Leyla Ozbek, Mirella Schino
2025
10.7413/2611-5166009
theatre anthropology_EN
body_EN
theatre history_EN
20th century_EN
It. Piedi; Fr. Pieds; Germ. Füße; Span. Pies.
In ancient theatrical practices, feet took on different values at the level of dramatic representation, audience perception, text composition, and acting practices (we will not deal here, except marginally, with aspects of dance in the ancient world and theatre, a subject that deserves separate discussion). In ancient tragedy and comedy, as well as in satyr play, one might, at first, assume that feet, limited as they were in the actors’ shoes, did not represent a focus of dramatic attention, but this hypothesis would be far removed from the reality of the facts.
Feet, footsteps, and actions ensuing from their movement, their balance or imbalance helped to create the stage horizon from both a spatial and temporal point of view. In the actors’ and chorus’ movements, feet defined what was, and what was not, the stage, involving, through entrances and exits, the backstage, such as the interior of a palace, a temple, a house or a military tent, as well as the offstage (cf. Rehm 2002; Revermann 2006, pp. 107-29 and, for spaces not visible to the audience, Di Benedetto-Medda 1997, pp. 34-69). From a temporal point of view, insofar as characters often moved on the basis of previous movements, they followed footsteps or paths, evaluated the past and made decisions about the future on the basis of movement traces left by others.
In the prologue to Sophocles’ Ajax, the present and past movement of the characters immediately defines the stage space. Athena dialogues with Odysseus, noting that the latter, near Ajax’s tent, is following his footsteps on the ground in search of clues to his movements (ll. 3-7). This metaperformative attention to movement allows the scenic and temporal horizon to be defined. Odysseus followed Ajax’s footsteps because during the night the Achaeans’ cattle had been slaughtered, and a man had seen Ajax wandering around with a bloody sword. This allowed Athena to recount the events preceding the start of the action: Ajax, humiliated at not having received Achilles’ weapons, decided to take his revenge by torturing and killing the Achaeans’ leaders, but was momentarily rendered insane by the goddess (who always follows Odysseus’ footsteps to watch over him, ll. 36-37) and vented his anger on the cattle, thinking they were his own companions.
When Odysseus arrives, Ajax’s drama is complete, and he has already come to his senses, locked in shame in his own tent. Characters then follow the footsteps of others, creating new ones: Ajax has gone in search of the Achaean chieftains but has been diverted towards the cattle; Odysseus follows Ajax; Athena has followed both. In a few lines, these movements – and footsteps – allow the action to begin by giving the audience all the necessary information. This is also the case immediately after Ajax’s suicide, at the key point of the discovery of the body (ll. 866-78). The chorus, which has unusually left the stage and returned divided into two groups (cf. Finglass 2011, pp. 389-90), has set out in desperate search of Ajax and returns from the two eisodoi to reunite: the sailors have walked everywhere, from the western to the eastern shore, but have not found their leader. Instead, Ajax’s corpse lies nearby, and it is Tecmessa, his concubine and mother of his son, who discovers it.
This division of the movement of the chorus, which gathers on stage to discover the terrible event, increases the dramatic scope of the discovery of the protagonist’s corpse. A dramaturgical amplification similar to the moment in the Eumenides – here for the purpose of instilling terror – in which the Furies re-enter the stage after having followed Orestes’ trail all the way to Athens «like bitches ... the drops of blood of a wounded fawn» (ll. 246-47, with Taplin 1977, pp. 379-80).
The metaperformatively focused movements of the tragic choruses as a search for other movements or traces are also the subject of parody by Aristophanes. For example, in Women at the Thesmophoria, the playwright employs the spasmodic movement of the chorus in search of human footsteps in a parody of a scene from Euripides’ fragmentary Telephus. In this tragedy, the chorus learns of the presence of a stranger (Telephus, disguised as a beggar) and sets out on stage searching for the intruder’s footprints until they find him, forcing him to take the infant Orestes as a hostage to save himself from death (cf. Cropp 1997; Preiser 2000; Kannicht 2004, pp. 680-718; Collard-Cropp 2008, pp. 185-223). Aristophanes creates a similar comic scene, in which the women of the chorus, having discovered Mnesilochus disguised as a woman at their meeting, spasmodically search for other men in disguise by running all over the place (ll. 655-88), until Mnesilochus takes hostage what he thinks is a baby girl, but which turns out to be a flask of wine (the relationship between the two plays is analysed e.g. in Austin-Olson 2004, pp. lvi-lviii).
Past and present movements also contribute to the characterisation of the dramatis personae. In Euripides’ Electra, the protagonist, unlike in the other tragedies about her, does not live in the palace but has been given in marriage to a poor peasant, in order to isolate her and defuse her potential offspring. It is the movements that immediately define the context in which Electra lives and the characters’ disposition towards her. The protagonist is forced to walk a steep path to reach the water springs from her house, which is located on top of a hill. It is precisely by walking with the jugs (“walk, walk, weeping”, she says to herself in l. 113) that Electra presents her condition, provoking empathy in the audience and in all the characters who, in time, meet her: her husband, the chorus, Orestes, the Pedagogue (who in ll. 489-90 notes how extremely tiring the steep climb to her ward’s house is).
Empathy in all characters, indeed, except one: Clytemestra. As soon as the queen appears on stage, the audience immediately understands her character and, always through her movement – or rather her different movement from the others – her adverse disposition towards Electra. Electra’s mother is the only one not to arrive at her daughter’s house on foot, but to make her entrance on a royal chariot, accompanied by Trojan slaves she orders to hold her hand to help her down, while refusing her daughter’s help (ll. 998-1007). This is enough for the audience to frame the character.
A series of uses of on-stage movements partly coinciding with and partly different from those examined so far appears in Plautus’ comedies. This author exploits both on- and off-stage movements, especially at the beginning of an action or an act. He uses these movements to focus attention on the presentation of the characters (and the mechanisms of their mutual interaction), orientate the audience’s point of view in space (e.g. in the focalisations of the fanum Veneris, the altar and the nearby villa of Demon in the Rudens, cf. Calabretta 2015), and make certain stereotypical characters immediately recognisable to the audience. An example of this is the servus currens, who appears as a subgenus of the servus callidus (to use a definition from Slater 2000, p. 28), a role in which the latter or other characters ‘enter’ at certain moments in the action. This is also the case for the ‘hasty beginnings’ of the action or of an act, in which characters, following immediately preceding events, appear on stage by running out of the extra-scenic space, or from the backstage, sometimes chaotically, to start the new action (cf. Mariotti 2002).
Further examples can be added. However, another essential fact must be highlighted. In ancient dramas, feet were not only spatial and temporal vectors of movement or elements of characterisation of theatrical identity, but also, in some cases, the focus of key scenes and even of entire plays. It should not be forgotten that in ancient theatre actors wore specific footwear, which usually did not show bare feet or individual details. Exploiting this ‘subordinate position’ of the feet in the audience’s perception as compared to voices, hands and their gestures, costumes, and masks, the ancient authors employed them in certain contexts in order to achieve an uncommon dramatic impact.
In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, after an intense dialogue (ll. 931-43, the only one in the play between two characters), Clytemestra convinces (or rather forces) her husband, who has just returned from Troy, to enter the royal palace by walking on purple drapes spread on the ground, according to the woman, to honour him. Agamemnon realises the possible ominous value of the gesture, which will also be his last act on stage, but yields to his wife’s insistence, on the condition of walking on the cloth barefoot (ll. 944-57). The result is an iconic scene with an enormous dramatic impact: getting off the chariot and walking on the drapes barefoot strips Agamemnon of his symbolic (and visual) superiority over Clytemnestra. By having his shoes removed, the king believes he is mitigating the charge of arrogance (even religious arrogance) of his gesture, when in fact «it is only a useless palliative: indeed, the barefoot walk ends up diminishing the figure of the sovereign at the moment of his adversary’s triumph» (Medda 2017, vol. 3, p. 83; cf. also Bonanno 2002, pp. 34-35).
Works that revolve entirely around the feet (in this case, a foot) of the protagonist are, for instance, those related to the story of Philoctetes, the ‘cripple par excellence’ of the Trojan saga. The narrations that focus on the hero’s exile to the island of Lemnus (not only Sophocles’ Philoctetes, but also, as far as can be reconstructed, Euripides’ fragmentary one, cf. Müller 1997 and 2000; Kannicht 2004, pp. 827-44; Cropp 2004; Collard-Cropp 2008, pp. 368-403) because of the wound to his foot, inflicted by the snake guarding the sanctuary of Chryse, make every aspect of the opera revolve around the protagonist’s foot: from the definition of space and stage time, to the characterisation of the protagonist, the other characters and the chorus, the development of the plot, and the unfolding of the action.
In Sophocles’ tragedy, Philoctetes’ foot is the protagonist even before the hero appears on stage. During the prologue, Odysseus and Neoptolemus define the space of the action around the cavern that serves as the hero’s home. Everything begins to revolve around Philoctetes’ sick foot: the rags soiled with ‘sickness’ that Neoptolemus finds hanging there, the nearby fountain of water, since the hero cannot move long distances, up to the suffering lament that the chorus hears, which indicates Philoctetes’ slow approach (ll. 201-18). Once on stage, the protagonist recounts his past and present life, continually focusing on his wounded limb. Philoctetes goes so far as to converse with his own foot, even asking Neoptolemus to sever it with a sword (ll. 747-50). This is because the wound causes such strong attacks of pain that Philoctetes is momentarily incapacitated. The protagonist tries at first to conceal these sharp stabs of pain so as not to alarm Neoptolemus, who, convinced by Odysseus to deceive the hero, assured him, by lying, that he would lead him home. However, the foot, the true protagonist of the drama, brutally begins to ache just when the affair seems to be resolved (ll. 730-826). After a few attempts to hide what is happening, Philoctetes is forced to give in to his illness. Neoptolemus, the chorus and the audience witness a horrific scene: Philoctetes, blinded and driven mad by his illness, comes to a veritable delirium, amid screams of pain. It is precisely this scene that will set the turning point in the actions and in the decisions of Neoptolemus and the chorus, who, overcome by true pity towards Philoctetes, will decide to go along with his demands against those of Odysseus, until the ex machina appearance of Heracles.
In the myth regarding Oedipus, one of the most frequently performed sagas in ancient theatre (and not only), feet also feature as protagonists in the central character. Indeed, in his very name (lit. ‘with swollen feet’), the character bears the fate that marked him as an infant. After Oedipus is being abandoned and swaddled and with his ankles tied and his feet pierced on Mount Cithaeron at the behest of his father Laius, following an oracle’s prediction that he would kill his father and carnally unite with his mother, the detail of the protagonist’s feet will be one of the key points of his ‘self-anagnorisis’ in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Here, the messenger from Corinth who thought he was bringing good news to Thebes (Polybus, king of Corinth and Oedipus’ ‘adoptive’ father, is dead: Oedipus is the city’s new ruler) reveals to the protagonist, who wants at all costs to discover the identity of Laius’ murderer, that it was he himself, years ago, who had rescued him on Mount Cithaeron and then brought him to Polybus. His feet are thus a fundamental detail in Oedipus’ search for the truth, a search that will reveal destructive and tragic results for his entire family.
The importance of the feet continued – and increased as regards the performative aspect – with the evolution of stage representations, an evolution that brought actors more and more to the centre of performances. Feet turn out to be central in several respects in the action of the pantomimus, an actor-dancer of a performative practice that spread from the Augustan age, becoming increasingly successful in the following centuries (cf. Savarese 2003a [≅ Savarese 2003b], who analyses fundamental junctures of Lucian’s De saltatione and Libanius’ oration Pro saltatoribus, and Hall-Wyles 2008, volume which lays the foundations for a multidisciplinary analysis of this practice; feet – whether healthy or deformed, naked or with shoes – also maintain fundamental importance in the imagery of the middle ages, with points of contact and differences to the ancient era: on this, see e.g. Zallot 2018, pp. 13-75 and 99-111; for the value of the feet in the proprioceptive and artistic development of the human being, from antiquity to the modern era, see at least Leroi-Gurhan 1977, vols. I-II). In this type of performance, which mostly narrated ancient myths, in Hall’s opinion, the pantomime actor «could dance in venues from vast open-air amphitheatres to private dining rooms. He was sometimes joined by an assistant actor or groups of dancers of either sex. He could dance to the accompaniment of a large orchestra and choir, or a single musical instrument and a narrator or solo singer» (Hall 2008, p. 3). Thus, discrete flexibility of formal elements, all of which, however, revolve around the figure of the pantomime, a performer «who acted rhythmically to musical accompaniment and possessed the skills of a transformer (using different masks and costumes), a juggler and sometimes even an acrobat» (Savarese 2003a, p. 84).
In this type of representation, feet are pivotal elements not only of the performative aspect but also of the pre-performative aspect of the pantomime, who underwent years of rigorous training in gymnastics and dance before becoming a real performer (cf. Lib. Pro salt., 103-5). At the moment of the performance, feet are central during the movement, as the levers of the pantomime’s leaping and swirling, as well as at the end, as the pivots on which the final position of the picture he represents is based (cf. Lib. Pro salt., 118; on the movements of the pantomime in Libanius, see also Marinelli 2017). And, at the same time, not only did the visual dimension of the representation participate through the movement of the pantomime but so too the acoustic aspect through the rhythm of the stamping feet of the musicians keeping the rhythm for the performer’s movements on stage with their double-soled sandals (cf. among other things the ironic polemic on this subject in Lib. Pro salt., 95-98).
Feet have thus been protagonists in various pre-performative, performative, and metaperformative ways in ancient theatrical practices. While feet have taken on different characteristics over time and in different types of representation, they have always been central to the economy of performance.
[Leyla Ozbek]
Why should feet be considered a specific medium of theatrical art? Over the centuries, audiences have identified the most notable locations of an actor’s expressiveness: first, the face, starting from its mobility and transparency, then the voice, and, for some great actors, capable of being followed with spasmodic and concentrated attention, even the eyes. The most perceptive spectators of the past, and now the modern ones as well, also consider the body, its movements, and its drawings in space. Depending on the period, the expressiveness of hands, arms, shoulders, and back have also been appreciated. Yet, if one pauses a moment to think about it, feet too form part of the body and its language.
In a sense, feet symbolize the unbridgeable differences in the way actors and spectators think about theatre. From the actor’s point of view and, it should be added, the odd rare connoisseur, or love-struck spectator, feet play a central role in theatre. Placing feet generates muscle tension which reverberates throughout the body. How the feet touch the ground is decisive for determining footsteps and walking style, and, though perceived but generally not analyzed, the sound of the actor’s body.
In mid-nineteenth century Paris, a highly esteemed theatre critic, Jules Janin, sees a great actress acting: Elisabeth Rachel Félix (known simply as Rachel). He describes her as a volcano. Her stage presence was a dance of oppositions: her head, motionless, her chest, heaving, and when both gesturing and voice seemed to fail her, she would stamp her feet down violently, trampling the earth with unmatched energy. Beneath that beautiful foot, «everything takes on a firm, eloquent, imperious sound» (J. Janin, Rachel et la Tragédie, Paris 1859, Amyot, p. 74). Apart from explosive instances such as those of Rachel, there is generally little talk of feet in the nineteenth century. Yet, Janin’s testimony gives us various clues: on the relationship with the stage floor, for example, and its importance. And how the stage in the teatro all’italiana is also an extraordinary sounding board where inappropriate sounds must be avoided, and the importance of the gesture can be amplified out of all proportion. Almost one hundred and fifty years later, Tadashi Suzuki would say that soil and body are not two distinct entities, because we are part of the earth and we will return to it once we die. According to the Japanese director, the first stage of an actor’s training is made up by the sensations felt when coming into contact with the ground for the first time. Also for Suzuki the movement and the sound of the actor’s feet beating on the ground make up a fundamental aspect of theatrical experience, so much so, that besides symbolically evoking the dead lying under the earth, stomping (the repeated rhythmic beat of the feet) is considered a basis of his method for actors. Because the earth, the floor, what the audience only perceives as stage boards, can have a strong symbolic value for those who make theatre.
To understand the centrality of feet, one needs to listen to the voices of the theatre.
However fascinating it may be, the floor used by Rachel as a drum is just one detail detected by an enthusiastic spectator. Even if the centrality of the actor’s relationship with the earth, which Suzuki talks about, may seem paradoxical, or unhinged, he gives a detailed explanation of why, and in how many ways, feet are central to the actor’s art. While electricity, audio equipment, and machinery, which he refers to as non-animal energy, can produce beautiful effects in most modern theatre productions, Suzuki is interested in developing something else – the animal energy of the theatre, which is to say, the actors himself, starting from his feet. «To counter that modernization, debilitating for the actor’s art – wrote Suzuki – I tried to restore the entire human body in the performance, [...] in my training method I attach particular attention to the feet, because I believe that consciousness of body contact with the ground leads to an increased awareness of all physical functions. How actors use their feet is the basis for a stage performance, while the movements of the arms and hands can only increase the sensations caused by the body positions established by the feet». In addition to being an expressive tool in themselves, feet condition and determine the entire body posture. «There are many cases – adds Suzuki – where the position of the feet also determines the power and nuances of the actor’s voice. An actor can also act without arms and hands, but acting without feet would be inconceivable». He considers the fundamental use of feet in traditional theatrical forms, from Japan and beyond, and does so in particular regarding the Nō theatre, called «the art of walking», an «artistic world created by the movements of the actor’s feet». He continues: «however, the cultivation of the artistic use of foot movements has been interrupted since the appearance of modern theatre in Japan. It is a pity […]. Modern theatre does nothing to promote the expressiveness of the feet: feet are simply used as in ordinary life [...]. In my opinion, one of the reasons why modern theatre is so boring to look at is precisely because it has no feet» (Suzuki 2017, pp. 56-59). Suzuki’s voice leads us to a fundamental problem: boredom. At its basic level, the actor’s art develops as an underground struggle against boredom to fulfill a primary task: to force the viewer to look at and observe details, gestures, screams, shades, as we saw with Janin.
Compared to this fundamental problem, feet are a symbol of the underground technique of theatre, of the actors’ culture, which often is neither seen nor noticed. Although feet determine the weight and presence of the actor on stage, they are often not seen, and hardly ever noticed. However, precisely because of this, and their removal from the public’s awareness, feet are difficult to recognize as a significant area of the actor’s profession. With this in mind, we can identify feet as a symbol of the difference between the two parts that make up the theatre: actors and audience. Feet represent that which spectators do not see, but which they indirectly benefit from, if only through the mere presence of the actor.
Eugenio Barba, director and theatre scholar, has dealt with this issue, highlighting the importance of overlooked details (including feet) as unrecognized support of the actor’s stage culture. Starting in 1979, with the founding of the International School of Theatre Anthropology, usually called ISTA, Barba developed a unique way of looking at the actor’s art, which he called “theatre anthropology”: the comparative study of the scenic behaviour that stays at the basis of different genres, styles, roles, theatrical traditions. A study which Barba describes as «about the actor and for the actor» (Barba 1993). In comparing western and eastern theatre traditions, Barba noted how, in all the fundamental classical traditions, actors develop their stage presence and their ability to maintain audience attention to avoid boredom, by abandoning their daily bodily balance in favor of forms of balance that he calls “extra-daily”. This term indicates a precarious, unstable, and difficult to maintain balance, which requires a particular physical effort to dilate the tensions of the body, and thus keeps the attention of the public awake. The starting point of this deliberately unstable, delicate balance is obviously the feet (see Barba-Savarese 1993, a book that, starting from 1983, has gone through several editions and different titles. In all its versions, an entire section is devoted to the problem of the feet).In the Japanese theatre, actors/dancers walk without ever lifting their feet from the ground. In the Balinese theatre, feet are firmly grounded while the front end and toes are raised. In the Indian Kathakali theatre actors are supported on the outer sides of the feet: the way the feet touch the ground changes the balance, affects the posture of the legs and knees, and causes tension throughout the rest of the body. According to Barba, this “luxury” balance, which differs from normal, everyday balance, is based on wastage and difficulty, determining, in itself, a drama (which he called “pre-expressive”, a drama that is a necessary, but not sufficient condition, for any other form of drama). This is the dance of opposing tensions within the body, the one we saw in Rachel’s previously mentioned example. Almost a conflict of forces at the elementary level, pre-expressive drama generates a feeling of dynamism in those who witness it – even in a motionless body – representing, of course, the first elementary form of attention. While the static nature of firmly grounded feet is a great for saving energy, it is nevertheless less interesting since it fails to generate a physical reaction in the spectator. It should not be forgotten that the spectators, even when seated, react to the dance of oppositions with their entire bodies and not only with their minds.
It is, however, important to remember that this elementary, pre-expressive drama should not be seen as antithetical to other aspects of drama such as the word, facial expressiveness, the actor’s interpretation and character: it is an addition, creating an effect of depth, and dramatic stratification proper to the best theatre. Similarly, the perspectives of the actor and the spectator are different, and even opposed to each other, but not incompatible, and jointly contribute to producing theatre. It is just that the spectators’ perspective tends to be ethnocentric and judge the theatre according to the values of their own cultural group, which are considered absolute and universally applicable.
Another example is Eleonora Duse, the greatest Italian actress, and for many one of the greatest actresses ever. There are at least two key testimonials about the way she made use of her feet. The first is from Adelaide Ristori, another famous actress, from a generation previous to hers. During an interview in which she recalled her first appreciation for the young Duse, Ristori commented on an incident that had occurred several years earlier during a performance of Dumas’ La principessa di Bagdad (see Schino 2008, p. 438). The reference was to a scene in which a character cautiously entered a room and Ristori, using a rather particular expression, commented that Duse «expressed what the actress must experience, of walking on snakes». While praising the interpretation of a moment of anxiety, Ristori also commented on how, in a non-trivial, not obvious, but tense, circumspect, and difficult way, Duse had developed the relationship between floor and feet, between feet and walking, in a way which was neither mundane nor obvious, but tense, circumspect, difficult, and “extra-daily”.
A few years later the fully mature Duse collaborated extensively with the great French theatre personality, Lugné-Poe (Aurélien Marie Lugné), who wrote about their collaboration and the art of the great actress (Lugné-Poe, Avec Eleonora Duse, in the miscellaneous Choses vues, Paris 1932, Fayard). Lugné-Poe goes into even more detail than Ristori, mentioning how she walked by placing slightly more weight on the ball of her feet than on the heels, creating a very particular walk which was light and, tense, aerial, without the audience understanding why.
The essential problem of actors is to create, or rather create for themselves, resistances – choose rough roads. Examples could be multiplied ad infinitum, especially for the first decades of the 20th century, when the great masters of theatre (from Appia to Artaud) questioned the actor’s art and put into words what for centuries had been the practice which, while not actually hidden was not shared with the spectators: Mejerchol’d dealt with steps, ways of placing feet, and types of walking; Stanislavsky reflected on what appeared to him a serious problem for actresses, i.e. the slightly offset center of gravity due to the frequent use of heeled shoes (something very similar was also observed by the dancer Vaclav Nizinsky while watching ladies walk in Paris). Craig precisely reconstructed the particular walk invented by his master Henry Irving on stage in The Bells (translation and adaptation of L. Davis Lewis from the piece by Erckmann-Chatrian Le Juif polonais): a way of moving that does not obey the principles of everyday life but, to continue using Barba’s lexicon, obeys a particular underground rhythm, inferred from Shakespeare. This is a valuable indication that goes beyond feet: over and above intelligence or the heart, actors can also study Shakespeare to develop walking and foot movement rhythms. The result, Craig continues, was a dance, although an occult dance, which does not appear as such to the viewer. Critics have often criticized Irving for a slightly “unnatural” way of moving. Craig’s answer is famous: Irving, he proclaimed, was entirely “natural”. But it was as natural as lightning and not as natural as a monkey (Craig 1930, p. 71). An actor must be different, he had written a few pages earlier. We could translate this as follows: the actor must not walk on the theatre boards as if he were at home but should burst onto the stage like lightning.
After mentioning Nizinsky, the range of problems dealing with feet introduced by the men and women of the theatre should be extended to other, related, theatre activities as well: first of all, dance. With Barba, we saw something from the East. Concerning the West, it is necessary to consider the importance of toes and ballet shoes in classical ballet, as well as bare feet starting from Isadora Duncan. This would include all the related problems concerning the relationships between these “free”, different dances, suffragist movements, the new woman, the request for rational and different clothing, and the ensuing freedom. However, dancing feet, although closely related to occult dance, proper to “prose” theatre, is another topic.Going back to the theatre: while the claims of Barba or Suzuki, Ristori or Lugné-Poe, the researches of Mejerchol’d, Craig or Stanislavskij, are all interesting, we should point out that they allow us, above all, to see something beyond immediate theatrical appearance. These authors bring out theatre’s deepest underground layers, which are not mere tricks of the trade, but articulated and complex techniques, though often incomprehensible to the public. The culture of the spectators still prevails today, and it tends to recognize very limited legitimacy to culture of the actors, precisely because the actors’ “logics” are different. While Craig spoke of the need for actor to diverge, spectators have regarded, for many centuries, this need to be dissimilar as not only non-logical behavior, but even as something that we could call an “illogic”. The upshot has been that for most critics, authors, and the most esteemed experts among the spectators, dissimilarity became illogical and thus in need of reform, of fixing, and of being adapted to the spectator. Seen through the eyes of the most observers, it is very difficult for feet to be seen as anything different or more interesting than one of the many other parts of the human body, and to pigeon-hole them, even on stage, under the general and somewhat inflated notion of “body” and “corporeality”.
[Mirella Schino]
Teatro antico
C. Austin - S.D. Olson, Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, Oxford 2004, Oxford University Press; M.G. Bonanno, I tappeti di Clitemestra e i calzari di Agamennone. Scena e parola in Aesch. Ag. 944s., in «Dioniso» 1 (2002), pp. 26-35; M. Calabretta, La Rudens di Plauto in teatro. Tra filologia e messa in scena, Hildesheim - Zürich - New York 2015, Olms; C. Collard - M. Cropp, Euripides, Fragments, 2, Cambridge, Mass. - London 2008, Harvard University Press; M.J. Cropp 1997, Euripides, Thelephus, in C. Collard - M.J. Cropp - J. Gilbert, Euripides, Selected Fragmentary Plays, 1, Oxford 19972, Aris & Phillips, pp. 17-52; M.J. Cropp 2004, Euripides, Philoctetes, in C. Collard - M.J. Cropp - J. Gilbert, Euripides, Selected Fragmentary Plays, 2, Oxford 2004, Aris & Phillips, pp. 1-34; V. Di Benedetto - E. Medda, La tragedia sulla scena. La tragedia greca in quanto spettacolo teatrale, Torino 1997, Einaudi; P.J. Finglass, Sophocles, Ajax, Cambridge 2011, Cambridge University Press; E. Hall, Introduction: Pantomime, a Lost Chord of Ancient Culture, in Hall - Wyles 2008, pp. 1-40; E. Hall - R. Wyles (edd.), New Directions in Ancient Pantomime, Oxford 2008, Oxford University Press; R. Kannicht, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 5, Euripides (pars 2), Göttingen 2004, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; A. Leroi-Gourhan, Il gesto e la parola (vol. I, Tecnica e linguaggio; vol. II, La memoria e i ritmi), Torino 1977, Einaudi; M. Marinelli, Il corpo del performer nel Pro saltatoribus di Libanio, in «Il castello di Elsinore» 75 (2017), pp. 9-23; I. Mariotti, La prima scena della Mostellaria di Plauto, in «Museum Helveticum» 49 (1992), pp. 105-23; E. Medda, Eschilo, Agamennone, Roma 2017, Bardi Edizioni; C.W. Müller, Philoktet. Beiträge zur Wiedergewinnung einer Tragödie des Euripides aus der Geschichte ihrer Rezeption, Stuttgart und Leipzig 1997, G.B. Teubner; C.W. Müller, Euripides, Philoktet. Testimonie und Fragmente, Berlin - New York 2000, de Gruyter; C. Prato, Aristofane, Le donne alle Tesmoforie (transl. by D. Del Corno), Milano 2001, Fondazione Lorenzo Valla; C. Preiser, Euripides, Telephos, Hildesheim - Zürich - New York 2000, Olms; R. Rehm, The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy, Princeton and Oxford 2002, Princeton University Press; M. Revermann, Comic Business: Theatricality, Dramatic Technique, and Performance Contexts of Aristophanic Comedy, Oxford 2006, Oxford University Press; N. Savarese, L’orazione di Libanio in difesa della Pantomima, in «Dioniso» 2 (2003a), pp. 84-106 [≅ in A. Martina (ed.), Teatro greco postclassico e teatro latino. Teorie e prassi drammatica. Atti del Convegno Internazionale. Roma, 16-18 ottobre 2001, Roma 2003, Herder Editrice e Libreria, pp. 425-60]; N.W. Slater, Plautus in Performance: The Theatre of the Mind, Amsterdam 20002, Harwood Academic Publishers; O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy, Oxford 1977, Clarendon Press; V. Zallot, Con i piedi nel Medioevo. Gesti e calzature nell’arte e nell’immaginario, Bologna 2018, il Mulino.
Teatro moderno
E. Barba, La canoa di carta. Trattato di antropologia teatrale, Bologna 1993, il Mulino; E. Barba - N. Savarese, L’arte segreta dell’attore. Un dizionario di antropologia teatrale, Bari 1993 (1983), Argo; E.G. Craig, Henry Irving, New York-Toronto 1930, Longmans-Green and Co.; D. Dupuy, La saggezza del danzatore, Sesto San Giovanni 2014, Mimesis (20111 edited by Jean Claude Béhar), see chapter V Dei piedi e delle mani (pp. 49-63); M. Schino, Il teatro di Eleonora Duse. Nuova edizione riveduta e ampliata, Roma 2008; T. Suzuki, Il corpo è cultura, Roma 2017 (English edition 2015. The individual writings that compose it are previous, even if not specified).