Doing the Impossible: The Problems of Staging Alfred de Musset’s Lorenzaccio

Abstract

Alfred de Musset's masterpiece, Lorenzaccio, published in 1834, is a play which was originally meant to be read, rather than staged. Its stageability still remains a debate issue: constant changes of setting make scenery difficult and the psycho­logical depth of the plot results in an excessively long play. Nevertheless, numerous directors have managed to successfully stage the play by means of different resources, about which we are discussing. This questioning leads to the issue of the stageability of a play whose dramatic text is needed to be manipulated to be staged