. Parts of her somewhat less humble autobiography were reproduced in
the same collection as mentioned above. Click here
or on her image, to the
right, to go to the page on this website with her writings. You'll find active theatres in all large Italian cities, and in most
medium-sized cities, too. And everywhere in Italy you'll come
across quality productions staged in nightclubs, restaurants, outdoor
arenas, schools and town halls; wherever there is enough space. Click
here to read about theatre in Venice in the 1860s, on a page I've made with excerpts
from a book by William Dean Howells, the U. S. Consul in Venice from
1861-1865. My list of books about
Italian Theatre, available at Amazon.com
If you'd like to look for a more specific book, you can use this
Search tool, to find books, see what people think of them, and what they
cost.
Just enter 'Books' in the 'Search' field, then an actor/writer's name
(for example, or a play, or theatre...) in the 'Keywords' field.
Then click on the 'Go' button to see the resulting list.
Italian
Theatre, Playwrights
Teatro Piccolo a Milano host
a Carlo Goldoni Festival.
In The Days Before
Television...
Luigi Pirandello, Playwright
Carlo Goldoni, Playwright
Tommaso Salvini, Actor
Adelaide Ristori, Actress
Italian Theatre Today
Theatre in Venice in the 1860s
Books About Italian Theatre
