“Il luogo comune della fedeltà”

On Riccardo Bacchelli’s Plays (1918-1930)

Abstract

Universally recognized as one of the most influential Italian novelists of the XX century, Riccardo Bacchelli (1891-1985) was strongly engaged, mainly in his youth, also in theatre. Among the titles of the years 1918-1930 are: a semi-parodic rewriting of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1918-1923, on stage only in 1956); the historical drama Spartaco e gli schiavi (1920); the one act La notte di un nevrastenico (1925, on stage in Rome at the Teatro degli Indipendenti, directed by A.G. Bragaglia), that eventually became a libretto for an acclaimed opera buffa by Nino Rota (1960); several pastiches, as Una mattina a Bologna (1930), written with the flair of Goldoni’s comedies. Tempted both by the ambiguities of modern literature and by the Neoclassical rappel à l’ordre, Bacchelli’s early theatre seems to deserve today a critical reappraisal.