A ‘New’ Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage by Enza De Francisci

Abstract

MLR, .,   perspective that tends to prevail in the first half of the volume to a decisive focus on the aesthetics of migration. e essays collected in ‘Proximity’ reimagine the colonial encounter between Europe and Africa through analyses of contemporary artistic expressions (installations, documentaries, literary texts, and theatre practices ) that, in a reversed trajectory, bring Africa ‘back’ to Europe. Part  addresses the crucial challenge of ‘memorializing’ migration. While Itala Vivan discusses practices, problems, and potential benefits of migration museums in the Mediterranean , Dagmawi Yimer and Roberto Pedretti argue for documentary practice and hip-hop music, respectively, as forms of memory and political resistance. Iain Chambers’s final essay draws the volume to a coherent and insightful conclusion by reassessing the Mediterranean ‘as an open, unfinished archive’ (p. ), and foregrounding the crucial role of art in offering ‘other modalities of belonging to both the Mediterranean and modernity’ (p. ). U  S A S C A ‘New’ Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage. By E D F- . Cambridge: Legenda. . x+ pp. £. ISBN ––––. Focusing on two much-discussed early twentieth-century Sicilian authors, Giuseppe Verga and Luigi Pirandello, Enza De Francisci argues that contrary to the view that their work is ‘patriarchal’, their drama, in particular, favourably portrays a ‘new woman’ emerging in Italy in the early twentieth century. She does not use the phrase ‘from page to stage’ in its normal sense (from written script to staged play) but rather to describe the changes that occur in each writer’s conversion of their narratives to written drama. Although De Francisci does not focus much on actual productions, she argues that each writer’s relationship with the celebrated actresses who starred in their plays—Eleonora Duse and Marta Abba—was instrumental in his portrayal of a ‘new woman’ in his drama. e definition of the Italian donna nuova is somewhat problematic. De Francisci attempts to differentiate it from the British and American ‘new woman’ of the same period, but the difference is not entirely clear. Both were influenced by Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (Duse was the first to play Nora in Italy); both were struggling to claim more autonomy for women. Sibilla Aleramo’s  novel Una donna was of course highly influential in portraying a woman who seeks independence from men. De Francisci might also have mentioned the role of Verga’s and Pirandello’s contemporary Grazia Deledda in making women’s voices heard. De Francisci does effectively demonstrate how, in spite of patriarchal views that both Verga and Pirandello held and that tend to dominate through the voice of the narrator in their stories, the female characters in their dramas speak for themselves. e adaptations, she argues, deconstruct what she calls ‘three archetypal images of women: the innocent persecuted heroine, the silent obedient wife, and the mad sexual adulteress’ (p. ). For example, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana and Mommina in Questa sera si recita a soggetto, resemble innocent persecuted heroines, but become active agents. Verga’s character Màlia in the story Il canarino del n.  and  Reviews his play In portineria is primarily silent in the story, but expresses herself through non-verbal communication and broken speech in the play. Pirandello’s Signora Ponza, in Così è (se vi pare), makes use of her silence, and her few words, to eclipse the verbosity of the narrator, Laudisi. Gna Pina, called ‘la lupa’ (the she-wolf) in the story and play of that name, is a woman mad with sexual desire and a predator in the story recounted by a male narrator; in the play she is more ‘a Phèdre-like character who is powerless against her all-consuming passion’ (p. ). She analyses and explains her behaviour, transformed from a stereotype into a reflective individual. Pirandello’s character Cristina, in the story Quando si è capito il giuoco, is seen, as an adulteress, primarily from the point of view of her husband. In the play derived from it, Il giuoco delle parti, the main character, now called Silia, expresses herself. She resents being seen as a mere object of sexual desire and manipulates the men pursuing her. ese analyses of ‘page...