Luigi Pirandello in the Theatre

Susan Bassnett, Jennifer Lorch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134351213
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

First Published in 1993. Contemporary Theatre Studies is a book series of special interest to everyone involved in theatre. This collection of documents is the first attempt in English to bring together a body of material on Luigi Pirandello as multi-faceted man of the theatre. Because relatively few of his works have been easily available to English language readers, he is thought of most frequently as a playwright, the author of Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV in particular, and his contribution to theatre, both in theory and in practice, has tended to be overlooked. Emphasising his role as a director, the book traces the rise and fall of his own theatre company, the Teatro d'Arte where he struggled to instil new practices and comments on Pirandello's attempts during the years of Fascism to give Italy a national theatre in a European context.

SECTION III: THE TEATRO D’ARTE 1923–1928

Introduction

Initially persuaded to write for the theatre almost despite himself, by the autumn of 1924 Pirandello had an established reputation as a playwright. At least one of his plays had been presented in fourteen countries. It was at this time that a group of people, later referred to as “the eleven”, who wanted to establish an art theatre in Rome, approached Pirandello to ask him to be a figure-head in such an enterprise and also to direct the theatrical company. The understanding was that they would form a joint stock company with each founding member putting in 5,000 lire and approach public bodies, including the national government, for supporting funds. It is a measure of Pirandello’s enthusiasm for the project that though in the first instance he put in the same sum as the others, he agreed to direct the theatrical company without remuneration; and later, as the financial situation deteriorated, Pirandello sank large sums of money into the enterprise.

The Art Theatre was to be a multiple venture. It was to be what would now be referred to as an arts centre, for a well-to-do and fairly cultured public, in which a range of activities would take place: plays, dance, concerts and exhibitions. It was also to be a home for a theatrical company chosen by Pirandello in conjunction with other founding members. The theatrical company was to be financed separately from the theatre itself and the company would be expected to tour in Italy and abroad, as well as provide a season of plays in Rome. Pirandello envisaged the company as both ambassador and advertisement for Italy in foreign countries. The venture was to be financed both by the state and by private enterprise.

There were several elements of this plan that were neither new nor unique. There had been brief experiment with a National Theatre in the early twenties. There had been previous attempts in Italy to set up art theatres, the best known and longest surviving of which was Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Teatro degli Indipendenti in Rome. This became a centre for the innovatory and the avant-garde; it held Saturday causeries, showed exhibitions (Virgilio Marchi, the architect for Pirandello’s theatre and stage designer of some of his plays, held the first exhibition of futurist architecture there) and a number of contemporary plays were presented at the little theatre, among them Pirandello’s The Man with the Flower in his Mouth (L’Uomo dal fiore in bocca) in February 1922. None of these ventures, however, combined a theatre with a touring company, none of them had a figurehead as prestigious as Pirandello and none of them had attempted mixed funding on the same scale.

The approach to the government for a subsidy came at the time when Fascism in Italy was at its lowest ebb. The murder of the socialist deputy Matteotti on 10 June 1924 caused a number of people to hesitate in their allegiance to the party as it seemed all too clear that the Fascist hierarchy was implicated in the crime. The later murder of Casalini on 11 September was thought by some to be a retaliation from the opponents to Fascism. There were fears of instability, possibly anarchy. It was at this juncture that Pirandello joined the Fascist party. His involvement with Fascism and his relationship with the party is a complex issue but one that cannot be separated from his activities as a man of the theatre. In October of the previous year, Pirandello, along with others, had written a highly rhetorical piece in the Idea nazionale (National Idea) congratulating Mussolini on the first anniversary of the march on Rome but had made no move to join the party at this point. On 12 September 1924, that is one day after the murder of Casalini, he applied for membership by sending a telegram to the editor of L’lmpero (The Empire). This was followed up by an interview with the editor, Telesio Interlandi, which was published in the paper of 19 September. The letter we include from Stefano Pirandello to Claudio Argentieri (Document no. 24), which mentions the successful visit to Mussolini on behalf of the Teatro d’Arte is dated 1 October. As Giudice has indicated, Pirandello joined the Fascist part as ostentatiously as he could so that he could gain maximum advantage and credit for his act; and throughout his life, he made a point of making public statements and gestures that emphasised his allegiance to the party and its policies.¹ For instance, he made certain he was in Italy at strategic moments, such as at the declaration of the Ethiopian war, and gave his Nobel prize gold medal, along with other pieces of gold, to be melted down for the cause. Furthermore, though it would be difficult to see any play, novel or short story as a direct apology for Fascism, there is evidence from newspaper articles and interviews that Pirandello liked to be thought to hold anti-democratic views. After his return from the United States in early 1924, he said in a much quoted interview with Villaroel for II giornale d’Italia (8 May 1924) that he considered the American way of life too democratic, that the masses needed someone to guide them, and he himself was anti-democratic par excellence; views he repeated more than once during his lifetime. On the other hand, his wishes and instructions concerning his death (that there be no public funeral, that his body be cremated and the ashes scattered) seemed a gesture to thwart the fascists from gaining any advantage from his death. Though a few of his plays found favour with the hierarchy, for instance The New Colony (La nuova colonia), Pirandello had to tread very carefully both at home and abroad; a number of statements he made indicate that he knew he was being watched. As the letter from Salvini to Interlandi (Document no. 45) implies, Pirandello found it difficult to barter his prestige for the funds he wanted, and though on that particular occasion in 1926 he did not carry out his threat to leave Italy, he later went to Germany on a fairly permanent basis and his last years were spent for the most part living in hotel rooms in foreign cities with only occasional visits to Italy. And no less than six of his premières were presented in foreign cities.

In October of 1924, however, as Stefano Pirandello’s letter to Claudio Argentieri suggests, all seemed possible. The exitement of transforming the Odescalchi theatre where Podrecca had shown his famous puppet company before he began his world-wide tour in 1924, into an intimate, well-furbished theatre remained high during the winter and spring of 1925. All the reviews of the opening night indicated that the venture was a success and had won approval from a number of people both at home and abroad. However, only a few months later, while the company was gaining acclaim in London and Paris, Renzo Rendi, the man left behind to look after the administration of the theatre, was having anything but a happy time. Debts were mounting, the subsidy had been spent. Mussolini entrusted one of his higher officials, Count Giacomo Suardo, Undersecretary of State for the President’s Office of the Cabinet, with the task of raising money from individual patrons and firms; he also received an investigatory report from D. Razza, General Secretary of the National Theatre Guild, on how the money had been spent so far. By 1 September 1925, Pirandello had agreed to continue to take artistic responsibility for the company but wanted nothing more to do with the administration. Altho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Introduction to the Series
• Acknowledgements
• Illustrations
• The Documents and their Sources
• Preface
• Introduction
• Section I: Theoretical Beginnings and Early Practice (1899–1922)
• Section II: International Dramatist: Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV (1921–1925)
• Section III: The Teatro d’Arte (1924–1928)
• Section IV: The Later Years and After (1929–1967)
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• References and Select Bibliography
• Index