At the Piccolo Teatro of Milan Between
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Masks and Masked Performance in Giorgio Strehler's Vision of the Commedia dell'Arte by Gabrielle Houle A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Gabrielle Houle 2013 Masks and Masked Performance in Giorgio Strehler's Vision of the Commedia dell'Arte Gabrielle Houle Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies University of Toronto 2013 Abstract This thesis examines the role of solid and painted masks in Giorgio Strehler's successive stagings of Carlo Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan between 1947 and 1997. Through my description and analysis of documentary evidence about these stagings, the Piccolo Teatro, Giorgio Strehler, his mask-makers Amleto and Donato Sartori, his actors, and lighting designer, I demonstrate that masks were used in the above-mentioned productions as rhetorical tools that expressed Strehler's relationship with Goldoni (the man and his work), communicated his political convictions on stage, partook in his attempted reform of the Italian theatre after World War II, displayed his vision of theatre history, proved his endorsement of the actors' potential in performance, and helped position the Piccolo Teatro within an Italian and pan-European artistic elite. My examination of video recordings and photographs of the productions, letters of personal correspondence, theatre reviews, transcriptions of interviews, and programme notes, among other documents, traces the evolution of Strehler's interpretative vision of the Commedia dell'Arte over fifty years. This vision, as I argue in the introduction and conclusion to my thesis, helped shape how other theatre directors, educators, as well as actors, mask-makers, and, ii arguably, academics have come to imagine Goldoni's work, Commedia dell'Arte, and masked performance. A close study of Strehler's successive stagings of The Servant of Two Masters and of the use of masks within them will therefore allow for a better understanding of Strehler's trajectory in the theatre, but will also exemplify how the use of a particular theatrical object (the mask) in a series of productions that were successful worldwide influenced how many of us now perceive a performance tradition (Commedia), a theatre (the Piccolo Teatro), and a play (The Servant of Two Masters). iii Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my supervisor, Professor Domenico Pietropaolo, for his precious guidance and constant encouragements during this project; his wealth of experience in the field helped me navigate smoothly through the various stages of my doctoral thesis. I also want to thank the two other members of my dissertation committee, Professor Martin Revermann and Professor John Astington, for their insightful comments, advice, and generosity. Thank you also to my external examiner, Professor Christopher Innes, whose questions and comments opened up onto fields of inquiry that I plan to pursue in the next stages of my research. Thank you, finally, to Professor Stephen B. Johnson, to the various faculty members of the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, and to the technical and administrative staff of this Centre (especially Luella Massey, Robert Moses and Marc Goodman), whose teachings, support, and good humour enhanced my learning experience at the University of Toronto. This thesis would not have been possible without the financial support of the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, as well as the School of Graduate Studies, University College, and the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. I am truly grateful for this support. My project also owes a great debt of gratitude to the archivists, academics, and artists I met in 2009 when I conducted field research in Italy. Many thanks to Piccolo Teatro archivist Franco Viespro and to his assistant Giovanni Venegoni. Thank you also to Eleonora Vasta, who helped me organize a series of interviews with several Piccolo Teatro actors in Montreal in iv 2008, and in Milan in 2009. I am most grateful to actors Giorgio Bongiovanni, Enrico Bonavera, Tommaso Minniti, and Ferruccio Soleri; to actresses Giulia Lazzarini, Narcisa Bonati, and Andrea Jonasson-Strehler; to mime instructor Marise Flach; to lighting designer Claudio De Pace; and, last but not least, to architect Paola Piizzi and mask-maker Donato Sartori from the Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali in Abano Terme. Their generosity in interview gave me more material to work from than I had hoped for. Special thanks, as well, to Lia Cotarella, from the Milano Teatro Scuola Paolo Grassi; to Matteo Sartorio, archivist at the Biblioteca Livia Simoni - Palazzo Busca (Fondazione Teatro alla Scala); to Anna Claut, from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice; to the archivists of the Centro APICE (Archivi della Parola, dell'Immagine e della Communicazione Editoriale) at the University of Milan, where I consulted the large and helpful Fondo Scheiwiller; to the archivists of the Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova at the University of Padua; and to Mariella Magliani from the Biblioteca civica di Padova for making my documentary research easier and fruitful. I also wish to extend my gratitude to Professor Paolo Bosisio, whom I met at the University of Milan in 2009, and to Damiano Pietropaolo. Both of them gave me documents on Giorgio Strehler that served me well during my project. Thank you also to the teaching staff of the School of Graduate Studies’ English Language Writing Support (ELWS) at the University of Toronto, and to my dear friends Amanda Lockitch and Jennifer Heywood who helped me revise the phrasing of my English translations of French and Italian documents during the last stages of my project. v Lastly, I would like to thank my parents, Berthe Jacques and Serge Houle, for their encouragements and support. Thank you also to my partner Justin Blum, who has patiently listened to me talk about this thesis for the past few years. I dedicate this project to tante Hélène, who would have enjoyed it. vi Table of Contents List of figures.....................................................................................................................................ix Introduction........................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1. Strehler as Goldoni redivivus .................................................................................... 10 1.1 Strehler on Goldoni ..............................................................................................................................11 1.2 Goldoni's reform: towards character comedies and realism..............................................................17 1.3 Strehler's theatre discourse: renewing the Italian stage in the twentieth century.............................24 1.4 “Undoing” Goldoni to materialize his vision: the example of The Servant of Two Masters ..........31 Chapter 2. On the first Arlecchino mask: a painted face......................................................... 35 2.1 On Marcello Moretti's initial refusal of the mask ........................................................................36 2.1.1 First challenge: the general ignorance of masked performance in the Commedia dell'Arte tradition....................................................................................................................................................................................37 2.1.2 Second challenge: the inadequate masks in the production..................................................................41 2.1.3 Third challenge: the actor’s psychological resistance to the mask....................................................44 2.2 The painted face: description of Moretti's make-up...........................................................................48 2.3 On the press' reactions – or lack or reactions – to Moretti's painted face.........................................51 2.4 The ideology behind the 1947 production of The Servant of Two Masters at the Piccolo Teatro..56 2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................72 Chapter 3. Amleto Sartori's masks and mask-making process for The Servant of Two Masters.............................................................................................................................................. 78 3.1 Sartori's masks for the theatre prior to the Piccolo Teatro.................................................................82 3.1.1 The early years part 1: birth place, social class, and the grotesque style.......................................82 3.1.2 The early years part 2: apprenticeships, art school, and unemployment........................................90 3.1.3 Gianfranco De Bosio, Jacques Lecoq and the Teatro dell'Università..............................................95 3.2. Of paper and leather: Amleto Sartori's masks for The Servant of Two Masters ............................106 3.2.1 On Sartori's mask-making process................................................................................................................ 106 3.2.2 On Dottore, Pantalone, Brighella