Michael Vena (ed.). Italian Playwrights from the Twentieth Century.

Streifer, Monica

Michael Vena (ed.). Italian Playwrights from the Twentieth Century. Bloomington: XLibris, 2013.

In Italian Playwrights from the Twentieth Cenhiry, Michael Vena compiles thirteen essays on Italian dramatists of diverse aesthetic, formal, and thematic affinities. The exploration begins with Gabriele D'Annunzio at the fin-de-siecle, and ends with Dacia Maraini at the dawn of the new millennium. The goal of the volume is to provide an introductory overview of modern Italian playwrights and their works to an English-speaking audience. It includes essays on essential figures of the twentieth-century Italian theatrical panorama, such as Luigi Pirandello and Dario Fo, as well as studies of comparatively less well-known figures, such as Diego Fabbri and Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo. Most of the volume's contributions are general portraits of a single playwright: they provide relevant biographical information; an overview of major and minor works; a close reading of one or two plays in particular; and relevant context on the prevailing theatrical norms and tendencies of the time period, including how the playwright either embraced or eschewed them. Exceptions to this include Umberto Mariani's analysis of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Erin Larkin's effective study of Futurist performance. The chronology of staged productions at the beginning of the volume is a particularly helpful addition, and serves as a reference for the reader.

Italian Playwrights from the Twentieth Century would benefit from a cohesive introduction that articulates an overarching theme or concept to connect the essays. As published, the contributions are not linked in any way, thematically or otherwise. A justification of the volume's trajectory would be helpful and could answer key questions such as: why are these dramatists the most important of twentieth-century Italy; how and where do their oeuvres intersect, if at all; and, what do their careers elucidate about the role of drama in the production of modern Italian culture and society? While organizing an edited volume around a time period--especially one as rich as the twentieth century--is a sensible approach, it nonetheless requires an explanation of its boundaries and a rationale of its contents in order to be successful. An introduction could fix this problem by, for example, articulating the criteria established for inclusion in the volume, and the reasons certain playwrights were selected in favor of others. The volume's most egregious flaw, however, is that it includes only one woman in its analyses. It is impossible to paint an accurate picture of dramaturgy in twentieth-century Italy without discussing the many women who contributed to its vibrancy. While Dacia Maraini--one of Italy's most widely-published, performed, and translated authors and playwrights--is indeed an excellent choice, Vena's exclusion of other women dramatists (such as Amelia Pincherle Rosselli, Natalia Ginzburg, Franca Rame, Edith Bruck, Marida Boggio, and Emma Dante, among many others) ignores the breadth, depth, and political-cultural engagement of women playwrights in modern Italy.

MONICA STREIFER

University of California Los Angeles