A Prologue and Three Unique Acts

Abstract

In his essay Pergiorgio Giacché discusses the art of Carmelo Bene, an exception that dictates the rule, as happens in all the arts and as it is usually denied to the theatre.In painting and sculpture and poetry and literature the measurements are taken and the 129 judgments are formed starting from the highest examples and experiments, while the theatre wants to be dejected as a “social game” or enslaved as a “public service”, where the arrogant right of the spectator hangs over the humble duty of the actor. Not a triumphant need to be but an exhausting need to become, that Carmelo Bene has pursued with greater freedom and greater height than the other artists of the twentieth century scene “all’italiana”.