OVERVIEW

In the astonishing and misleading archives of theatre documents, written texts are those that still today influence us most because of quantity, facility of transmission (publication) and autonomous poetic value; but a pathway aimed at functional understanding - in historical as well as current terms - has to consider them in their physiology, as entertainment projects - as the very etymology of the term dramaturgy indicates, composition and production of plays, from drama (genitive dramatos) + ergos worker.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to give students examples and critical examples to appreciate the function of dramaturgy in an anthropological perspective, that is, the way in which actions literally operate, interact and finally activate an performance project in theatre in which actors and spectators are equally co-constituents (and thus from the beginning explicit or implicit variables of the text); in relation to both the cursus of literary studies and the performance curriculum.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to give students examples and critical examples to appreciate the function of dramaturgy in an anthropological perspective, that is, the way in which actions literally operate, interact and finally activate an performance project in theatre in which actors and spectators are equally co-constituents (and thus from the beginning explicit or implicit variables of the text); in relation to both the cursus of literary studies and the performance curriculum.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures with audiovisual material and practical exercises.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The ‘scene’ (from skèné, ‘tent’), before being a place of representation is the ‘threshold’ beyond which the invisible becomes visible, the ‘open door’ that Peter Brook talks about; thus dramaturgy is first and foremost a project of staging what was off-stage, an unveiling that operated according to three main directives: as an organising principle and stimulus for physical actions of actors (the “dramaturgy of actions” from Aristotle to the Commedia dell’Arte to Stanislavskij); as an exploration and dilation of collaboration mechanisms between actors and spectators (“meta-theatre” from Shakespeare to Brecht to Sinisterra); as a permanent lexical and syntactical creation (from the theatrical languages of Ruzante, Arlecchino, Testori to the so-called “dialects”).

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

ROBERTO CUPPONE (President)

LIVIA CAVAGLIERI

LESSONS

Class schedule

DRAMATURGY

EXAMS

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Evaluation concerns in equal parts (3/3) a) knowledge of information content of prescribed texts, b) capacity to critically elaborate their contents, and c) initiatives of more thorough personal study.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students are advised to contact teaching staff to obtain bibliographical indications or material on lectures; to resolve any problems concerning availability of texts; to agree on motivated variations to the programme.