FUNDAMENTALS OF THEATER HISTORY

This course is part of the three-year degree course "Conservation and management of cultural heritage and activities" (TARS) and offers the essential elements for a first framing of the history of theater.
The specific objectives of the course are to provide a basic knowledge, a thematic introduction to the historical and theoretical elements of the discipline and a reference vocabulary, within the overall framework of the degree course.

1. Knowledge and understanding.
Achievement of a set of elements useful for the definition of theatrical studies and for the historical characterization of it. Acquisition of ibliographic tools useful for autonomously dealing with theatrical cultures in order to decipher their forms and contentes.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding.
Knowing hoiw to bring the theatrical literature back to specific cultural domains, recognizing, also on the basis of the relevant crtical literature, some peculiar traditions. Properly interpretation of examples examined in class, citing the interpretative tools of the most suitable bibliography for the purpose.

3. Ability to judge.
To be aware that interpretation can never be severed from in-depth knolewdge of prevoius criticism and historiography, and from the continous comparison of them with the most recently updated bibliographic data.

no prerequisites are foreseen

The topics covered in the lesson will be the following:
the poetics and theories of the theater;
the scenic space;
idea of ​​"scena".

Lettura di:

Alessandro Fontana, La scena, postfazione di P. Vescovo, Venezia, Marsilio, 2019;

Presenti nei materiali didattici caricati:

José Ortega y Gasset, Idea del teatro. Una abreviadura, Madrid 1946 (trad. it. Milano, Medusa edizioni, 2006)

Piermario Vescovo, Visorio, Visorio. Il luogo scenico tra Italia e Europa in Belloni G., Drusi R., a cura di, Il rinascimento italiano e l’Europa. II. Umanesimo ed educazione, Treviso, Angelo Colla - Fond. Cassamarca, pp. 259-296
W. Benjamin, Destino e carattere, in ID., Angelus Novus. Saggi e frammenti, a cura di S. Solmi, Torino, Einaudi. 1962


Un volume a scelta tra i seguenti (per la parte cronologicamente interssata dal corso):

Il teatro e le arti. Un confronto tra linguaggi, a cura di L. Allegri, Roma, Carocci, 2017

Leggere il teatro. Dieci testi esemplari, a cura di L. Allegri, Roma, Carocci, 2023.

La drammaturgia occidentale. Scrivere per il teatro dall'antichità ad oggi, Roma, Carocci, 2024

Alle fonti del teatro. Documenti per la storia dello spettacolo in occidente, a cura di L. Allegri – F. Cotticelli, Roma, Carocci, 2022
Claudio Vicentini, La recitazione teatrale. Dal mondo antico alla scena digitale, Venezia, Marsilio, 2023

The exam includes a written essay on a topic of student’s choice, which apply methodological perspectives and the tools offered during the course. The term paper is discussed during the oral exam.

The exam is structured in two parts:
- a written essay, which deals with the application of the essential analysis tools (especially formal) and the personal study of a topic or topic among those dealt with during the course, freely chosen by the student;
- an oral discussion of the same
The verification thus concerns the exposition in written and oral form and aims at a balanced coexistence between theoretical and applied knowledge, reference to the general program and personal elaboration.

The essay consists of a work of about ten pages, provides a formal analysis according to a model proposed during the lessons and a free thematic-problematic analysis of the content.
The essay is then discussed during the oral examination, which may eventually also take up the central issues presented during the course.

The double form of the written work and the oral discussion is considered to allow a wider possibility of verification.
The exam will be about the autonomy of judgment, communication abilities and learning skills that students must acquire.
For this purpose the establishment of an "open" program was successfully tested: in this program the student choose texts and detailed studies in addition to what is analyzed in lectures, of which the final part, after establishing the bases of the course is devoted to proposals in this direction.

Italian

written and oral