franco manzoni

N. 2/2000

Franco Manzoni

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At the end of the 19th century the Italian dramaturgy counted some authors who wrote bourgeois dramas or comedies characterized by well-defined realistic tones. Giuseppe Giacosa and Marco Praga were two important authors linked to this genre.

The first, from Piedmont, was an esteemed playwright and librettist. Belonging to a rich bourgeois family, Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906) first wrote verses with a medieval setting for the theatre, and then devoted himself to the bourgeois drama and contemporary life. First attracted by the movement of Scapigliatura, he then abandoned it, thus becoming a prominent exponent of the bourgeois literature. Worth of mention are his plays "Tristi amori" (1888), "I diritti dell'anima" (1894) and "Come le foglie" (1900).

All the three works describe a situation that is dissolving or that is going to break up. In the work "Tristi amori" a man becomes aware of the fact that his marriage is wavering, since his wife has fallen in love with another man; he then decides to leave home with his daughter, so as to leave his wife take the last decision on their future. In the end, his wife chooses to stay with her family, thus following her rooted convictions, and she gives up the idea of escaping with her lover.
In "I diritti dell'anima", the marriage break-up occurs because of the different behaviour of the male protagonist: a young bride, even though being attracted by her husband's cousin, manages to resist this passion.
When the man gets to know about his wife's love for his cousin, he sends her away with hardness, even though she never gave in to her passion and his cousin is now dead.

"Come le foglie" describes the break-up of a family not because of love issues, but for reasons linked to money and economic opportunities.
The work focuses on the financial problems of a middle-class man, who being in debt has been forced to sell everything he had and leave with his family for Geneva, where he will begin all over again.
After a life of ease, a menial task now awaits him, thanks to the help of his generous nephew Massimo.

The latter also manages to find a job for Tommy and Nannele, the two sons of the man.

Yet, only the daughter accepts to do this job, having really understood the radical change of their financial conditions, while the bourgeois' wife and son seem to live in another world and do not feel the necessity to help their family, thus showing their true nature of spoilt and irresponsible persons.

Less linked to the bourgeois world was Marco Praga (1862-1929), who wrote some plays that met with some success, such as "Le vergini" (1889) and mainly "La moglie ideale" (1900).
The plot of "Le vergini" describes the female character of Paolina, a young woman who lives with two other daughters and her mother, a person of no scruples and without morals who induces the three girls to give themselves to several rich suitors, always keeping, hypocritically, an atmosphere-mask of false respectability.

Dario asks for Paolina's hand and she is very happy of that, mainly because she sees the possibility of leaving a life that does not befit her.
Thus she honestly decides to tell Dario about his scabrous past, with the only result that the man decides to take her not as a wife but as a mistress.
An even more successful work was "La moglie ideale", which is also characterized by ironic tones.

Giulia is the affectionate wife of Andrea, a broker who is always so overloaded with work that he is not aware that in the meantime his wife has fallen in love with Gustavo, a lawyer and a family friend: Giulia and the lawyer have been lovers for two years, but recently the woman has noticed that Gustavo's passion for her is strangely fading, and that their relationship is on the brink of a crisis. The lawyer, who intends to get engaged to a young woman and who is bored by the affair, tells everything to his friend Costanzo, while Giulia is awalys devoured by passion for her lover.

The woman, after getting to know about the imminent engagement, even decides to go to see Gustavo to try to make him change idea, almost compromising her reputation. Yet, she understands that their relation is over.

The bourgeois mentality of that period is described by Praga in an analytical, almost scientific way, but is also criticized by the author for its evident moral implications.