La fine di Ludro

the Dramaturgy of Giuseppe Sabalich

Abstract

Giuseppe Sabalich (Zadar, 1856-Zadar, 1928) was the most prolific writer in Zadar at the turn of the twentieth century. A renowned historian, storyteller, poet, and writer, he distinguished himself with an extensive oeuvre of comedies, dramas, monologues, scenic sketches, and one-act plays, writing from 1879 until his death in 1928. This paper presents and analyses Sabalich’s drama La fine di Ludro, published in the periodical Zara in 1891. It is a drama in two acts with the well-known Italian character actor Antonio Papadopoli (1815-1899) as the protagonist. A brief introduction to the life and work of Giuseppe Sabalich and Antonio Papadopoli is followed by the analysis of the aforementioned drama, which is central to this paper. Apart from the typical features of Giuseppe Sabalich’s dramaturgy that emerged from the analysis, such as the use of dialect, the Venetian setting, the positive images of Venice, and the historical references, it shows that he wrote the texts for famous actors. Furthermore, the paper points out the divergent traits, which make La fine di Ludro a unique piece in his oeuvre, manifested in the merging of the two identities: the Zadar and the Venetian one, as well as in the metatheatrical element. In the analysis of La fine di Ludro, we trace Papadopoli’s biographical cues that, on the one hand, confirm Papadopoli’s Adriatic identity and, on the other, indicate that Giuseppe Sabalich was a man of theatre whose work was deeply rooted in the historical and social context of his time.