Dipingere sulla scena i «toni dell’anima»

Emotions are expressed not only with words but also with a gesture, body posture, miming or voice modulation. Actor reproduces on stage the external effects of emotions which the audience can read. Inthe 18th century, theatre and actor became the subject of theoretical reflection comprising two con-trasting theories: either living or pretending the feelings of a character played. In Italy, the first theory prevailed, presented by Luigi Riccoboni in his treaties: Dell’arte rappresentativa (1728) and Pensées sur la déclamation (1738). The main objective of this article is to examine how the emotional acting was performed in practice in the 18th century Italian theatre. To this aim, two examples will be closely ana-lysed which are very different in terms of style but not distant in time and what is more, intended for the same Venetian audience. For the purpose of analysis, two monologues were chosen which show an outbreak of anger leading in consequence to a revenge: Mirandolina’s first monologue from Carl Goldoni’s comedy titled La locandiera (1753) and Tartaglia’s first monologue from a scenic fable by Carlo Gozzi titled Il re cervo (1762). The analysis will focus on the power of word expressing emotions and performative traces buried in the text as well as indirect and direct reports of the contemporary audience which will approximately allow to reproduce the style of acting