“History, Myth, and Melodrama: Julius Caesar in Fascist and Anti-Fascist Theatre”

History, Myth, and Melodrama: Julius Caesar in Fascist and Anti-Fascist Theatre takes us into the playhouses of the 1930s, exploring two radically different – and politically opposed – uses of the figure of the Roman dictator to comment on current political affairs. The first is Cesare, a historical drama written by Giovacchino Forzano in collaboration with Benito Mussolini; the other is Orson Welles’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Caesar: Death of a Dictator. Exploring their uses of history, myth, and melodrama, Gaborik discusses the conclusions that may – and may not – be drawn about the aesthetic strategies employed in the making of theatrical propaganda, on the left and on the right.

Patricia Gaborik is Professor of English at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica “Silvio d’Amico” in Rome and is currently Visiting Professor in Italian Studies at UC – Berkeley. She is the author of Mussolini’s Theatre: Fascist Experiments in Art and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

 

For more information please contact Michael Subialka, msubialka@ucdavis.edu

Event sponsored by Department of French and Italian, Department of English, Department of Theatre and Dance