Practice Research, Performance Pedagogy, and Early Modern Aristophanes: Building (on) the Script(s)

The present article provides an overview of the dramaturgical research underlying a two-stage workshop directed by Marco Martinelli (Albe and Ravenna Teatro) on a selection of early modern translations of Aristophanes’ Plutus, which took place in Parma (10-13 October 2022) and London (20-23 February 2023) and which combined practice research with performance pedagogy. I will first introduce the aims, methodologies and research clusters in which this workshop is rooted; I will then chart the reception of Plutus in the early modern period and analyse how the linguistic, cultural, and political aspects of each translation chosen for the workshop informed the writing of our final script. The translations selected for the workshop and explored in this article are: Eufrosino Bonini’s Comedia di Iustitia (1513), Thomas Randolph’s Πλουτοφθαλμία Πλουτογαμία. A Pleasant Comedy Entituled Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery (1651); and H.H.B’s The World’s Idol, Plutus a Comedy (1659). Also included in the article is an appendix which offers the director’s perspective on the workshop: how he envisioned the scenes and constructed the chorus, as well as an appendix containing the final script. KEYWORDS: dramaturgy; theatre translation; practice research; performance pedagogy; Aristophanes’ reception; early modern translation; classical reception