“Tonight the Courtyard Doesn’t Sleep” by Gianni Rodari and Marcello Sartarelli

A “Fantastic Reality” in the Italian Theatre of the 50s

Abstract

Tonight the Courtyard Doesn’t Sleep is a unique case in the Mass Theatre, both because the actors are children, and because it joins historical topics and fantastical stories. The script written by Gianni Rodari and Marcello Sartarelli is staged in Carlo Felice Theatre in Genova on 17th February 1951. The story which revolves around a courtyard and the children that enliven it, develops from 1943 to the second postwar period. In Tonight the Courtyard Doesn’t Sleep the real dimension and the fantastic one live together. The latter is analyzed in relation to a fable utopia that, even if in minority, is no extraneous to the realism of the 50s.