All’origine del teatro teatrale: Anton Giulio Bragaglia e la scena come corpo vivente

Abstract

During the 1920s, Anton Giulio Bragaglia set out to reform the status of the theatrical event, longing for what he called “theatrical theatre” on both the stage and the written page. To pursue this project, Bragaglia focused on two distinct but complementary levels, conceived and practiced as an organic whole: set design/scenography (and scenic-technical devices), and the human (often dancing) body. The first level has been quite thoroughly investigated by theatre studies, but to date the second has received less attention. This article aims at conceiving both these levels as intertwined, in so suggesting that it is precisely this inextricability between the human presence on stage and the scenic experimentation that lays at the heart of Bragaglia’s overall project of theatrical reform.