RACCONTI DEL GRANDE ATTORE. TRA LA RACHEL E LA DUSE

The art of the Great Actors is one of the mysteries in the history of theatre. We have scant knowledge about their methods. One of the causes for our difficulty in understanding them lies in an incorrect use of historical memory, damaged by the profound changes in theatre of the beginning of the twentieth century. Their art has been examined through the eyes of the now dominant theatre, and judged on the basis of values and criteria extraneous to them. The book begins with investigating the Great Actor by addressing the issue of diversity in the theatre in which this phenomenon flourished, and by attempting to reconstruct the essential keys to the Great Actor’s creation system, and to understand it. In order to address this question, it is necessary to choose the most correct point of view from which to observe the phenomenon: the Art of the Great Actor cannot be dealt with frontally, it requires angle perspectives because it is shaped by moments of fracture which are presently difficult to evaluate, at times even difficult to accept. These Stories explore the specific relationships that the actors entertained with characters, authors and audience, as well as the relationship between the actors and specific stages of life, such as prime youth and old age. The focus is on particular moments and elements: the relation between the actors and the marginality of their life; the “dance element” which spans throughout theatre; the capacity of some Great Actors to masterfully interweave the “male” and the “female” in their art