意大利教授讲稿.doc

Stage-direction and drama I want to say first of all that in the Western culture the first forms of performance we still have some traces of date back to the fifth century before. C. and they harmoniously combined song and recitation; that is to say: there was a text (written by an author before the staging and learnt by heart by the actors during the rehearsals) and this text on the stage was partially sung and partially recited, said by the actors. In the performances of the pre-Christian age that, incidentally, arose and developed in Greece the dance was a fundamental part and had an important role.Today we dont know exactly how song, recitation (speech) and dance were combined, but we know well that they were simultaneously present.We can say that between the sixth century b. C. and nowadays the recited part grew more and more and took a bigger and bigger power, to such an extent that in many forms of Western theatre song and dance totally have disappeared. But, of course, this is true only if we speak in a very general way. In fact, today and during the previous 2500 years, some forms of performance combined recitation, song and dance in various ways, and other forms combined two of them. The most long-lived example is the Italian opera, that arose in 1600 and that today still exists.Nowadays in the Western culture the most popular is the theatre which is only “spoken”, “said”, without dance and song. We can say that it was born in the fifteenth century in Italy, in the period that we call Renaissance, when some researchers found the Greek and Latin ancient theatrical texts, i. e. the dramas written in Greece and in Rome: in Greece by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes during the centuries before Christ, and in Rome by other authors as Plautus, Terence and Seneca some centuries later than in Greece. As I said, in the ancient times these texts were recited, sung and danced (or rather: they were staged in this way in Greece; the situation of Latin theatre was a bit different). In any case, when the Italian authors of the Renaissance found these ancient texts, they thought that they were only recited, and they began to write some dramas modelled on the ancient dramas and they began to stage them through recitation, without song and dance, because they thought that in that way they were staged in Greece and in Rome. I said “drama”, but I must specify. In English, as in Italian, in French and in German, “drama” can be used in a strict sense or in a broad sense. In the broadest sense of the term, it means: “any kind of written theatrical text”. In the strict sense of the word, it means a particular kind of written theatrical text. Lets specify. In the Renaissance, there were essentially two genres of theatrical texts: tragedy and comedy. The characters of the tragedy were noble men and gods, while the characters of the comedy belonged to lower-class. Tragedy dealt with serious arguments, comedy with light arguments. The ending of tragedy was always sad; comedy had an happy ending. Both the genres had to respect some rules, the so-called Aristotelian rules: they had to be set only in a place (for example, a square); the plot had to have a fictitious length of twelve hours, not more; and the action of the plot had to be only one: it was necessary to avoid to represent, for example, two different histories of love: only one history of love. Drama (and now I am speaking of drama in the strict sense of the word) was born a couple of centuries later, and it was a mixed genre, in which the features of tragedy and comedy coexisted and in which the so-called Aristotelian rules could not to be respected.I must immediately specify that the theatre that is only recited always obviously used sceneries and costumes and, according to the kind of performance, they were very rich and expansive or, on the contrary, very poor and essential. From ancient times, in this theatre someone was entrusted with the task of coordinating the various scenic components. Sometimes this task was taken by the main actor, sometimes by the author of the written text, sometimes by the scene designer (in particular this task was given the scene designer in Italy during the XVI and the XVII centuries; an example: the Italian Giacomo Torelli). Anyway, the coordination was always very rudimentary up to the XIX century and it was connected with practical reasons, it was not supported by theoretical grounds, by aesthetical reasons. For example, in Italy and in Germany in the XVIII century the person who usually coordinated the performance was the main actor, but he carried out this function in a very cursory way: the actors had to learn by heart their part by themselves and then they rehearsed on stage for two or three days, not more. On a so short time it was obviously possible to define more or less the positions of the actors on stage, the moments in which they had to enter or to go out of the stage. Little more. Each actor chose his way to interpret his character, but his way of interpretation could not to agree with the way of another actor who played in the same performance. The troupe possessed two or three sceneries and used them, always those ones, for many different performances. Each actor had to procure his costume, so, among the various costumes of the same performance, the stylistic unity lacked.The conception of a person who coordinates the performance and who pretends that every scenic component obeys a generating idea, so that all the actors, the dcor and the costumes follow one generating principle, obey one methodical mind, was born at the beginning of the XIX century in Paris, France. This new phenomenon is called stage-direction. Stage-direction was invented by the authors of the plays, i. e. of the written theatrical texts. More specifically, the very first stage-directors were the great French authors of the early XIX century: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas pre, Alfred de Vigny, and so on. They were interested in maintaining their conception of the text, they didnt want their texts to be misunderstood by the actors. So, in accordance with the administrators of the theatres, they decided to direct the actors rehearsals explaining them how to play their characters, how to modulate their voice, they asked them to make specific gestures on stage, etc. These authors also explained the scene designer which kind of dcor they would desire and they required all the actors costumes to be designed and realised by a costume designer so that they could be stylistically uniform. And the stage-director explained the costume designer which kind of costumes he wanted. In short, every scenic component in the show obeyed the ideas of a single person the stage-director , every scenic component was decided by the same mind, so that the work was not anymore disjoined: it became unified and “harmonious”. The amount of time employed to lay out the performance is significant: while in the XVIII century the rehearsals went on for two or three days, at the beginning of the XIX century in Paris the rehearsals went on for two or three months. This is evidence of the bigger care devoted to the realisation of the performance and of the coordination among all its components. However the originality of this phenomenon did not only lay in the better coordination. The stage-director also considered the theatrical performance as an artistic genre whose languages (acting, scenery, costumes) could (and therefore had to) produce a sense. Each theatre language, in short, is potentially able to speak, and therefore the stage-director took on the task to make it speak, to make it express some sense. For the stage-directors of the XIX century, scenery, costumes and lightening had not to be only decorative, ornamental: they had to be bearers of sense. I will try to give you an example of one of the very first mises en scne created by a stage-director: Ill describe the mise en scne of a drama entitled Chatterton, whose text is written by Alfred de Vigny and whose premire, staged in Paris in 1835, was directed by the same person, i. e. Alfred de Vigny. Here the word “drama” is right in both senses: in the board and in the strict sense. We have the possibility to analyse this work because someone, probably an administrator of the Comdie-Franais, the theatre in which Chatterton was performed, in 1835 thought to describe all its components and to publish its description in a journal, because a library holds the plan of the decors, because we can read many reviews of that period, etc The documents describing the first mise en scne of Chatterton are numerous and very useful. Lets begin from the plot. (The plot is very simple because Alfred de Vigny, as he explains, would like to underline the “inner plot”, the characters psychology instead of the adventures, the material, concrete events). Chatterton, an English poet, lives in a little room in a house belonging to the rich industrialist John Bell. Chatterton is a tenant. Chatterton loves Kitty, John Bells good and sensitive young wife. Kitty loves Chatterton too, but she doesnt confess her love. Or rather: she confesses it only towards the end of the drama. An old Quaker goes regularly to John Bells house: he is a good friend of the Bell family and he is a good and generous man. While the Quaker, Kitty Bell and Chatterton are very sensitive persons, John Bell and his friends of the British upper classes are materialistic and perfectly integrated with the capitalist society. Chatterton at the end kills himself because nobody understands and loves his poetry, and Kitty Bell, who feels her love for Chatterton as a guilty love even if she remained chaste and pure, dies overwhelmed with grief. Description of the theatre - Descrizione del tipo di teatro, che non esattamente un teatro allitaliana, ma simile The dcor was three-dimensional and practically usable by the actors, it was not simply ornamental. Almost all the mise en scne was set in the living-room of John Bells house. In this living-room the public saw three doors, chairs, armchairs, tables and, above all, a long stair leading upstairs; specifically to the first floor. At the top of the stair, i. e. at the first floor, there was a landing with a rail, and, on the landing, on the other side of the rail, a door opened on to Chattertons little room. Description of the plan -Portare pianta (plan) della scenografia e descriverla /mobili: pieces of furniture. As we can understand, this scenery was created specifically for this specific performance. Nicolas Schan, the creator of this dcor, discussed with Alfred de Vigny about it before creating it. Vigny also discussed with Eugne Giraud, the costume designer, about the costumes. All the costumes were designed by the same person, so that they were stylistically homogeneous. Alfred de Vigny, finally, directed the actors rehearsals, which lasted about two months and a half. The environment that Vigny and Schan created was a symbolic one and also the movements of the characters were symbolic: the ground-floor with John Bells living-room represented the materiality and the roughness of the world personified by John Bell and his friends (and they walked only at the ground-floor, they never went up the stairs, they moved only horizontally). Only Chatterton, the Quaker and Kitty Bell, the pure characters of this drama, moved up the stair and entered Chattertons little room, at the first floor, i. e. on a higher level. A room in which Chatterton wrote his wonderful poems, where he created his magnificent and unappreciated art. Chatterton, Kitty Bell and the Quaker “were able” to climb vertically, not only to move horizontally, they could reach a level higher than the materialistic level, they could reach the level of spirituality, of poetry and of art. The positions of the characters on stage were symbolic too. In particular, when Chatterton and Kitty were both present on stage, some other character (sometimes many characters) took a place between Chatterton and Kitty, so that Chatterton and Kitty were never close and the others seemed to be the obstacles for their union. This and other ways of organising the usage of the space could necessarily be the result of only one mind; and this mind was Alfred de Vignys mind. This is demonstrated also by the “geometric” structure of some scenes. For example, in the first scene Kitty heard behind the scene John Bells angry voice and she prophetically whispered: “His voice shakes me. I cant breath. His voice breaks my heart”, and then she dropped on a chair, holding the Bible, the principal book of her religion. In the last scene of the play Kitty discovered the man she loved, Chatterton, dying in his little room at the first floor, she moved back and knocked her back against the rail and then she rolled down the stair making a very acrobatic action Description of falling - descrizione con pianta: Marie Dorval, the actress who interpreted Kitty Bell, was a very competent one in acrobatics, because she was educated in the so-called “little theatres” of Paris, where acrobatics was a very important specialization. When Kitty/Dorval arrived at the base of the stair, she heard, as in the first scene, the angry voice of her husband calling her, she stood up frightened, she held the Bible and then fell on an armchair, dead. So, in the first scene Kitty made a little fall anticipating symbolically her inner suffering, in the last one, she made an enormous tumble, that is a repetition of bigger proportions of the first scene: the final scene was the “explosion” (we can say) of Kittys inner suffering and this suffering carried her to the death. Each character respected a Leitmotiv: Kitty was marked out with the motif of falling: she often collapsed on the chairs during the play, and the objects fell from her hands. It seems that this feature symbolically wanted to represent the fragility of a too sensitive creature and, for this reason, unable to support the weight of her living conditions.Chattertons (Geffroy) Leitmotiv was the lack of rhythmic homogeneity: in some moments he moved slowly and in a hesitating way, in other moments he moved quickly and in a tense way. For example, the first time he went down the stairs, he proceeded with calm; when he returned upstairs, he ran. It seems to be a way to underline Chattertons restlessness and his inner suffering. John Bell (Guiaud), a rich, powerful industrial, made firm, strong, direct actions. The Quaker (Joanny) was often seated not only because he was old: this position also represented his inner equilibrium. And so on. In any case, the study of the characters accomplished by the actors with Alfred de Vigny was very elaborate. The relationship among all the actors and, as I demonstrated, between the actors and the dcor was very solid. Every scenic component obeyed the stage-directors ideas.In the same period in Paris there were many different genres of performance, exactly as in London, the other important capital of the theatre in the XIX century in Europe. Lets concentrate on Paris. The presence of different genres of performance were induced by the laws on the theatres. In fact, it provided that every theatre had to have a patent and this patent fixed the kind of performance this theatre was authorised to stage. Only two theatres in Paris the Comdie-Franaise and the Odon could stage the recited only recited performances. All the other theatres had to use only music and dance, or partially music and partially recitation, or pantomime and a little bit of recitation, and so on. So, the Opra staged only Italian opera and ballet, that is to say only genres without recitation: in Italian opera sing was the prevailing part of the performance; in ballet the dancers moved and danced at the same rhythm of the music without speaking. Ballet represented a story, but this story was expressed through the movements of the body, not through speech. Ballet used a particular language for expressing this plot, and this language was called pantomime. Pantomime copied, more or less, the gestures of everyday life; so, for example, in order to represent a man eating, the dancers sat down at a table and made the actions of a man eating. Ballet combined pantomime and “pure” dance, i. e. dance without meaning, made only of decorative movements. The Italian opera was very probably directed by a stage-director. In the ballet the choreographer directed the dancers; there wasnt a real stage-director. In other Parisian theatres pantomime without music was performed. This was the case of the Thtre des Funambules, a little, popular theatre where a mime became very famous: Jean Gaspard Debureau.The most popular performance in the Romantic age was mlodrame