Wanna Play?

In the late '90s, after acquiring a better command of the Italian language, I decided to put some of my spare time in Houston to good use by writing English tranlations of Italian plays. My goal was two-fold: to develop further my knowledge of Italian, especially archaic, and to hone my writing skills. It was meant to be a fun exercise; I had no thought whatever of doing anything with my translations. I chose plays that, as far as I knew, had never been rendered into English, or had not been in recent years. I began with a humdinger—Torquato Tasso's Aminta. When I began my work on it, I knew only of Leigh Hunt's 1820 translation, which was in verse. I decided to write mine in literal prose, using period (late 1500's) language. As I saw the completion of my translation in sight, I read in The New York Review of Books (I think that's where I read it, anyway) that someone had just published a new verse translation of Aminta. Oh, well.

I then turned to my small collection of Italian plays bought randomly from used book stores and antique shops. They are all late-19th century or early-20th century works, and I have tried to use period language for all of them. Over the next few years I translated, in all, eight plays:

     Aminta  (Amyntas) by Torquato Tasso
     O Bere o Affogare  (Drink or Drown) by Leo di Castelnovo
     Il Piccolo Santo  (The Little Saint) by Roberto Bracco
     La Moglie Ideale  (The Perfect Wife) by Marco Praga
     Le Ire di Giuliano  (The Wrath of Giuliano) by Italo Svevo
     L'Avventura di Maria  (Maria's Adventure) by Italo Svevo
     Una Commedia Inedita  (An Unpublished Comedy) by Italo Svevo
     Le Teorie di Conte Alberto  (The Theories of Count Albert) by Italo Svevo

I would like to share some, if not all, of these on this blog, not abandoning, of course, my poetry and journal postings. Some of the plays are multi-act, others are one-act; but I'll have to post all of them, even the shortest, in piecemeal fashion, probably scene by scene.

 

The first to be posted (a few days from now) will be La Moglie Ideale,  which was written in 1890 and believed to be one of Eleonora Duse's best vehicles. I look forward to sharing these theatrical gems with you!