Franco Perrelli: On Ibsen and Strindberg: The Reversed Telescope

Abstract

In his 2015 monograph, Strindberg l’italiano – 130 anni di storia scenica (Edizioni di Pagina, Bari), Franco Perrelli covers the reception of the author in Italy from 1884 (which marks the visit of Strindberg to Italy) to 2014, in a chronological and most comprehensive way. In his recent volume, On Ibsen and Strindberg: The Reversed Telescope, he has published nine articles in English on the reception of either Ibsen or Strindberg, or both. While eight of these essays have been previously published, one of them, “Strindberg in the Italian Nineteenth-Century Theatrical Canon” was presented at the twentieth International Strindberg Conference in Krakow in 2017 and appears in print for the first time (Ch. 6, 65–76). In it Perrelli addresses key factors relating not only to Strindberg, but to theatrical reception at the end of the nineteenth century, in general, including the fame and impact of the actors involved, and the primary importance of the translations and adaptations undertaken for the stagings. Ermete Zacconi (1857–1948), who had gained fame playing Osvald in Ibsen’s Ghosts, played the Captain in The Father, “creating the illusion that his own gaze, voice and gestures were the character’s instead” (as quoted on 67–68, from Zacconi’s obituary in Il dramma in 1948). Perrelli offers a very detailed analysis of changed words (where for instance, “mineralogy” has been translated as “meteorology”, 70), lines and instructions, which proves beyond doubt that these early translations were meticulous adaptations to fit both the stars that staged them and the sensitivities of the receiving culture. Apart from touching upon the accuracy of the early translations, a topic that has not been thoroughly studied in a systematic manner in relation to Strindberg or Ibsen,