Mussolini's Theatre: Fascist Experiments in Art and Politics by Patricia Gaborik (review)

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• Mussolini’s Theatre: Fascist Experiments in Art and Politics by Patricia Gaborik
• Alessandro Clericuzio

MUSSOLINI’S THEATRE: FASCIST EXPERIMENTS IN ART AND POLITICS. By Patricia Gaborik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; pp. 312.

While much has been written about fascism and cinema, architecture, and literature, theatre studies has only recently offered new insights into Italy’s ventennio, the dark years of dictatorship that ended with the Allied invasion of Sicily during World War II. This is the task undertaken by Patricia Gaborik in Mussolini’s Theatre, a must-read for anyone interested in Italian studies or in the intersection between politics and drama. While sidestepping the concept of Benito Mussolini as actor—e.g., the mesmerizing frontman with powerful eyes and dramatic body language—this study explores lesser-known avenues such as those of the dictator-as-spectator, critic, impresario, playwright, and censor. All these roles no doubt had to do with his exercise of power, which means that the connections between thespian aesthetics and politics (and therefore history) are of major import.

Gaborik investigates the role of theatre in the personal and professional life of Il Duce, starting [End Page 119] from his tastes as a theatregoer and then as prime minister. His favorite writers for the stage had to embody certain sentiments—apart from being “on his team”—meaning that they had to show respect and admiration for Blackshirt philosophy. Gabriele D’Annunzio and George Bernard Shaw, with their ideals of the Superman, for instance, met with Mussolini’s approval. Luigi Pirandello’s theatre, which played between reality and imagination, and his belief in the possibility of building alternative worlds appealed to Mussolini’s self-centered view of life and government. More significantly, in the case of Pirandello, who was highly estimated abroad, Mussolini used the artist as a cultural ambassador for fascist propaganda. Gaborik demonstrates the important role theatre played in telegraphing the Mussolini government’s beliefs abroad.

Il Duce was also a meticulous censor, and he banned or heavily edited works that did not meet his criteria. Delving into archives, memoirs, and current scholarship, Gaborik manages to present a thorough reconstruction of the activities of theatre censorship, taking considerable note of the many contradictions of a difficult and at times ambiguous practice. For instance, she discusses the ways Mussolini was aided in this endeavor by Leopoldo Zurlo, whose task was to approve, reject, or suspend plays. This latter case was applied when “any determination was considered too ‘sensitive.’ It was a strategy that amounted to ignoring the problem and hoping it would just go away” (156–57).

Zurlo was not a fascist, but when he was given the task of controlling what the audience could see or not see on stage, he was always ready to comply with what Mussolini’s thoughts and desires could be. Thus, politics, religion, and, most important of all, morality were fascist bulwarks that needed to be protected. Foreign drama—particularly Russian and British plays—was constantly marginalized, but international affairs was not the only reason. French playwrights, longtime rivals of Italians, were ostracized as well, especially if they depicted “depraved” behavior. A play that dramatized a ménage à trois, for instance, would run the risk of being read as a spoof of Il Duce’s extramarital affair with Claretta Petacci. Zurlo initially attempted to clear plays dealing with homosexuality (mainly female), but soon stopped, defining them as “sad,” even though he lived more uxorio with Chief of Police Carmine Senise. In other words, sexual deviation from heterosexual, monogamous norms was frowned upon: whether it was heterosexual adultery or homosexual attraction, the required visa for production was not granted.

Theatre was one of the most important fronts for propaganda, or, for what Gaborik aptly terms, “strategic aestheticism.” For Gaborik, the aesthetics of a given theatre piece were just as meaningful as the underlying political ideologies being communicated to a public. Throughout her book, Mussolini’s love for the stage is evident, including his role as an impresario. Through his financial support of dramatic activities, a modern form of director-driven theatre developed on the ashes of the nineteenth-century model of actor-driven theatre. The government’s contributions in...