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A Treatise on Acting, from Memory and by Improvisation (1699) by Andrea Perrucci: Bilingual Edition in English and Italian
Contributor(s): Cotticelli, Francesco (Editor), Goodrich Heck, Anne (Editor), Heck, Thomas F. (Editor)
ISBN: 0810860333     ISBN-13: 9780810860339
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
OUR PRICE:   $88.35  
Product Type: Paperback
Published: November 2007
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: This 1699 Italian acting treatise includes chapters on all kinds of staged productions, scripted or improvised, sacred or secular, tragic or comic. It also addresses enunciation, diction, memorization, gestures, and stage comportment, and describes the details important to a successful commedia dell'arte performance.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Acting & Auditioning
- Performing Arts | Theater - History & Criticism
Dewey: 792.028
LCCN: 2007030813
Physical Information: 0.67" H x 8.46" W x 10.93" (1.58 lbs) 256 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
This treatise is one of the few book-length treatments of the art of acting before the 1720s and is the most complete discussion of the Commedia dell'arte before 1700 by someone personally involved with such performances. A Treatise on Acting, From Memory and by Improvisation (1699) by Andrea Perrucci is a substantial and informative manual by a professional actor and playwright in Naples in the 17th century. Perrucci has a great deal to tell modern actors, directors, and students of the theatre, commenting on virtually all aspects of theatrical and rhetorical performance in Baroque Italy: the emerging role of the director, how actors should make their entrances and exits, stage comportment and gestures, faults to avoid, how to perform without a script, when to use the mask, and how to play the roles of lovers, old men, comic characters, masters, servants, thugs, and soldiers. The chapters are rich with examples of speeches and dialogues used in a variety of improvisational situations and offer information on all kinds of staged productions: opera or drama, scripted or improvised, sacred or secular, tragic or comic, and in prose or in verse. Francesco Cotticelli, Anne Goodrich Heck, and Thomas F. Heck have expertly translated the treatise, presenting it in a dual-language format in parallel columns that enables the instant cross-checking of the English version with the original Italian. The volume is complete with an informative foreword by Nancy D'Antuono, a bi-lingual introduction, a translator's preface, a bibliography, and an index. Unprecedented in scope and detail, this treatise on acting is now available for the first time in its entirety in English.