Italian Drama Since the 1600s

Overview

The foundations of contemporary Western theater are undoubtedly to be sought in the theater of Renaissance Italy, both from the viewpoint of theatrical practices and from that of dramatic theory and the formation and evolution of dramatic genres. Yet, its rise to preeminence was not sudden, and many and varied factors contributed to it.

Aside from some manifestations of popular contrasti such as “Rosa fresca aulentissima” (oh fresh and most fragrant rose) by Ciullo d’Alcamo, which exploits the eternal theme of the lover who tries to prevail over the ever weaker protestations of the damsel with whom he has fallen in love—the girl finally consenting and exhorting her lover with an explicit “a lo letto ne gimo, alla bon’ora!” (It’s time to go to bed!)—or the secular divertissements provided by itinerant minstrels, university students, and occasional comedians, the European theater of the Middle Ages had been essentially religious. Later, this type of theater gradually acquired a more literary and professional quality, especially in Florence, where, from the late fourteenth to the second half of the fifteenth century, the sacra rappresentazione began to be written out and performed by famous troupes, such as the Compagnia del Vangelista, while at the same time incorporating increasingly elaborate forms of staging and choreography.

With the advent of humanism and the rediscovery of the classical past, the fifteenth century also saw the rebirth of erudite imitative creations, especially in the manner of Terence and Plautus.

In January 1486, the erudite vernacular drama was born, and on the occasion of a visit by the Duke of Mantua to his future bride, Isabella d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara ordered a memorable performance of Plautus’s Menœchmi. Its success prompted many fifteenth-century poets to try their hand at playwriting, and among the earliest examples of original secular plays written in the vernacular are a play in verse by Matteo Maria Boiardo, Timone (c. 1492), written in terza rima and translated from a dialogue by Lucian; Cefalo (1487), by Niccolò da Correggio; and the enormously more important Orfeo (pr. c. 1480; English translation, 1879), by Poliziano (Angelo Ambrogini). As a direct adaptation of a secular theme to the form of the Florentine sacra rappresentazione, Orfeo can rightly be considered the first fully original contribution to a genre that would continue well into the seventeenth century and inspire such playwrights as Torquato Tasso and Battista Guarini.

During much of the sixteenth century, experiments were conducted to find ways to produce the plays of the great classical authors or new pieces written in imitation of the ancients. These productions were mounted in large halls of palaces belonging to ruling princes and dukes or the newly formed academies of learned gentlemen. The halls had to be adapted for use as theaters by placing a platform at one end of the hall and seating around the other three walls, often allowing for a dais for the prince in the middle. In time, false perspective scenery was developed, eventually framed by a proscenium arch that opened on the scene and hid machinery to shift scenery on and off. Early efforts in this direction took place in the 1540s in Vicenza by Sebastiano Serlio, who published the first treatise on theater buildings and scenery in 1545. The Accademia Olimpica, also in Vicenza, constructed a permanent theater in 1585, the Teatro Olimpico, designed by Andrea Palladio after the model of an ancient Roman theater but provided with false perspective street scenes designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi. It still exists today. In the Medici court, such designers as Bernardo Buontalenti and Giorgio Vasari developed elaborate temporary theaters with proscenium arches. By the early seventeenth century, permanent theater structures were being built with changeable scenery and proscenium arches, including the Teatro degli Intrepidi in Ferrara, built in 1609 on designs by Giambattista Aleotti, who also designed the similar Teatro Farnese for the ruling family of Parma in 1618. The latter theater still exists, although it was nearly destroyed in World War II.

More important, Italy also began to take the lead in the development of dramatic theory and criticism, with particular emphasis on the precepts of the then newly rediscovered De poetica (c. 334-323 BCE; Poetics, 1705) by , which first appeared in print at this time. The thorough examination of this and other surviving theoretical treatises dealing with the nature and purposes of dramatic representation, especially of tragedy, and the many ensuing debates deriving from their interpretation, in particular on the question of the “three unities” and of “catharsis,” made it possible to pass on to the rest of Europe an invaluable, although often stifling, body of theoretical interpretation, which remained substantially unchallenged until the end of the eighteenth century.

The sixteenth century also saw the birth of regular Italian comedy, a genre much more akin to Italian sentiments, and Italian playwrights made a more lasting and original contribution. Italian sixteenth-century comedy can be considered a true national theater, as its content, more than that of tragedy, reflected and magnified societal mores and morality and the preoccupations with the cultural, economic, religious, and political factors prevailing at the time. Early in the sixteenth century, great poets such as Ludovico Ariosto began trying their hand at writing comedy. Ariosto’s La cassaria (pr. 1508; The Coffer, 1975), I suppositi (pr. 1509; The Pretenders, 1566), Il negromante (wr. 1520; The Necromancer, 1975), and two other comedies established the parameters of the written comedy, or commedia erudita (erudite, or learned, comedy), which was to live successfully alongside the truly innovative and popular commedia dell’arte o all’improvviso (improvised comedy).

Commedia dell’arte

Despite the importance and richness of the written erudite theater, Italy’s most enduring and glorious contribution to the history of drama remains unquestionably the unwritten theater of the streets and marketplaces, the commedia dell’arte, which had its greatest success from 1560 to 1650.

Unlike the written erudite theater of poets and men of letters, which depended heavily on the patronage of courts and academies and was often brought to the stage by refined dilettanti and courtiers, the chief characteristics of the commedia dell’arte were improvisation, a brash and energetic acting style that feigned spontaneity, sudden gags and bawdy jokes known as lazzi, and stock characters, usually masked and immediately recognizable by their garb, played by professional actors.

Although not written, the plays had completely developed plots or scenarios known as canovacci, and each actor, usually specializing in a given role or mask, was expected to “improvise” a dialogue or speech, according to a precise situation or scene called for in the plot, by relying on his experience and on a repertoire of set expressions, proverbs, witticisms, jokes, and brilliant conceits. Often the actors would adroitly adjust their performance to satisfy the mood and temperament of the audience, or introduce lazzi of particular significance to a particular time or place.

From the era that commedia dell’arte thrived, well over one thousand canovacci have survived, the most important being those published in 1611 by Flaminio Scala, the leader of the Confidenti; those of Basilio Locatelli, dating about 1620; and those of Domenico Biancolelli, a famous Arlecchino (Harlequin) who achieved great popularity in Paris.

The mask (which often covered only the upper part of the face, leaving free the mouth), the accompanying costume, and the performer’s body gestures and tone of voice functioned as immediate signs to the spectators of what to expect in terms of the disposition and likely behavior of a given character. Indeed, gestures and particular antics or pantomime must have accounted greatly for the enormous success that companies of Italian commedianti enjoyed throughout Europe. Thus, masks such as those of the old men, the doctor or Pantalone, the swaggering coward Captain, the clownish servants Brighella and Arlecchino, the unmistakable hook-nosed and humpbacked Pulcinella, and the fast-acting Scaramuccia became fixed in the iconography of sixteenth-century dramatic arts and in the popular consciousness, making it possible for the commedia dell’arte to continue vigorously well into the eighteenth century.

Traveling troupes of professional actors known as compagnie, such as the Gelosi (the zealous ones) under the leadership of Francesco and Isabella Andreini, the Confidenti (confident in their success), and the Accesi (the ardent ones), whose premier actor, Tristano Martinelli, popularized the mask of Arlecchino, became so popular that they were often called by princes and kings to perform at their palaces. The French kings, especially, became so fond of this kind of theater that a troupe of commedianti was asked in 1660 to remain permanently in France, sharing from then on the Parisian stages with and the Comédie-Française.

In 1699, Andrea Perrucci published an important theoretical document titled Dell’arte rappresentativa, premeditata e all’improvviso (on the representative art, premeditated or improvised), in which he analyzed and clearly described the distinguishing features of this genre, the tradition from which it had drawn, and that which it had helped to create. The influence of the commedia dell’arte on the development of European theater cannot be underestimated. Certain masks and particular situations developed by these highly skilled actors or by their corago (director) influenced many actors throughout the years, surviving in the acting of such modern masters as Marcel Marceau or Charles Chaplin. More important, it persisted, too, in the dramatic writings of some of the best playwrights of Western civilization: , , , , and , up to the hauntingly emblematic Pirandellian characters of the twentieth century.

The Pastoral and the Birth of Melodrama

The second half of the sixteenth century saw, besides the sudden appearance of the commedia dell’ arte, the birth of a new dramatic genre: the pastoral play. Already in the Middle Ages and in the first half of the fifteenth century, imitation of the Virgilian bucolic eclogue had reached a sophisticated poetic level, but the real point of departure for the theatrical version had been ’s Orfeo. The genre next reached a pinnacle in 1573 with a masterpiece by the poet .

When Tasso’s Aminta (pr. 1573; English translation, 1591) was first performed during the summer of 1573 in the idyllic setting of the island of Belvedere in the Po, Tasso had, like his great youthful predecessor Poliziano a century earlier, miraculously succeeded in creating an unsurpassable example in this genre, a model that was to remain for decades the source of inspiration for countless poets and playwrights all over Europe. The only other Italian play of this genre that can claim comparison with Tasso’s masterpiece is the work of another Ferrarese poet: Il pastor fido (pr. 1596; The Faithful Shepherd, 1602) by . Wrought in exquisite lyric verses, Guarini’s play attempted to improve on the Tassian model by applying some innovations theorized by its author. Although following to a certain extent the classical models, the studied quintessential musicality of its rhymes and the all-pervading lyric tones made it evolve toward a more melodramatic genre by introducing a subtle mixture of tragic and lighter elements. Soon, by deemphasizing the complexity of human pathos and by stressing the romantic novelistic element of the story, this genre would quickly move toward a new theatrical form in the seventeenth century. With the addition of a musical accompaniment, at the waning of the sixteenth century the first step was taken toward what centuries later was destined to become the grand opera. Thus, the pastoral, and Guarini’s innovations, proved an important milestone in bridging sixteenth and seventeenth-century dramatic sensibilities.

After Tasso and Guarini, writers who excelled in this genre were Ridolfo Campeggi, with his Philaminde, and the then-famous Guidobaldo Bonarelli, who produced the most important seventeenth-century pastoral Filli di Sciro (pb. 1607; English translation, 1655). The genre's popularity was also attested by the countless manuscripts and published versions of pastorals, which continued to be produced until the end of the seventeenth century and beyond. Thus, the pastoral as a poetic and dramatic genre did not die a sudden death, and both in Italy and abroad, it continued to survive until the first half of the eighteenth century, when it experienced a last surge in popularity during the neoclassical period.

The Rise of Musical Theater

The time was ripe for further innovations, and when, toward the end of the sixteenth century, a group of gifted musicians under the leadership of Giovanni Bardi, Count del Verino, and the gifted theorist Vincenzo Galileo, father of the famous astronomer and scientist, formed the Camerata, they found in the musical verses and elegiac plots of the pastoral a ready-made medium for their musical experiments.

Galileo, his fellow musicians Giulio Caccini, Emilio de’ Cavalieri, and Jacopo Peri, and the poet Ottavio Rinuccini, had maintained that music should be a mere accompaniment to the poet's verses and should only complement their emotional expressivity without overpowering themthat is, music and words were to remain, as far as possible, equally important.

Adhering to these concepts, and under the leadership of Jacopo Corsi, who had succeeded Bardi, the Camerata artists produced in 1598 the very first opera, Dafne, a pastoral play written by Rinuccini and set to music by Peri. This first opera enjoyed great success and, in 1600, was followed by a second one, Euridice, first staged during the celebrations of the marriage of Maria de’ Medici to Henri IV of France. The libretto was again by Rinuccini, while the music was by Peri and Caccini, the former also singing the role of Orpheus.

Other operas followed, notably one with music composed by de’ Cavalieri. Still, Florence suddenly lost her preeminence with the emergence, in Mantua, of one who was to prove the musical genius of the era: Claudio Monteverdi. In 1607, Monteverdi composed his L’Orfeo (pr. 1607; Orfeo, 1949; with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio), and the following year the moving Arianna, with a libretto by Rinuccini. Other important works by Monteverdi were Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (pr. 1641; English translation, 1942) and L’incoronazione di Poppea (pr. 1642; The Coronation of Poppea, 1927). With Monteverdi, opera took a new direction. Music gradually began to assert itself and claim the role of importance formerly held by the text, and the other scenic elements gradually acquired a more spectacular function. Unlike the earlier operas of Peri and Caccini, with their monodic recitatives and the subdued role of the music, Monteverdi’s works disregarded the theories of the Camerata. Instead, they stressed the more intense psychological and dramatic development of the characters, a more complex and richer musical framework, and, most importantly, a more prominent place for music.

Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio

The musical theater continued its progress toward modern opera by compounding new romantic elements with classical themes and devices while poets and musicians worked ever more closely and combined their skills in perfecting stagecraft and verse-harmony. Toward the second half of the seventeenth century, however, the creative impulses of melodramatic poets in Italy seemingly began to dry up, and the plots became increasingly complicated and full of eccentric and highly improbable situations. The exceedingly rhetorical declamations of actors added a further note of imbalance. The time was ripe for reform, and the Venetian Apostolo Zeno, for more than ten years “Poeta Cesareo” at the imperial court in Vienna, was the first playwright of note to attempt it.

To return Italian melodrama to its original dignity and simplicity, Zeno went back to classical subjects shorn of absurd mixtures of pagan and Christian elements and unnecessary musical “embellishments” or to historical themes carefully researched, with the word gradually regaining its place of preeminence. Noteworthy examples among Zeno’s production of more than sixty dramas are Ifigenia in Aulide (pr. 1718), Andromaca (pr. 1724), and Scipione nelle Spagne (pr. 1722). He introduced some technical innovations, such as the division between the recitativo and the aria, and also added the popular strofetta at the end of each scene. With Zeno, other consummate writers of melodramas and tragedies of the time were Giulio Agosti and the prolific Pier Antonio Bernardoni, who, to a considerable extent, anticipated Zeno’s attempts toward a more natural and simpler dramatic production.

When, in 1728, honored and recognized throughout Europe, Zeno retired from the Viennese court to return to his native Italy, he suggested as his successor a poet who, in his opinion, was the best among the living Italian poets: .

Pietro Trapassi, who took the pen name of Metastasio (a rough Greek translation of Trapassi meaning “steps beyond”), had been a child prodigy who, at the age of ten, was adopted and educated by the famous critic and dramatic theorist Gianvincenzo Gravina, became the undisputed master of Italian melodrama and justly deserves to be ranked among Italy’s finest dramatists. Although his most intense period of activity coincided with the first decade in Vienna (where he remained until his death as “Poeta Cesareo”), he had already made a name for himself in 1724 with his Didone abbandonata (pr. 1724; Dido Forsaken, 1952), which anticipated the themes of many of his other melodramas. In this and other works, such as Artaserse (pr. 1730; Artaxerxes, 1761), Adriano in Siria (pr. 1731; Adrian in Syria, 1767), La clemenza di Tito (pr. 1734; The Mercy of Titus, pb. 1767), Temistocle (pr. 1736; Themistocles, 1767), and Attilio Regolo (pr. 1750; Atilius Regulus, pb. 1767), Metastasio grappled with the elemental human passions and conflicts of love and duty, sentimental gratitude, and patriotic ideals. These themes, Metastasio’s powerfully sculpted characters, and the recurrent happy ending constituted, with or without music—as the eighteenth-century critic Ranieri de’ Calzabigi wrote—“perfect, precious tragedies.” It is not surprising, therefore, that almost all the composers of the time, including Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Friedrich Handel, Domenico Cimarosa, and Maria Luigi Cherubini, set to music Metastasio’s melodic verses, with Artaserse reaching more than 107 musical versions.

As for the genre in which he truly excelled, it can be said that Metastasio was successful in restoring literary dignity to the melodrama by completing the reform that had been initiated by Zeno and by establishing a fixed, albeit stylized, scheme to the dramatic action. “Many,” wrote Carlo Goldoni of Metastasio, “have proved themselves after him both valorous and learned; but the ear accustomed to those verses, to those gentle thoughts, to that brilliant manner of scenic representation of the worthy poet, has not yet found anything which is worthy of comparison with him.”

The Venetian Theater and Goldoni

When Carlo Goldoni was born in 1707, the opera was securely established, the Neapolitan opera buffa had become to comedy what melodrama and opera were to tragedy, and the stock themes of the commedia dell’arte were still going strong. Unlike other European nations, however, and aside from some occasional academic dramatic pieces intended more for reading than for performing, Italy had fallen well behind in the production of a national repertoire of spoken drama.

Perhaps not entirely by chance, Goldoni was born in Venice, a city that in those years was still basking in the warm light of its splendid culture and the richness of its slowly diminishing power. Although almost everywhere in Europe, social and economic unrest loomed ominously over ancient governments, in its declining years, Venice still appeared as an oasis of refined tranquillity and aristocratic traditions, seemingly oblivious to all impending changes. Life—that of the old ruling aristocracy, that of the emerging bourgeoisie, and that of the common classes—was gaily lived, almost in a theatrical fashion, in the crowded piazzas and on the bridges delicately arching over the canals, against a backdrop of architectural ornaments and of gondolas slowly gliding over the green lagoon. It was a city at peace with itself, conscious of what was and had been, and enriched by the presence of many great artists such as Antonio Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Baldassare Galuppi, and Antonio Vivaldi. It was, above all, a city of a vivacious new middle class whose main aspiration was to inherit, in orderly fashion, the privileges and power previously enjoyed only by the nobility. Goldoni’s best theater reflected these aspirations and nodded understandingly at the changing order.

Goldoni’s dramatic output includes more than two hundred titles, many produced in Paris, where he spent the last thirty years of his life and where he died. After some attempts, some of which were well-received, in the tragic and melodramatic genre, Goldoni found his true inspiration in the writing of comedies, a genre in which he was to excel and which he restored to literary dignity. Goldoni’s crowning achievement, however, was to “reform” Italian comedy, which had become imprisoned by the passé and sterile stock formulas of the commedia dell’arte, by gradually introducing new realistic language, themes, and characters and by finally reclaiming for the playwright the traditional dominance that had been lost to the artists and directors of the commedia all’improvviso.

The initial stages of Goldoni’s reforms were achieved with two comedies. In the first, Momolo cortesan: O, L’uomo di mundo (Momolo, man of the world), performed in 1738, only the part of the protagonist was entirely written out; the other parts were “improvised” in the fashion of the commedia dell’ arte. The second, La donna di garbo (the good-mannered lady), was performed in 1743 and was Goldoni’s first comedy to be entirely written out.

After important plays such as his La vedova scaltra (pr. 1748; The Artful Widow, 1968) and La famiglia dell’antiquario (pr. 1750; the antique collector’s family), Goldoni promised to his public a new theatrical season during which he would write sixteen new comedies. Taxing himself to the extreme, he kept the promise by producing, among others, such favorites as La bottega del caffé (pr. 1750; The Coffee-house, 1925) and I pettegolezzi delle donne (pr. 1751; women’s gossip). The first of these sixteen comedies, Il teatro comico (pr. 1750; The Comic Theatre, 1969), Goldoni wrote as a manifesto of his theatrical reform. In it, using the device of a play-within-a-play, Goldoni voiced through one of the characters his objections to the commedia dell’arte—“People are bored. . . . The audience knows what Harlequin will say before he opens his mouth”—and maintained that comedy had merely become ridiculous and could no longer be taken seriously, having lost its original purpose of correcting vice and satirizing bad customs. Goldoni advocated bringing onstage realistic situations and well-developed characters whom the public could appreciate and with whom they could identify.

With La locandiera (pr. 1753; The Mistress of the Inn, 1912), Goldoni skillfully applied the canons of his new theater, interpreting the new social expectations of women and of the working class in general while caricaturing the pretentious, boorish manner of the petty, idle representatives of Venetian aristocracy.

Goldoni’s attempt at dramatic and social reforms did not go unchallenged. Two men especially, both famous in Venetian theater circles, tried to oppose Goldoni with a theater of their own: the Jesuit Pietro Chiari and the aristocrat Count . Both achieved a considerable measure of popular success, but of the two, Gozzi fought a more acrimonious and unrelenting battle on behalf of the traditional and conservative social values represented by his class and in defense of the purity of the Italian language. He even challenged Goldoni’s popularity by beginning, in pique, to write for the theater, and in 1760, he created the first and most famous of his fables, L’amore delle tre melarance (pr. 1761; The Love of the Three Oranges, 1921). This work, as well as three others that soon followed, Il corvo (pr. 1761; The Raven, 1989), Il re cervo (pr. 1762; The King Stag, 1958), and Turandot (pr. 1762; English translation, 1913), were fantastic fanciful stories, devoid of any social implication and bent on escapism. Yet they proved so popular that Chiari, after 1762, gave up writing comedies in the new style; their popularity was probably also a factor in Goldoni’s decision to leave Venice and to go to Paris under contract to the Comédie-Italienne.

Before leaving for Paris, Goldoni bade farewell to his Venetian public by producing, in 1762, the play Una delle ultime sere di carnovale (one of the last evenings of carnival). In Paris, after encountering some problems in adapting his new comedy to the habits of the actors and the taste of the French audience, which expected the Comédie-Italienne to conform to the traditional Italianate theatrics of the commedia dell’arte, he wrote the stylistically mature Il ventaglio (pr. 1763; The Fan, 1892) and met with great success with some comedies in French, such as Le Bourru bienfaisant (pr. 1771; The Beneficent Bear, 1892), produced, after the death of , for the Comédie-Française.

The Pre-Romantic Tragedy

The crisis of Italian tragedy, specifically of the tragedia erudita, continued in the second half of the eighteenth century despite the various attempts made to revive it. With the exception of the verse tragedy La Merope (pr. 1713; English translation, 1740), by Francesco Scipione Maffei, which was repeatedly performed and whose subject was later imitated by and Vittorio Alfieri, the first half of the century had produced no serious drama of lasting significance. Minor tragedians had succeeded only in imitating the external aspects of the French classical theater, producing a congeries of redundant neoclassical pastiches, largely devoid of any artistic merit.

Consistent with their traditional interest in serious theater as a tool of moral edification, a more sustained effort in this genre was made at this time by Jesuit playwrights. Although permeated with moral vigor, the works of such authors as Alfonso Varano, who wrote some five tragedies, Giovanni Granelli, and the prolific Saverio Bettinelli, best known for his theoretical pronouncements contained in his Discorso sul teatro italiano (1771; discourse on the Italian theater), did little to raise the standards of the genre in Italy.

The second half of the century also witnessed a renewed interest in Shakespearean models, which resulted, however, in a still unresolved mixture of preromantic and classical elements and, often, in ponderous theatrical productions of dubious merit. Dignified and, at times, vigorous efforts were made by literati such as Alessandro Verri, the author of historical, anti-Aristotelian dramas; by Ippolito Pindemonte, who wrote several gothic, pre-Romantic works; and especially by Giovanni Pindemonte, who combined a strong interest in theatricality and a keen espousal of liberal political and social views. Yet the task of becoming the premier tragic writer of the age and of attempting a reform similar to what Goldoni had done for comedy would be left to .

Born to an aristocratic Piedmontese family in 1749, Alfieri, a passionate child of those troubled yet exciting times, instinctively filled the gap between the neoclassical tradition and the pre-Romantic mood while, at the same time, he succeeded in modernizing the centuries-worn genre of tragedy. After many travels and amorous adventures, Alfieri turned finally, albeit momentarily, to more intellectual pursuits and in 1775 wrote the first of his twenty-one tragedies, Antonio e Cleopatra (pr. 1775; Antony and Cleopatra, 1876), which was successfully performed that same year in Turin. Encouraged, he continued to devote time to playwriting, and other published works soon followed (produced at later dates), such as Filippo (pr. 1825; Phillip II, 1815), Agamennone (pr. 1842; Agamemnon, 1815), Merope (pb. 1784; English translation, 1815), Polinice (pr. 1824; Polynice, 1815), and the two masterpieces Saul (pr. 1794; English translation, 1815) and Mirra (pr. 1819; Myrrha, 1815).

In Phillip II, the struggle between the cruel Spanish king and his noble son Carlo symbolizes the struggle between tyranny and liberty and is compounded by the father’s jealousy toward his son, who loves his former betrothed, now his stepmother. Thus, political passions intermingle with strong human passions, which are the very essence of tragedy. Saul, which is said to have had more performances in Italy than any other tragedy, deals with the biblical story of Saul, the ancient king of Israel, who, abandoned by God, is tormented by remorse and driven to madness by his fear and hatred for David, his rival and successor. Saul’s terror, which reaches the deepest levels of pathos, adds to the twofold despair of a man struggling with God and with himself. The protagonist, the first powerful prototype of tragic Romantic man, finally succumbs to distrust, madness, and fury and becomes the vacillating victim of his own distorted, overwhelming ego.

Typical of his fiery temperament, rather than follow the plots or the psychological development of his characters (which in most of his other tragedies appear stylized and fixed by the classical models), Alfieri often let his Romantic sentiments and emotions prevail: his hatred for tyranny, his patriotic longing for political freedom and Italian unity, his mistrust of the French role in the affairs of Italy, and his individualism. Yet despite these shortcomings, Alfieri’s tragedies were remarkably new and innovative in their poetic form: Unlike the tragedies that had preceded them, they were written in unpolished blank verse, contained relatively few characters, and dealt with a simple, straightforward action. These qualities and the grandeur of Alfieri’s intensely felt political ideals soon found a responsive echo in Italy and inspired many to follow in his steps, thus earning for Alfieri an important place in the theatrical and political history of Italy.

The Road to Alessandro Manzoni and the Risorgimento

At the end of the eighteenth century, the French troops of Napoleon invaded Italy, and the hopes of Italians for freedom from a foreign yoke and for political unity were shattered. It was inevitable that this bitter disappointment would be reflected in the works of the poets of the time and echoed in the plays written by the playwrights of the post-Alfierian generations.

Perhaps the most representative of the first generation of writers to be inspired by Alfieri was Vincenzo Monti, who had met Alfieri in Rome in 1781. In 1786, Monti’s first tragedy, Aristodemo (Aristodemus, 1809), which was deeply rooted in the classical tradition and whose protagonist, the king of Messena, showed flashes of a Shakespearean or Alfierian quality, met with great popular success. Another of his tragedies, Caio Gracco, performed in 1802, proved equally successful, largely because the patriotic speeches of Gracchus against the tyrant Opimio struck a popular patriotic chord.

The great poet was a follower of Monti and, above all, of Alfieri. His three imitative Alfierian plays, Tieste (pr. 1797), Aiace (pr. 1811), and Ricciarda (pr. 1813), give only a somewhat reduced manifestation of his creative powers. Foscolo dedicated Tieste to Alfieri for providing him with the only possible stylistic model to be followed, and it, too, abounds in lofty speeches against tyranny and in praise of liberty and justice. Aiace, although meeting with the disfavor of the public when first staged in 1811 in Milan, remains the best of Foscolo’s productions and has been favorably compared to Alfieri’s masterpiece Saul. Despite beautiful poetic lines and stirring speeches, however, it suffers from a lack of dramatic action on the stage, and it has contributed more to Foscolo’s reputation as a poet than to his reputation as a playwright.

The most important of the anticlassicist writers to emerge in Italy in the first half of the nineteenth century was the Milanese , the author of the literary masterpiece I promessi sposi (1827; The Betrothed, 1951).

In the preface of the first of his two tragedies, Il conte di Carmagnola (pb. 1820; the count of Carmagnola) and in the subsequent treatise-like Lettre à M. C[hauvet] sur l’unité de temps et de lieu dans la tragédie (1823; letter to Mr. Chauvet on the unities of time and place in tragedy), Manzoni denounced as constricting and artificial the traditional observances of the so-called Aristotelian unities, especially those of time and space. Furthermore, variously influenced by the dramatic theories of Friedrich and August Wilhelm von Schlegel, , and “that barbarian of genius,” as he defined , and true to his own interpretation of Romanticism, which he saw as more Christian than classicism, he defended “dramatic poetry” as a deeply moral genre. The representation of tragic real life and historical events could be used to inspire the spectators to meditate on the frailty of man’s existence and on their ultimate destiny, and thus, he laid the groundwork for one of the fundamental tenets of his art, the reconciliation of morality and aesthetics.

A careful reading of some of Shakespeare’s works, especially of Richard II (pr. c. 1595-1596), had convinced Manzoni that it was indeed possible to write a tragedy befitting his definition of Romanticism based both on Christian principles and on true historical events. The carefully researched action of Il conte di Carmagnola focuses on the events leading to the death of Francesco Bussone, count of Carmagnola, a mercenary captain who, after having honorably served the duke of Milan, offered his services to Milan’s enemies, the Venetians, to seek revenge against Filippo Visconti, who had tried to kill the count and deprive him of his possessions. After winning a decisive battle for the Venetians, in an act of magnanimity, he frees all the prisoners taken, incurring the suspicion of some powerful noblemen, who lure the count back to Venice and manage to have him tried for treason. After a noble stand, Carmagnola is finally convicted and dies still proudly proclaiming his innocence.

The second of his tragedies, Adelchi (pr. 1822), deals with the end of the Longobard rule in Italy at the hands of the Frankish king, Charlemagne, and, indirectly, with Italy’s political woes and the failures up to that point to achieve national political unification. More important, it reflects once more Manzoni’s concerns with moral choices. Adelchi is a Hamlet-like tragic hero who, despite his moral and religious feelings, is forced by filial duty to fight in a war that is to him ethically repugnant. Adelchi’s fatalism finds its counterpart in the resignation of his saintly sister Ermengarda, who, in the face of misfortune and repudiation by her husband, does not seek revenge and accepts her tragic life with a sense of Christian resignation and moral duty.

The plays—which are divided into the traditional five acts and feature some beautiful choruses that the poet used to provide lyric relief and to express his own metahistorical moral comment—rely more on a dynamic of words than of action and therefore lack sufficient dramatic force to have made a lasting impact on the tragic genre. Dramatically weak, they have, in fact, rarely been performed and have often been judged as more suitable for reading than for staging.

Manzoni’s contemporaries espoused Romanticism with the passion one would give a political credo, and their dramatic production invariably presents a mixture of patriotic and Romantic ideals. For example, Silvio Pellico, whose Le mie prigioni (pr. 1832; My Prisons, 1833) rivaled in popularity Manzoni’s The Betrothed, shared also his Christian religiosity but instilled in his many works such vehement, unadulterated patriotism that his tragedies, such as Francesca da Rimini (pr. 1815; English translation, 1851), despite some severe shortcomings, were greeted with tremendous popular acclaim. Another of Pellico’s historical plays, Eufemio di Messina (pr. 1820; Eufemio of Messina, 1934), introduced significant innovations to the development of the historical Romantic drama, especially in staging techniques. Like most tragedies produced at this time, however, it suffers from a too-shallow, one-dimensional portrayal of characters and from a lack of true tragic tension.

Like Pellico and Manzoni, was a great patriot, and his many tragedies became powerful vehicles for his democratic, republican ideas and for his hatred of the Papacy and of the foreign rulers who perpetuated Italy’s lack of unity. His first tragedies dealt with the common historical and Romantic themes of the time and with lofty, uncompromising patriotic ideals. His famous Giovanni da Procida (pr. 1830; Giovanni of Procida), for example, dealt with the “Sicilian Vespers,” the Sicilian uprising against the French occupying forces in 1282. More controversial, and immensely more popular, although it was banned almost everywhere, was his masterpiece, Arnaldo da Brescia (pb. 1843; Arnaldo of Brescia: A Tragedy, 1846), about the twelfth-century religious reformer who rejected both the temporal power of the Church and the political interference of imperial forces.

Other playwrights of some note of this period were Carlo Marenco, who tried to follow the lead of Manzoni and Pellico; Paolo Ferrari; and Pietro Cossa, whose plays dealt with the emerging interest in social problems.

The Bourgeois Theater and Verismo

The first attempts at a post-Risorgimento, socially oriented theater were largely devoid of profound political tensions or sentiments and were voiced by Achille Torelli. With I mariti (pr. 1867; the husbands), Torelli interpreted the desires of the emerging social class, the bourgeoisie, for a social order made of solid values and sane, middle-class moral principles. His somewhat less traditional technique and fresh approach to new dramatic content aroused enormous public interest and met with the approval of some of the most important critics of the time, including the aging Manzoni. Torelli, however, in his other works, rarely achieved the harmonious, realistic effects of I mariti again, and he produced several uneven, often contrived works of inferior merit. Other writers who found inspiration in a realistic yet critical representation of the bourgeois milieu of the new Italy were Gerolamo Rovetta, whose La trilogia di Dorina (pr. 1889; Dorina’s trilogy) was widely acclaimed, and Giacinto Gallina, who achieved great notoriety for his comedies depicting Venetian popular and middle-class life. Two other playwrights of the time also produced interesting dramatic works: Giovanni Bovio and Giuseppe Giacosa. With San Paolo (pr. 1895; Saint Paul), Il millennio (pr. 1895; the millennium), and Leviatano (pb. 1899; Leviathan), Bovio tried to create a different and more philosophical drama by permeating his work with his own fervent secular creed. Giacosa, on the other hand, evolved from medievally inspired light dramas in verse such as Un partita a scacchi (pr. 1873; The Wager, 1914), which long remained the most popular of his early works, to a masterfully realistic depiction and psychological analysis of the bourgeois world in Tristi amori (pr. 1887; Unhappy Love, 1916) and Come le foglie (pr. 1900; Like Falling Leaves, 1904), which is still performed today.

By the late nineteenth century, the time had become ripe for a codification of the new aesthetic principles that many of these playwrights had, albeit confusedly and instinctively, propounded in their works. The unification of Italy, finally accomplished in 1870, provided the necessary impulse for this assessment while exerting an immediate and profound influence on Italian letters and on the Italian stage. Preoccupation with Italy’s new reality and with its collective moral and psychological soul induced many writers to turn their attention to contemporary issues and to shun the trite and frequently irrelevant historical and mythological themes that had become a mannered and idealized commonplace in the theater.

The theorist of the new movement of verismo, or Verism, a sophisticated form of realism, was Luigi Capuana, who, after reading and studying European literature, especially contemporary French authors, and writing several theatrical reviews that he collected and published as Il teatro contemporaneo (1872; the contemporary theater), decided to devote his attention to the short story and the novel. In 1888, however, he wrote a drama titled Giacinta (pr. 1888; based on his novel of the same title, published in 1879), in which he tried to react against the falsehoods of conventional theater and traditional conformism by interjecting regional motifs and by having the characters speak in a language born out of their personal experience and condition, rather than simply functioning as mouthpieces for the author’s literary vagaries. To get closer to the reality that he knew best, he wrote eleven works in Sicilian dialect, among which is the important Malìa (pr. 1895; spell).

Capuana’s theses and his proposition that a truly national Italian theater could be achieved only by passing through the stage of a regional theater found many followers, among them Federico de Roberto, whose best-known dramatic work is Il rosario (pr. 1913; the rosary), and the greatest novelist of the second half of the nineteenth century and the most representative author of Verism, Giovanni Verga.

When Giovanni Verga began to write for the theater, he had already written the first of his two literary masterpieces, I malavoglia (1881; The House by the Medlar Tree, 1890). In 1883, however, anticipating by five years Capuana’s own successful application of the principles of Verism to a dramatic work, and over the skepticism of many experts who thought that the public would reject this as a too naturalistic, untheatrical representation, he adapted for the stage one of his novels: Cavalleria rusticana (pr. 1884; Cavalleria Rusticana: Nine Scenes from the Life of the People, 1893). This simple, tragically fatalistic Sicilian tale of seduction, love, jealousy, and death met with surprising success, was later used by Pietro Mascagni as a libretto for one of his most successful operas, and became a major influence in the development of modern Italian theater.

Of Verga’s other plays, worthy of mention are the frequently performed La lupa (pr. 1896; the she-wolf), which deals with the doomed, insane passion of a woman for her daughter’s husband, and Dal tuo al mio (pr. 1903; from thine to mine), which explores the social conflicts taking place in Sicily between the emerging bourgeoisie and the old aristocracy. Despite his relatively meager dramatic production, Verga played a larger-than-life role in the rebirth of modern Italian tragic theater, and his influence can be traced through the theater of Annibale Butti and up to the masterly cinematic adaptation of I malavoglia by Luchino Visconti in 1948, La terra trema.

Following on the heels of Capuana’s and Verga’s venture into realism were the works of two significant playwrights, both realists but very different from one another in other respects. One was Marco Praga, a Milanese critic and writer, who explored with plays such as Le vergine (pr. 1889; the virgins) and La porta chiusa (pr. 1913; The Closed Door, 1923) the psychologically distorted and morally decadent world of the emerging bourgeois class. The other was , who has been called the “Italian Ibsen” for his adoption of social issues, especially women’s issues, in his realistic plays set in his own Naples. His “women’s” plays include Don Pietro Caruso (pr. 1895; English translation, 1912), dealing with a man’s efforts to protect his daughter only to find her the mistress of his close friend, and Nellina (pr. 1908; English translation, 1908), portraying a prostitute intent on hiding her profession from her daughter, who she later discovers is also a prostitute.

Twentieth-Century Italian Theater

Drama in the last part of the nineteenth century, in general, set aside patriotic themes in favor of a more realistic depiction of Italian society and of the socioeconomic tendencies and implications that were then prevalent. Italian realism, or Verism, was receiving continuous support from the regional theater and from the dialect theater, which had become increasingly popular. Only the success of some of Gerolamo Rovetta’s idealist drama, with its classical and Romantic undertones, seemed to offer an alternative to the prevailing popularity of realistic theater. The playwright on whose shoulders fell the task of leading Italian theater in a new direction was the flamboyant and brilliant poet .

Instrumental in D’Annunzio’s turning to the theater was a passionate encounter with Italy’s greatest actress of the time, Eleonora Duse. For her, he wrote in 1897 Sogno di un mattino di primavera (pr. 1897; The Dream of a Spring Morning, 1902) and, the following year, Sogno di un tramonto d’autunno (pr. 1905; The Dream of an Autumn Sunset, 1904), two highly unusual, nondramatic, symbolic compositions much in the tradition of decadent poetry. His best theater, however, was yet to come: La città morta (pr. 1898; The Dead City, 1900), for Sarah Bernhardt, La Gioconda (pr. 1899; English translation, 1902), which he dedicated to Duse; and La gloria (pr. 1899; the glory), in which the poet dealt with the Nietzschean concept of the superman divided between his love for a woman and his glorious political destiny. One of D’Annunzio’s finest tragedies, Francesca da Rimini (pr. 1901; English translation, 1902), a historical drama of unromantic, gruesome realism, became a tremendous popular success and encouraged the poet to continue writing for the theater. In 1904, he produced the most successful of his plays, La figlia di Jorio (The Daughter of Jorio, 1907), a drama permeated by the primitive violence of the shepherds of D’Annunzio’s native Abruzzi and by the evocation of their naturalistic, quasi-pagan mysticism, and which might have been inspired by the popular realism of Verga’s Cavalleria rusticana. In 1905, on the same theme, D’Annunzio produced the powerful and well-received La fiaccola sotto il moggio (the torch under the bushel). Later works include La nave (pr. 1908; the ship), a sinister vision of the impending cataclysm in Europe; Fedra (pr. 1909; Phaedra), imbued with sensual flames of incestuous passions; and a few others written directly in French verse, among which the most significant remains the pseudomystical Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien (pr. 1911; the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian), which was set to music by Claude Debussy.

When World War I began, D’Annunzio’s energies became absorbed in the war effort, and in 1919, when the Paris Peace Conference had denied to Italy the Italian-speaking territories on the Dalmatian coast, he daringly occupied Fiume, putting into effect the political ideas already expressed in La gloria. With the war over, D’Annunzio returned to literature, and although some twenty films were made from his works, he never chose to write again for the stage. With the exception of a few imitators, the best of whom is considered to be Sem Benelli, D’Annunzio left no school or lasting impact on the modern Italian stage.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the reaction against the theater of realism was also expressed by the curious, uneventful application of the principles of the Manifesto del teatro futurista (manifesto of futurist theater) that called for a noisy, atechnical, alogical, sensory theater.

After D’Annunzio, the Italian stage was dominated by the genius of Luigi Pirandello, a twentieth-century master of undisputed international stature who combined prolific activity as a poet and essayist with a continuous and sustained interest in the narrative genre. Pirandello was prodded into writing his first work for the theater by the actor and fellow Sicilian Nino Martoglio, who suggested that he rewrite for the stage one of his short stories, “La morsa” (the vise). This was soon followed by other similar works, such as Lumìe di Sicilia (pr. 1910; Sicilian Limes, 1921), Liolà (pr. 1916; English translation, 1952), Pensaci, Giacomino! (pr. 1916; think about it, Jimmy), in which the world of the Sicilian peasants and petite bourgeoisie is sarcastically explored in its naturalistic, often grotesque, social contradictions. Other plays, such as Vestire gli ignudi (pr. 1922; Naked, 1924) and La vita che ti diedi (pr. 1923; The Life I Gave You, 1959), deal with the same ideological implication of humankind’s sorrowful existence brought to the level of a universal predicament. Yet starting with Così è (se vi pare) (pr. 1917; Right You Are [If You Think So], 1952), one can perceive the first signs of Pirandello’s greatest dramatic season, which includes Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (pr. 1921; Six Characters in Search of an Author, 1922), Ciascuno a suo modo (pb. 1923; Each in His Own Way, 1923), and Questa sera si recita a soggetto (pr. 1930; Tonight We Improvise, 1932).

In these works, Pirandello explores the painful contradictions of people’s lives: the vanity and therapeutic quality of the logical reasoning with which people try to explain their unchangeable, fatalistic existence, the irrationality of humankind’s history, feelings, and personality, the illusion and relativity of all cognitive reality, and the tragic problem of the inability of human beings to communicate. To paraphrase the title of one of Pirandello’s best-known novels, each man is one person, is no one, or is one hundred thousand people, according to how he feels at a given moment, how he is seen by others, or how others act toward him on that particular occasion.

Pirandello’s best-known play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, deals with the theme of theater-within-theater; the function of authors, characters, actors, directors, and spectators; the nature and role of the theater as an art; and the central aesthetic problem of the conflict between art and life. The six characters who have been created as immutable masks demand to “relive” on the stage their ever-immutable drama, but their illusion is shattered when it becomes clear that life is a continuous, unpredictable, and undefinable flow, which can never be frozen or defined in a recognizable form.

The Pirandellian theater with its fatalistic and surrealistic depiction of humankind’s absurd and irreconcilable existence, and the revolutionary dramatic techniques with which Pirandello tried to eviscerate the exemplary artistic role of this theater of the irrational, have left a profound mark on the modern consciousness and on the very essence of the dramatic arts as they are perceived today. While D’Annunzio’s example has left little that can easily be discerned and traced to him in contemporary Italian drama, Pirandello’s legacy is still vital, and his influence can be seen everywhere.

Contemporary Italian Theater

After more than twenty years of Fascism, and in the aftermath of World War II, a curious yet understandable phenomenon took place. After years of censorship and cultural self-sufficiency, Italian producers begin to turn to the forbidden fruit of foreign scripts and ignored, for a while at least, Italian plays. Nevertheless, distinguished Italian dramatists, from , Diego Fabbri, , and , undaunted, kept writing plays of significant social value and dramatic vigor. They had not forgotten Pirandello’s lesson, although now the emphasis was placed on an immediate and contingent moral, rather than philosophical level, be it of religious or historical and ideological nature.

Ugo Betti, a poet and playwright who found his inspiration in the “human cases” that he witnessed as a judge and magistrate, achieved the best results with Frana allo scalo nord (pr. 1936; Landslide, 1964), Delitto all’isola delle capre (pr. 1950; Crime on Goat Island, 1955), and especially the often performed Corruzione al palazzo di giustizia (pr. 1949; Corruption in the Palace of Justice, 1962). In these plays, behind the corruption and violence of which humans are capable, one can perceive the moral theme of guilt and lost purity, with all the metaphysical anguish and burdensome intensity that accompany it.

A more openly problematic religious theme, exploring the equivocal relationship between God and humankind, has been the main inspiration of Diego Fabbri. After starting with some psychological plays that dealt with more recognizable moral and social conflicts, among which Paludi (pr. 1942; marshes) and La libreria del sole (pr. 1943; the bookstore of the sun) are noteworthy, Fabbri quickly progressed toward a more cogent and religiously severe discussion of humankind’s often unclear existential and metaphysical awareness of the self and of human beings’ relationship with God. Processo di famiglia (1953; family trial), Inquisizione (pr. 1950; inquisition), and above all Processo a Gesú (pr. 1955; Between Two Thieves, 1959) and Veglia d’armi (pr. 1956; armed watch) have received wide critical acclaim and have been performed often in Italy and abroad. Another important vein in Fabbri’s playwriting, one that reflects his own personality, has been a kind of humorous comedy of manners, with Il seduttore (pr. 1951; the seducer) and La bugiarda (pr. 1956; the liar) being the most successful examples.

is the playwright who, after Pirandello, has enjoyed the most continued and undivided public support. In his plays, De Filippo managed to produce with surprising continuity an impressive array of themes that combine various indigenous theatrical elements, from those of the commedia dell’arte to those of immediate regional inspiration, from Pirandellian rationality to an ideologically committed interpretation of contemporary society’s crises. Among his most articulate works, in which can be seen a “poetics of the poor” and a subtle yet bitter picture of prejudices existing in Italy’s postwar reality, are Questi fantasmi (pr. 1946; Oh, These Ghosts!, 1964), Napoli milionaria! (pr. 1945; English translation, 1996), Le voci di dentro (pr. 1948; Inner Voices, 1983), De Pretore Vincenzo (pr. 1957; on Pretore Vincenzo), Filumena Marturano (pr. 1946; The Best House in Naples, 1956), and Sabato, domenica e lunedì (pr. 1959; Saturday, Sunday, Monday, 1973). De Filippo’s consummate artistry as an actor, director, and playwright and his recurrent use of Neapolitan settings and the literary Neapolitan language in a manner that transcends their immediate source of inspiration have all, in some ways, contributed to the worldwide renown of this author and his work.

The inspiration for the satirical and farcical productions of , with their biting ideological criticism, can be traced back to the medieval jongleur tradition and the histrionics of the commedia dell’ arte. A skillful actor as well as a playwright, Fo has achieved his best results in often controversial plays with suggestive surrealistic titles: Gli arcangeli non giocano al flipper (pr. 1959; Archangels Don’t Play Pinball, 1987), Aveva due pistole con gli occhi bianchi e neri (pr. 1960; he had two pistols with white and black eyes), La signora è da buttare (pr. 1967; the lady should be discarded), and the politically polemic Morte accidentale di un anarchico (pr. 1970; Accidental Death of an Anarchist, 1979), which openly express the “New Left” criticism of capitalist society. Fo, who is clown, serious actor, director, designer, and playwright has worked closely with his wife, Franca Rame, both of them acting in plays, almost all written by one or both of them. Their work is closely associated with the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, but updated to engage with contemporary audiences on issues of immediate relevance.

After 1969, most of their plays were performed in found spaces: in factories, on farms, in public squares, and always with a minimum of scenery. They include such plays as Mistero Buffo: Giullarata popolare (pr. 1969; Mistero Buffo: Comic Mysteries, 1983), Clacson, trombette e pernacche (pr. 1981, Trumpets and Raspberries, 1983), Johann Padan a la descoverta de le Americhe (pr. 1991; Johann and the discovery of the Americas), and Lu Santo Jullare Francesco (pr. 1997; the Holy Fool Saint Francis). In 1997, Fo won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His acceptance speech was itself a performance. His winning the Nobel Prize was highly controversial as it was the first time the prize had ever been awarded to a performer, and yet it was based on Fo’s commitment to a form of theater that addressed serious social issues in vibrant and comic ways.

Despite a perhaps distracting presence of a very active cinema and of the television industry, many other eloquent contributions to the Italian theater have been made by important literary authors and playwrights in the late twentieth century. A brief mention should be made at least of the still underrated theater of Vitaliano Brancati, with the highly erotic themes of his later production; of the existentially meaningful Un caso clinico (pb. 1953; a clinical case) and L’uomo che andrà in America (pb. 1962; the man who will go to America), by Dino Buzzati; of the mystical and, at the same time, religiously modern L’avventura di un povero cristiano (pb. 1968; The Story of a Humble Christian, 1971), by ; and of the five controversial political tragedies by , in which he uses the representation of sexual extremes and physical violence to condemn all forms of violence.

Other late twentieth-century playwrights of note include Alberto Moravia, who adapted some of his narrative works for the theater and wrote some of the most important and stimulating plays of the postwar period, including Il mondo è quello che è (pr. 1966; The World’s the World, 1970), Il dio Kurt (pb. 1968; God Kurt), and La vita è gioco (pb. 1969; life is a game); Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, with his pessimistic ironic outlook in plays such as D’amore si muore (pr. 1958; one can die of love) and Anima nera (pr. 1960; black soul); Natalia Ginzburg, with the extremely successful Ti ho sposato per allegria (pr. 1966; I married you for fun) and L’inserzione (pb. 1967; The Advertisement, 1969); Dacia Maraini, with her strong ideological commitment and assertive feminist poetics in plays such as Manifesto dal carcere (pr. 1971; manifesto from the prisons) and La donna perfetta (pr. 1974; the perfect woman); and Carmelo Bene, an author, actor, and director who sought new directions in staging and representative techniques and who, with plays such as Salomé (pr. 1963), Faust o Margherita (pr. 1965), and Nostra signora dei Turchi (pr. 1966; our lady of the Turks), probed creatively into the realm of experimental theater.

In the postwar era, an important change came with the establishment of several theaters with fixed homes, resident companies, and strong modern directors who developed more ambitious and meaningful repertories. This was a development that the critic Silvio d'Amico had urged and campaigned for beginning in the 1920s. The new enterprises included the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, founded in 1947 by Paolo Grassi and Giorgio Strehler. The Piccolo Teatro of Rome was created by Orazio Costa in 1948, the Teatro Stabile of Genoa was established by Luigi Squarzina in 1952, and Gianfranco de Bosio led the Teatro Stabile of Turin. Of these, the most important and enduring has been the Piccolo Teatro of Milan. This institution contributed greatly to drama development in Italy in the second half of the twentieth century. It was founded in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Strehler has been among the most prominent directors in Italy, responsible for some of the finest productions and encouraging the work of emerging dramatists. The Piccolo was indeed little, housed in a former movie theater that the Nazis had used as a prison and interrogation house. It was an apt transformation, turning the facility into an instrument of civilized culture. It eventually outgrew the small theater, though never abandoned it. A newer theater was created by altering a box pit-and-gallery theater into a corrale-style theater (the Teatro Studio), and, in 1998, a new large facility opened after nearly twenty years in construction. Strehler died in 1998, just before the theater opening for which he had campaigned for so long.

These new institutions and others like them have strongly influenced playwrights' development in Italy. Playwrights no longer feel the impulse to send their plays elsewhere, as Pirandello did when he created his own company. Italian theater continued to evolve in the twenty-first century, with more than one thousand theaters operating across the country. Playwrights like Pippo Delbono and Emma Dante incorporate elements of socioeconomic and gender constructs in modern pieces of physical theater. The performers selected for the works are often non-professional individuals from traditionally marginalized groups. Other modern dramatists produce work that reflects their Italian heritage, such as Emma Dante's Bestie di Scena (2017; Stage Beasts). Additionally, performers, playwrights, composers, authors, and production teams have become more fluid than ever before. Each individual contributes to the production in their capacity, and they contribute to other areas where appropriate.

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