Italy is home to one of the most vibrant contemporary playwriting scenes in Europe, yet Italian dramatists are little known to English-language readers and audiences: discover their stories and perspective in English for the very first time. Written between 2013 and 2022 by award-winning authors, the plays in this collection document a theatre culture not only preoccupied with the personal dimension of intimate and family relations, as some stereotypical views of ''Italianness'' would have it, but with deeply political, socially engaged matters of global resonance. Together the plays look at issues such as climate change ( The Fattest Woman in the World ); gender equality ( Gentleman Jack ); racism and citizenship ( The Foreigner''s Smile ); history and memory ( Portrait of the Artist as a Dead Man ); the world of work in neoliberal times ( Bidibibodibiboo ); mental health, trauma and grief ( Big Fright ); migration and the ''refugee crisis'' ( Antigone Power ); and life beyond Earth ( Carbon ). Each of these themes feature as key apprehensions in the characters'' lives and stories, creating engaging and contemporary works of drama. Translated by leading practitioners and including a critical essay by the editor, The Methuen Drama Anthology of Contemporary Italian Plays acts as a perfect introduction to the world of contemporary Italian drama for both performance and study.>

Vorwort
An exciting new collection of Italian work written by award-winning, young authors in the last 10 years - translated by experienced theatre practitioners and introduced by the authors themselves.

Autorentext
Margherita Laera is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Kent, where she serves as Deputy Head of the School of Arts and Architecture. She is the author of Playwriting in Europe: Mapping Ecosystems and Practices with Fabulamundi (Routledge Focus, 2022); Theatre & Translation (Methuen Drama, 2019) and Reaching Athens: Community, Democracy and Other Mythologies in Adaptations of Greek Tragedy (Peter Lang, 2013), and editor of Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat (Methuen Drama, 2014). Margherita also works as a theatre translator from and into Italian and English. She is co-editor of the 'Theatre &' book series for Methuen Drama, and founder of Performing International Plays, an organization promoting theatre (in) translation in secondary schools. Marco Young is a London-based graduate of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His theatre credits include My Cousin Rachel for Bath Theatre Royal, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth for Guildford Shakespeare Company, The Stranger on the Bridge at Tobacco Factory and Salisbury Playhouse, and roles at Theatre503 and The Kings Head. He is originally from Cambridge, and is half-Scottish and half-Italian - in which he is fluent.

Inhalt
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements.

Introduction: Beyond Stereotypes

Nalini Vidoolah Mootoosamy, The Foreigner's Smile
Translated by Margherita Laera and Nalini Vidoolah Mootoosamy

Davide Carnevali, Portrait of the Artist as a Dead Man*: Italy '41 - Argentina '78*
Translated by Margherita Laera

Magdalena Barile, Gentleman Anne
Translated by Margherita Laera

Emanuele Aldrovandi, The Fattest Woman in the World
Translated by Marco Young

Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Antigone Power
Translated by Atri Banerjee

Francesco Alberici, Bidibibodibiboo
Translated by Flora Pitrolo

Valentina Diana, Big Fright
Translated by Margherita Laera

Pier Lorenzo Pisano, Carbon
Translated by Atri Banerjee

Contributor Biographies