The Maniac as the Apocryphal Intervento: How Form Determines Substance in Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist

The Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970) is one of famed Italian play-wright Dario Fo, written as a response the neo-fascist tension that reached a boiling point in during the ‘Hot Autumn.’ A period of immense turmoil in late 20th -cemtury Italy. The play draws from the conventions of the Brechtian form and commedia dell’arte, aptly transforming them into mechanisms that can help both the play and spectators subvert the high cultures of Gramscian cultural hegemony, absorbed into ADA’s comic microcosm. This essay explores how political and theatrical realms are immortalised and then pit against each other through the course of the play, with the character of the Maniac acting as a rhetorical device acting as the connection between the two. In essence, this paper believes that Style is considered over substance in many of the styles of theatre Accidental Death operates within; the stylistic elements that quantitatively constitute the Brechtian form, commedia dell’arte, and farce allow them to subvert the ‘high cultures’ that are held culpable in Gramscian cultural hegemony, all of which ADA absorbs into its comic microcosm. This leads to a sustained paradox between the political and theatrical dimensions of the play, where the theatrical lends credence to the political though the use of fictional formal elements.

El cardenal Espinosa y Mateo Vázquez de Leca: su influencia en la actividad teatral de Miguel de Cervantes

When Cervantes returned from his captivity in Algiers, he began a prolific period as a theatrical playwright. It was then, between 1581 and 1591, that he wrote numerous comedies, tragedies, and sacramental autos. Cervantes’s theatrical training, however, is a mystery. He only remembers his youthful attendance of theatrical performances by Lope de Rueda, but he does not write anything about the Italian Commedia dell’arte, for example. In this article, I propose to study the influence of the ‘confessional’ politics of Cardinal Espinosa and Mateo Vázquez (1565-1591) on the theatrical conception of Miguel de Cervantes, as well as the influence of Juan López de Hoyos and Alonso Getino de Guzmán on his theatrical apprenticeship.

Introduction

The revolutionary advent of actresses in the commedia dell’arte had a profound impact on the all-male stage. The transnational circulation of Italian texts, roles, topoi, and players prompted the emergence of the Italian-style innamorata in the drama of Shakespeare and his peers. As novelties who quickly became star attractions, the best actresses of Italy expanded on the bold innamorata of erudita drama, making her more poetic and versatile, qualities that enabled the actress to cross divides of genre, gender, and race. Theatricality and autonomy came to characterize these new female protagonists, roles created to display the prima donna’s glamour and skill. The diva’s fame leapt across borders as troupes ventured across the Alps to Vienna, Paris, and Madrid. In the 1570s, the “theatergram of the actress” took root in England. After the comici performed for Elizabeth and for popular audiences, Lyly, Kyd, Marlowe, and others wrote groundbreaking plays featuring ardent women in love on the Italian model. In sum, the Shakespearean stage drew on the diva’s role-playing, materials, and methods to bring crowd-pleasing foreign “women” to a theater without women.

Is the Dance Still in the Music? Chaconne Compositions from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century

<p>This thesis looks at the relationship of dance to the music with which it is performed, and how consideration of the dance component in the music, whether literal or implied, can influence and even inspire a musical performance today. As a contemporary point of reference, the introduction briefly describes Douglas Lilburn's Chaconne (1946) for piano, and the composer's inspiration of walking the west coast of New Zealand's South Island. After describing the history of the chaconne - its Spanish introduction to Europe as a peasant dance, to Italy and the commedia dell'arte, to France where it was adopted by the court, and then the rest of Europe - chapter one discusses the general inter-relationship of dance and music. The arts of dance and music were considered equal in Europe prior to the eighteenth century. Continuing with defining the term "dance music," the chapter then considers other Baroque dance-types, illustrating how the chaconne is representative of the genre. It further defines the chaconne as describing a journey, thus providing a basis for a comparison of chaconnes written through the centuries and around the world. The chaconne's role, and dance generally, in the theatre of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is discussed in chapter two. The fifteen extant Baroque dances for which notations are available are discussed in chapter three, with four of them being analysed in detail using seventeenth-century rhetorical theories of Bary and Lamy, as defined and applied in twentieth-century analyses of Baroque dance by Ranum, Maher, and Schwartz. Three chaconne dances for the commedia dell'arte character, Harlequin are also discussed. Chapter four looks at the music of the chaconne, analyses the corresponding music for the four dances studied in chapter three, and then considers the interaction between these dance and music examples. Chapter five concludes with a discussion of modern performance practices for dance and music, and the current contrasting trends of careful consideration being given to performance of Baroque music, but the general lack of equivalent sensitivity to any dance that is deemed "old." A study of two contrasting recordings of Lilburn's Chaconne follows: one dance-spirited, the other with an intellectual approach. A similarly detailed examination of Jose Limon's choreography Chaconne (1942) demonstrates a careful consideration of the music on a par with the Baroque dances discussed. Several appendices are included. After a brief introduction, Beauchamp-Feuillet Notation and How to Read It, fifteen notated Baroque-chaconnes in this notation schema are included, with a brief description preceding each one. This is followed by a selective list of twentieth-century choreographies either titled chaconne or to chaconne music, and selective lists of chaconne music, separated into before and after 1800. In addition to the written thesis, live performance of the noble dance Chacone of Amadis and the grotesque Chacoon for a Harlequin was undertaken as an integral part of the study. A DVD recording of this event is included with this volume.</p>