FOREIGN DRAMA ON THE ENGLISH AND 



AMERICAN STAGE (ITALIAN 



AND SPANISH) 



By Charles C. Ayer 

 III. ITALIAN DRAMA 



The history of Italian drama on the English and American stage 

 can be briefly told, for there is almost nothing to record. While 

 France 1 and Germany 2 during the past few centuries were writing 

 plays which in translation or adaptation have become a part of the 

 standard English repertory, Italy seems to have remained silent. 

 Plays dealing with Italian scenes, events and heroes, there have been 

 in abundance, but they are not from the Italian. Dante, the last 

 play produced by Sir Henry Irving in 1903, was from the French. 

 The well-known operetta, Boccaccio, is of Viennese origin. The 

 greatest of all dramas dealing with Italian people on Italian soil, 

 The Merchant of Venice, Othello and Romeo and Juliet, were written 

 by an Englishman. 



Nevertheless Italy has contributed two names to the history of the 

 world's great dramatists, which should be mentioned in this con- 

 nection, even though they may not be known to English and Ameri- 

 can theater-goers. Carlo Goldoni (1707-93), known as the Italian 

 Moliere, wrote comedies of delicacy and charm, and Vittorio Alfieri 

 (1749-1803), stately and sonorous tragedies, inspired by the classic 

 French tragedies of Corneille, Racine and Voltaire. But both 

 Goldoni and Alfieri are practically unknown even by name to the 

 English and American public at large. One of Goldoni's most pleas- 

 ing comedies, La Locandiera {The Mistress of the Inn), has, however, 

 been given in America, by Eleanora Duse, and another, Le Donne 



1 See "Foreign Drama on the English and American Stage. I. French Drama," University of Colorado 

 Studies, Vol . VI, No. 4, pp. 287-297, June, ioog. 



' See "Foreign Drama on the English and American Stage. II. German Drama," University of Colorado 

 Studies, Vol. VII, No. 1, pp. 63-71, December, 1909. 



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