Tramonto e riabilitazione di un genere. Autobiografie di attori del varietà

Abstract

Around 1930 we find autobiographic writings produced by actors who lived the season of the theatre of variety. Memories which are precious documents to rebuild an important kind of show in an empirical vision, from the actor side, bringing his personal vision of a stage work fleeing and elusive by its nature. The essay aims to analyze the autobiographies of Raffaele Viviani, Ettore Petrolini, Nicola Maldacea and Leopoldo Fregoli, protagonists of the most radiant years of the variety show directed then toward new expressions, according the evolution of the taste by the times and by individual inclination. It is about stories working alongside with private stories to reports concerning historical data, repertoires, actors, impresarios and the spaces of representation in the variety show in Italy. But more than anything else the autobiographies of these artists transmit, and therefore delivers to the history, a theatrical section whose destiny seems to go toward the forgetfulness. In such sense, the attempt to legitimate a show, wrongly defined “minor”, proceeds concurrently to the will to compensate the practice of the stage from an usual subordination to the literary form