The Nobility of Bertolino

Sun. Apr. 06, 2025 at 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Five brilliant young actors perform an hour-long play about status boundaries. This comedy has been hidden in a manuscript for 450 years, and they bring it to hilarious life in the style of Commedia dell’Arte (Italian Masked Comedy).

Le Stelle di Bacco is a troupe of local teen-aged Commedia dell’Arte performers, who present plays improvised from outlines written down in the late 1500s. This current play “The Nobility of Bertolino” has (as far as research can tell) not been performed anywhere in over 400 years. This group of young people have taken our translation and worked it looking for moments of comedy and moments of poignancy. In this very limited engagement, they present their hilarious interpretation to you.

This play is one of about 400 play outlines preserved in manuscripts in libraries in Europe (mostly Italy) that represent the stories portrayed by the famous Commedia dell’Arte troupes of the late 1500s and beyond. John Cross and Chiara Durazzini have been transcribing and translating these manuscripts as part of a very large project. Taking these plays and performing them is a fun way that people interested in drama and the theater can learn very directly what kinds of stories and humor were in use in that period of the late Renaissance. There are opportunities for people to join in either on the initial play throughs on Zoom, or for in-person performing.

Donations are not required, but any money given will go toward digitizing old manuscripts.

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