Il vincolo della relazione nell'espressione artistica

BIBLIOTECA TEATRALE Rivista semestrale di studi e ricerche sullo spettacolo, 2022

Il saggio propone un’analisi della drammaturgia di Neil LaBute, in particolare Bash e la trilogia della bellezza – Reason to be Pretty, The Shape of Things, Fat Pig – dove l’esistenza e le azioni individuali si articolano come una diretta conseguenza del nostro apparire, determinando, nel bene e nel male, l’animo umano. La riflessione approfondisce il mondo scenico del drammaturgo partendo dalle influenze di autori americani come David Mamet, Arthur Kopit, Sam Shepard e autori inglesi come Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, John Osborne. Si evidenzia una drammaturgia che, attraverso trame dirette e crude e un linguaggio frammentato estremo e grottesco, si oppone ai dogmi modernisti, tentando di offrire al pubblico un percorso di conoscenza che mostra le contraddizioni della società di massa e l’eterno dramma dell’umano. Il fine è evidenziare come LaBute abbandoni il carattere paradossale della decostruzione del teatro postmoderno, la discontinuità e l’eccesso per ridefinire il legame fra un’estetica del corpo e le azioni che ne conseguono. The article represents an analysis of Neil LaBute’s dramaturgy, in particular his play, Bash and the “beauty” trilogy – Reason to be Pretty, The Shape of Things, Fat Pig – where individual existence and actions are expressed as a direct consequence of someone’s appearance, determining, for better or for worse, the human soul. The reflection explores the scenic world of the playwright starting from the influences of American authors such as David Mamet, Arthur Kopit, Sam Shepard and English authors such as Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, John Osborne. LaBute’s dramaturgy consists of direct and crude plots and an extreme and grotesque fragmented language that opposes modernist dogmas, trying to show to the audience the contradictions of contemporary mass society and human existence. The aim of the text is to highlight how LaBute abandons the paradox of the deconstruction in the postmodern theater, as well as discontinuity and excess in order to redefine the link between an aesthetics of the body and the actions that follow it.

È probabile che sulle prime possa suonare bizzarra l'idea che punteggiare sia un'attività creativa, non molto diversamente dal considerare creativa la pratica ortografica, in relazione alla quale, al massimo, vengono in mente gli errori ortografici (non esattamente un esempio di 'creatività' nel senso comune del termine).

IL SAGGIATORE MUSICALE XIX 1 (2012): 41-73, 2013

Towards a theory of romantic instrumentation: the relationship between timbre and form in Ernst Kurth – A careful examination of the theoretical and practical treatises on instrumentation ranging from Adolf Bernhard Marx (1837-47) and Hector Berlioz (1843) to Hugo Riemann (1902) and Richard Strauss (1905) and including Theodor W. Adorno's writings (1932-66) reveals that these theorists –along with many others they influenced– shared two basic elements: a negative evaluation of romantic instrumentation (when compared to that of classic composers) and the more or less implicit belief that timbre is subordinated to the other parameters of a composition (considered as "structural"), so that its role must be restricted to clarifying melodic lines and formal divisions. Although Adorno in his late studies did go so far as to hypothesize a structural role for timbre in some composers who contributed to the transition from Romanticism to Modernity –Wagner, Strauss, Mahler– and thus formulated the most advanced statements on this matter, at the same time he continued to rely on the traditional con- cepts and theoretical hierarchies. Ernst Kurth's position stands out in sharp contrast to this historical-theoretical framework. In his two treatises "Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners 'Tristan'" (1920) and "Bruckner" (1925) –well in advance of Adorno– he asserted a structural role for timbre and instrumentation while proposing a radical change in music theory. In fact Kurth's positive evaluation of romantic instrumentation went hand in hand with his critique of the Formenlehre tradition, which had been the point of departure for all the aforementioned theorists. In his analytical remarks Kurth gave considerable importance to both the qualitative and quantitative values of instrumentation, insisting that the related parameters (timbre and density) were inseparable from the other features of the composition considered as a whole. As a historical model of his theory of form, the study of Bruckner's symphonies allowed Kurth to identify clearly the role of "energetic" articulation based on the reaching of "highpoints", where parameters such as dynamics, timbre and density –long regarded as secondary– come to prevail over the primary parameters of composition, commonly identified in melodic, harmonic and rhythmic values. In addition, Kurth's analytical approach brought out a functional deployment of the orchestral layers that is characteristic of Bruckner. The comparison between Kurth's perspective and the prevailing theoretical paradigm leads to two main considerations. From a historiographical point of view, Kurth's remarks offer the opportunity to clarify Bruckner's position with respect to further developments in late Romanticism and Modernity and particularly Mahler, whose symphonies were generally considered as the turning point toward a "new instrumentation". In making this claim, Guido Adler (1916), Egon Wellesz (1928-29) and Adorno (1960) rely on the idea that Mahler's instrumentation –unlike that of romantic composers– serves to clarify melodic lines and their articulation. Kurth's comments give rise to a different perspective on this historical evolution: starting from Bruckner, Mahler gradually overcomes the functional use of orchestral layers, going beyond the predictability of the energetic course that is characteristic of Bruckner's symphonies. From a methodological point of view, Kurth's perspective questions what Carl Dahlhaus (1985) postulated as the only safe way toward a theory of instrumentation, that is, its gradual integration into the general theory of composition; Kurth actually opted for a radical change of paradigm in order to re-evaluate instrumentation as a central aspect of composition.

This paper aims to show how deep and fruitful stands the interaction between aesthetics and sociology. This idea is rooted in the very conviction of Georg Simmel’s social theory which considers society a great aesthetical masterpiece in which every part finds its raison d’être in a reciprocal structure. The keyword Wechselwirkung (“interaction”; “reciprocity”) in Simmel’s sociology is not only the access key to comprehend social mechanisms (in order to construct new forms of social life), but it is adopted as a symbolic code to read the complex trestle characterizing the relation between culture and society, in addition to the comprehension of the inner world of art. On the one hand, the normative character of art is reflected in the regulatory forms of society, which operates as “rationalization”; on the other hand, the same impulse to order and symmetry (typical of art and society) is the very tendency to redeem society itself from its contradictory, but constitutive character (the “ambivalence issue” in Simmel).