ABSTRACT
This chapter looks beyond Italy to explore women spectators’ responses to Italian female-penned and performed works on stage and screen circulating in France, North America, Britain, and Australia at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1905, Matilde Serao adapted her sentimental novel Dopo il perdono for the Parisian stage with Pierre Decourcelle. It had a run of performances in 1907. In addition, Eleonora Duse and Francesca Bertini were both directors and divas of silent films that were shown internationally. The name Matilde Serao is known to most in Italy, who recognise her as the first woman in the new Italy to found her own daily newspaper, Il Giorno. Women playing the role of the Fallen Woman/Magdalene figure – like Madame Réjane in Paris, Emma Gramatica in Naples, and Helena Makowska in De Simone’s film – addressed on a deep level, and for the duration of rehearsals and performances, the themes of romantic love’s “shelf life,” of betrayal, and forgiveness.
