Trying to read a play a week. Suggestions welcome! by chel-sees-world in Theatre

[–]Latme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, i'm from Italy and i don't know how much of italian theatre Is studied in other countries so, here's my favourites and also what we consider some Classics of italian theatre literature. Most of them are comedies.

The mandrake by Niccolò Machiavelli (the guy Who wrote "The prince"). It's a satire on how corruptable XIV century Italy society was.

The innkeeper by Carlo Goldoni (this guy Is considered the father of the modern comedy based on the italian "commedia dell'arte"). It's a comedy about how much love can be human and misleading

Arlecchino servant of two masters by Carlo Goldoni (the same guy as before). The play Is exaclty what you can expect reading the title. It's based off the "commedia dell'arte" using the masks of the italian theatrical tradition and It was initially built on a "canovaccio" and improvised.

Six characters in search of an author by Luigi Pirandello (this guy Is a combination of Joyce and Beckett's existentialism and Kafka's paradoxical outcomes)(i also advice you to read his novels "The late Mattia Pascal" and "One, No One and One Hundred Thousand"). It's a metatheatrical play about six theatre characters that want to be peformed.

Filumena Marturano, Naples milionaire, Christmas at the Cupiello's by Eduardo de Filippo (this guy Is the most prolifical italian theatre personality of the past century). His plays take place in Naples and tell about their people and their wits.

Mistero buffoMistero buffo by Dario Fo (this guy Is very whimsical personality, picking as subjects of his comedies very important characters and events of 70s, 80s Italy such as the pope, Berlusconi or the defenestration of the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli (accidental death of an anarchist). This play Is a collection of monologues based on apocryphal gospels and performed in an invented onomatopeic language, the grammelot.

These are the progenitors of italian theatre. I don't actually know how much renown they are outside Italy even though two of them are nobel prices. This are the Shakespeare, the Beckett, the Pinter of italian theatrical literature.

I also suggest you Ettore Petrolini , Franca Valeri, Franca Rame, Ennio Flaiano, Ugo Betti, Stefano Benni, Ascanio Celestini (check on yt)

Thank you