ABSTRACT

This essay is dedicated to Elena Bucci, a multifaceted artist in contemporary theatre. She is an actress, playwright, singer, director, stage designer, educator, and a discoverer of theatrical spaces. Since 1993, together with Marco Sgrosso, she has led the Compagnia Le belle bandiere. For forty years, she has graced both Italian and international stages with remarkable success. Starting from her artistic collaboration with Leo de Berardinis, this work explores Bucci’s poetics, aesthetics, and her original dramaturgy of memory. Through an in-depth analysis of the key plays she has written, performed, and directed, her theatre emerges as a living repository of memory. It has given rise to a distinctive female dramaturgy rooted in the careful scenic reinvention of history and personal narratives. Her work thoughtfully preserves and honors both those who create it and those who experience it. From Non sentire il male (2000), a piece dedicated to Eleonora Duse and reinterpreted in various forms over the years, to Canto alle vite infinite (2023), Bucci’s artistic vision and unique aesthetic are illuminated. Her theatre centers on recovering the biographies of celebrated actresses—from Isabella Andreini to Ol’ga Knipper, Eleonora Duse, Anna Magnani, and Laura Betti—as well as the lives of ordinary individuals. However, her work never falls into sterile biographism. Bucci’s theatre is an endless metatheatrical song, through which she, as both actress and author, engages in a dialectical exploration of the purpose and function of her art. In this ideal duel, she employs the dynamic language of the body, conveying her ideas with a magnetic and powerful charm that is both subtle and incisive.

BIOGRAFIA

Teresa Megale insegna Discipline dello spettacolo presso l’Università di Firenze. Tra le sue pubblicazioni più recenti si segnalano le monografie: Paradigmi del comico. Studi sulla Commedia dell’Arte (Tab edizioni 2023); Tra mare e terra. Commedia dell’Arte nella Napoli spagnola (1575-1656) (Bulzoni 2017 e 2020). Ha curato, tra le altre, le edizioni Noi, i Fratellini, autobiografia di A. Fratellini (Tab edizioni, 2022); Volere, potere. Contro Eleonora Duse, romanzo teatrale di M. Cafiero (Tab edizioni 2022, co-curatela con E. Lenzi); La locandiera (Marsilio 2007) e il volume Donne del/nel teatro italiano: nodi storici, pratiche d’arte e di vita, «Italica Wratislaviensia», X, 2, 2019. È inoltre promotrice di molteplici processi culturali intorno alla diffusione delle arti dello spettacolo, dirige la Compagnia teatrale universitaria Binario di scambio, che ha fondato nel 2007, e ha ideato le collane editoriali «Thalìa» per Aracne editrice e «Voci di scena. Culture per lo spettacolo» per Tab edizioni.