The course offers a survey of the Italian theatre tradition, alternating between the long-established and traditionally 'popular' forms (commedia dell'arte, the Sicilian puppet theatre or opera dei pupi, political satire, narrative theatre and so on) and an analysis of contemporary comic language. The survey will be conducted also on the basis of performances being given in the most important theatres of Rome. At the end of the course, the student will be able to ‘read the theatre’: that is, to look at, analyse and criticise a theatrical performance within its historical-cultural context and its staging.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students are able to:
- Identify themes and protagonist of Italian theater
- Analyse a theatrical play and performance
- Understand the strategies of Italian Comic theatre
Method of presentation:
Lectures, movies, projection of iconography and sound/visual material, field study.
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION: Italian
Required work and form of assessment:
Attendance and participation (20%), term paper (30%), midterm exam (20%), final oral exam (30%).
PLEASE NOTE:
Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the Terms and Conditions of Use posted on the turnitin.com site.
content:
WEEK 1: The "Teatro all’italiana" and its instruments
• Introduction to the study and analysis of theatre and performance
• The signs of the theater: space, light, actor, word, scenography, costumes...
(Various materials from videos – Camilleri, extracts; Schino, extracts)
WEEK 2: Why do we laugh? What do we laugh at? The aesthetics of laugh in Italian culture
• History of the comic in Italian culture
• Il Carnevale romano
• The language of the comedian: plots, masks, characters, objects, music, dialects, grammelot…
(Pirandello, exctracts; Bachtin, extracts, Tittoni, Il Carnevale Romano; Field Study: Carnevale Romano, rinascita di una tradizione, Piazza del Popolo)
WEEK 3: The Rome theatres
• Rome and its theatres: the question of space
• Il Teatro all’Italiana
(Camilleri, extracts; Field Study: Teatro Argentina; Performance: Un tram che si chiama desiderio, Williams/Latella, Teatro Argentina)
WEEK 4: Understanding theatre
• Written text analysis (genre, rhetoric and vocabulary, social and psychological circumstances, historical circumstances….)
• Performance analysis (direction, actors, lights, proxemics ….)
(Pirandello, Questa sera si recita a soggetto, Camilleri, extracts: Performance: Questa sera si recita a soggetto di Ceriani/Pirandello, Teatro Quirino)
WEEK 5 The tradition of Commedia dell’Arte
• stock characters, scenarios, improvisation, , lazzi, grammelots, actress, troupes
(E. Scola – Il viaggio del Capitan Fracassa, movie; Schino, extracts)
WEEK 6 MID TERM EXAM
WEEK 7: The European success of Commedia dell’Arte
• Carlo Goldoni and the reform of comic theatre
• Harlequin in contemporary literature, drama and film
(Camilleri, extracts; G. Strelher/Goldoni -Il servitore di due padroni, video)
WEEK 8: Theatre and Literature: boundaries and contaminations
• Dario Fo and the Nobel Prize
(Fo -Nobel Lecture; extracts Mistero Buffo)
WEEK 9: The art of body’s motion
• actors, puppets, marionettes and the Sicilian pupi
• actors and characters: the question of identity
(Camilleri extracts; Scaparro -video-, Pasolini,video, Pirandello, Così è se vi Pare; Performance: Così è se vi pare, Placido/Pirandello, Teatro Eliseo)
WEEK 10: Actor’s dramaturgy
• Totò: the face and the mask
• Roberto Benigni: body language and grammelot
(Totò, L’Imperatore di Capri, movie; extracts from Jim Jarmusch, Down by law, movie)
WEEK 11: Writing for the theatre
• The creation of an Italian Style Mask
WEEK 12: FINAL ORAL EXAM
The course includes visits to the theatre. Attendance at performances is mandatory and is considered an integral part of the course. The schedule of the performances will be given at the beginning of the course.
Required readings:
1) Andrea Camilleri, Le parole raccontate. Piccolo dizionario di termini teatrali, Rizzoli, Milano, 2001.
A further reading list (plays, a selection of reviews of performances, articles etc.) will be given at the beginning of the course.
The program includes a research project for each single student, to be carried out in the Ies Center Library.
Movies and Videos used during the course:
- Bene, Carmelo, Pinocchio, Sassella editore (Audio).
- Comencini, Luigi L’imperatore di Capri, (with Totò) Cristaldi Film.
- Fo, Dario Mistero Buffo, Einaudi stile libero/Video.
- Pasolini Pier Paolo, Che cosa sono le nuvole, (with Totò) Filmauro Video.
- Poli, Giovanni Aspects of the Commedia dell’Arte (documentary).
- Scola, Ettore Il viaggio di Capitan Fracassa, Cecchi Gori Home Video.
- Strehler, Giorgio Arlecchino servitore di due padroni, Einaudi Stile libero/Video.
- Scaparro, Maurizio Don Chisciotte, Istituto Luce/Video.
Recommended readings:
- Fano, Nicola Le maschere italiane, Milano, Il Mulino, 2001
- Buscarino, Maurizio Dei pupi, Milano: Electa, 2003.
- Bachtin, Michail, Introduzione a L’opera di Rabelais e la cultura popolare, Torino, Einaudi, 2001, pp. 3-68..
- Fo, Dario Contra Jogulatores Obloquentes (Nobel Lecture 1997) (published in www.nobelprize.org)
- Fo, Dario Manuale Minimo dell’attore Torino: Einaudi, 1996.
- Matarazzo, Silvana Teatri a Roma tra storia e contemporaneità, Roma: Intra Moena, 2004.
- Molinari, Cesare L’attore e la recitazione, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1993.
- Schino, Mirella Profilo del teatro italiano dal XV al XX secolo, Roma: Carocci, 2002.
- Lecoq, Jacques, Il corpo poetico, Milano: Ubulibri, 2000.
- Pirandello, Luigi, L’umorismo, Milano: Mondadori, 2000.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Marta Marchetti, currently teaches Discipline dello spettacolo at the Italianistica e Spettacolo Department of the University of Rome – La Sapienza. She received a Laurea in History of the Theatre at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1997 and a Ph.D in Comparative Literature at the University of Siena in 2004. Her research interests include Western European theatre history (especially 19 th, 20th centuries), theatre semiotics, novels and drama, and theatre in video.
6/11
The course offers a survey of the Italian theatre tradition, alternating between the long-established and traditionally 'popular' forms (commedia dell'arte, the Sicilian puppet theatre or opera dei pupi, political satire, narrative theatre and so on) and an analysis of contemporary comic language. The survey will be conducted also on the basis of performances being given in the most important theatres of Rome. At the end of the course, the student will be able to ‘read the theatre’: that is, to look at, analyse and criticise a theatrical performance within its historical-cultural context and its staging.
By the end of the course, students are able to:
- Identify themes and protagonist of Italian theater
- Analyse a theatrical play and performance
- Understand the strategies of Italian Comic theatre
Lectures, movies, projection of iconography and sound/visual material, field study.
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION: Italian
Attendance and participation (20%), term paper (30%), midterm exam (20%), final oral exam (30%).
PLEASE NOTE:
Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the Terms and Conditions of Use posted on the turnitin.com site.
WEEK 1: The "Teatro all’italiana" and its instruments
• Introduction to the study and analysis of theatre and performance
• The signs of the theater: space, light, actor, word, scenography, costumes...
(Various materials from videos – Camilleri, extracts; Schino, extracts)
WEEK 2: Why do we laugh? What do we laugh at? The aesthetics of laugh in Italian culture
• History of the comic in Italian culture
• Il Carnevale romano
• The language of the comedian: plots, masks, characters, objects, music, dialects, grammelot…
(Pirandello, exctracts; Bachtin, extracts, Tittoni, Il Carnevale Romano; Field Study: Carnevale Romano, rinascita di una tradizione, Piazza del Popolo)
WEEK 3: The Rome theatres
• Rome and its theatres: the question of space
• Il Teatro all’Italiana
(Camilleri, extracts; Field Study: Teatro Argentina; Performance: Un tram che si chiama desiderio, Williams/Latella, Teatro Argentina)
WEEK 4: Understanding theatre
• Written text analysis (genre, rhetoric and vocabulary, social and psychological circumstances, historical circumstances….)
• Performance analysis (direction, actors, lights, proxemics ….)
(Pirandello, Questa sera si recita a soggetto, Camilleri, extracts: Performance: Questa sera si recita a soggetto di Ceriani/Pirandello, Teatro Quirino)
WEEK 5 The tradition of Commedia dell’Arte
• stock characters, scenarios, improvisation, , lazzi, grammelots, actress, troupes
(E. Scola – Il viaggio del Capitan Fracassa, movie; Schino, extracts)
WEEK 6 MID TERM EXAM
WEEK 7: The European success of Commedia dell’Arte
• Carlo Goldoni and the reform of comic theatre
• Harlequin in contemporary literature, drama and film
(Camilleri, extracts; G. Strelher/Goldoni -Il servitore di due padroni, video)
WEEK 8: Theatre and Literature: boundaries and contaminations
• Dario Fo and the Nobel Prize
(Fo -Nobel Lecture; extracts Mistero Buffo)
WEEK 9: The art of body’s motion
• actors, puppets, marionettes and the Sicilian pupi
• actors and characters: the question of identity
(Camilleri extracts; Scaparro -video-, Pasolini,video, Pirandello, Così è se vi Pare; Performance: Così è se vi pare, Placido/Pirandello, Teatro Eliseo)
WEEK 10: Actor’s dramaturgy
• Totò: the face and the mask
• Roberto Benigni: body language and grammelot
(Totò, L’Imperatore di Capri, movie; extracts from Jim Jarmusch, Down by law, movie)
WEEK 11: Writing for the theatre
• The creation of an Italian Style Mask
WEEK 12: FINAL ORAL EXAM
The course includes visits to the theatre. Attendance at performances is mandatory and is considered an integral part of the course. The schedule of the performances will be given at the beginning of the course.
1) Andrea Camilleri, Le parole raccontate. Piccolo dizionario di termini teatrali, Rizzoli, Milano, 2001.
A further reading list (plays, a selection of reviews of performances, articles etc.) will be given at the beginning of the course.
The program includes a research project for each single student, to be carried out in the Ies Center Library.
Movies and Videos used during the course:
- Bene, Carmelo, Pinocchio, Sassella editore (Audio).
- Comencini, Luigi L’imperatore di Capri, (with Totò) Cristaldi Film.
- Fo, Dario Mistero Buffo, Einaudi stile libero/Video.
- Pasolini Pier Paolo, Che cosa sono le nuvole, (with Totò) Filmauro Video.
- Poli, Giovanni Aspects of the Commedia dell’Arte (documentary).
- Scola, Ettore Il viaggio di Capitan Fracassa, Cecchi Gori Home Video.
- Strehler, Giorgio Arlecchino servitore di due padroni, Einaudi Stile libero/Video.
- Scaparro, Maurizio Don Chisciotte, Istituto Luce/Video.
- Fano, Nicola Le maschere italiane, Milano, Il Mulino, 2001
- Buscarino, Maurizio Dei pupi, Milano: Electa, 2003.
- Bachtin, Michail, Introduzione a L’opera di Rabelais e la cultura popolare, Torino, Einaudi, 2001, pp. 3-68..
- Fo, Dario Contra Jogulatores Obloquentes (Nobel Lecture 1997) (published in www.nobelprize.org)
- Fo, Dario Manuale Minimo dell’attore Torino: Einaudi, 1996.
- Matarazzo, Silvana Teatri a Roma tra storia e contemporaneità, Roma: Intra Moena, 2004.
- Molinari, Cesare L’attore e la recitazione, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1993.
- Schino, Mirella Profilo del teatro italiano dal XV al XX secolo, Roma: Carocci, 2002.
- Lecoq, Jacques, Il corpo poetico, Milano: Ubulibri, 2000.
- Pirandello, Luigi, L’umorismo, Milano: Mondadori, 2000.
Marta Marchetti, currently teaches Discipline dello spettacolo at the Italianistica e Spettacolo Department of the University of Rome – La Sapienza. She received a Laurea in History of the Theatre at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1997 and a Ph.D in Comparative Literature at the University of Siena in 2004. Her research interests include Western European theatre history (especially 19 th, 20th centuries), theatre semiotics, novels and drama, and theatre in video.
6/11