Dalla Virginia Marini di Ferrari al Pirandello/Squarzina di Nicolosi. Cauto omaggio a Guido Baldi

Abstract

Roberto Alonge examines two different books. The first is a popular essay concerning Virginia Marini, an important actress of the 19c., written by Franco Ferrari, a past director of the Alessandria Theatre from 1982 to 1996.The second, Squarzina e Pirandello, is a monumental volume by Fabio Nicolosi, a student of Luigi Squarzina, who, in his theatrical career, staged eleven Pirandellian plays, which are at the centre of Nicolosi’s attention. This is a very accurate study about Squarzina – but in the opinion of Roberto Alonge – insufficient in highlighting the limitations of an important but not gifted director. This review examines the last book by Guido Baldi, the most important scholar of Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature, who wrote several original books about Manzoni, Verga, D’Annunzio, Pirandello, Svevo and Gadda. His critical approach is a sort of close reading, which mixes Marxist and Freudian methods in a new way. Ro- berto Alonge dwells upon some essays concerning three plays where the plot is based on the relationship between a sculptor and his model: La Gioconda by Gabriele D’Annunzio, Diana e la Tuda by Luigi Pirandello, and When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen.