Emma Dante and Fausto Paravidino: Families, National Identity, and International Audiences

This chapter investigates the work of two Italian dramatists, actors and directors, Emma Dante and Fausto Paravidino. Since the early 2000s, when their careers began, Dante and Paravidino have both enjoyed considerable national and international acclaim, but the mode in which spectators have experienced their work abroad has been significantly different: while Paravidino’s plays have been translated into foreign languages and staged with local casts, Dante’s productions have toured untranslated, with their original Italian performers, mostly accompanied by surtitles. Both authors also routinely direct, and sometimes perform in, their own scripts, following that distinctively Italian tradition that has more often produced actor-authors than ‘pure’ playwrights. Paravidino is one of very few living Italian dramatists to be known in Britain, thanks to his work with London’s National and Royal Court Theatres. His plays have been seen throughout Europe and beyond and have been translated into twelve languages. Dante, on the other hand, has only rarely toured to the UK, but her theatre productions have travelled extensively to continental Europe, North and South America and Asia. In what follows, I assess some of their most significant plays and productions with a particular focus on how issues of translation, international touring and intercultural exchange have influenced their approach to theatre-making.