Marta Abba
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Marta Abba (25 June 1900 – 24 June 1988) was an Italian actress, considered as the muse of the playwright
Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; ; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italians, Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his bold and ...
.


Life and career

Abba was born in
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
and was the sister of another actress, Cele Abba. At the age of fourteen, Abba tried to enter the Academy of Drama Lovers in Milan (in Italian:
Accademia dei Filodrammatici The Accademia dei Filodrammatici (literally "Academy of Drama Lovers"), is a drama school located in Milan, Italy and founded in 1796. It is the oldest theatre school in Italy. The theatre was designed by neoclassic architect Luigi Canonica, ba ...
). However, she had to wait a year before getting accepted since she was too young. She attended it for three years, then she was cast by dramatist Sabatino Lopez and she began performing together with the acting company headed by Enrico Reinach in Milan. After their meeting in 1925 and until his death in 1936, Marta Abba was the stimulus to the playwright
Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; ; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italians, Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his bold and ...
's creativity. She was an aspiring young 25-year-old actress when she met the 58-year-old playwright, whose wife had been confined to a mental asylum in 1919. From their correspondence, it comes out that she not only inspired him but she also gave the writer confidence, in his work. Their relationship was complex but contributed much to the Italian theatre. Pirandello was obsessive in pursuit of what could be presumed to have remained an unconsummated affair. Marta was the true great actress for whom he had been waiting after his earlier bitter disappointment with
Eleonora Duse Eleonora Giulia Amalia Duse ( , ; 3 October 185821 April 1924), often known simply as Duse, was an Italian actress, rated by many as the greatest of her time. She performed in many countries, notably in the plays of Gabriele D'Annunzio and Henr ...
. Luigi Pirandello's and Marta Abba's letters to each other have been translated into English. Marta Abba and Pirandello teamed up in 1925, and she appeared in many of his productions at the ''Rome Arts Theater''. In 1930, Abba founded her own theatrical company and specialized in staging the works of Pirandello and other European playwrights like
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
, Gabriele d'Annunzio and
Carlo Goldoni Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (, also , ; 25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793) was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays ...
under the direction of prestigious directors like
Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avant-gard ...
and Guido Salvini. Her
Broadway theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, American and British English spelling differences), many of the List of ...
debut was in the play '' Tovarich'' at the Plymouth Theatre, (October 15, 1936 – c. August 1937) in the role of Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna. Marta Abba's screen début in Broadway was in ''Loyalty of Love'', in 1937. In January 1938, she married a wealthy Cleveland polo player, Severance Allen Millikin and settled down in
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
,
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
until 1952, when she divorced and returned to Italy. After her marriage, she performed summer stock at Cain Park Theatre in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in two productions: ''
Divorçons ''Divorçons'' is a French play by Victorien Sardou and Émile de Najac produced in 1880. A farcical comedy about seeking a divorce, it had theatrical runs over the following decades in England and the United States. It is about a young wife wh ...
'' by Sardou (August 21–24, 1941) and Pirandello's ''Right You Are (If You Say You Are)'' (July 22–25, 1942). For ''Divorçons'', Abba insisted on working on a new translation so that the words "would fit her mouth." Abba was also a stickler for realism, insisting that Frank Monoco, a leading Cleveland restaurateur, play the maitre d'hotel so that he could serve an entire dinner onstage, which included the carving a whole fowl. Cain Park is an outdoor theatre which provided no shelter for the audience in the 1940s. The final performance of ''Divorcons'' had to be relocated to Severance Hall because of rain. Marta Abba used her own limousine to transport props and costumes to the Hall where the performance occurred "against the drapes". The scenic design for ''Divorcons'' was by the American industrial designer Viktor Schreckengost. The total attendance for the 4 performances of ''Divorcons'' was 11,183 paid admissions, so Cain Park Theatre was eager to have Abba return in another production. Abba consented to appear in Pirandello's ''Right You Are (If You Say You Are)'' the next year. When Abba appeared in the play's original production in Italy, she had a small role. This time, she took the lead of the ageing Lady Frola. Although a director had been assigned to the production, Abba quickly overtook those duties herself. Dr. Dina Rees Evans, supervising director of Cain Park, recalled: "She wanted to have rehearsals longer than we were able to have them, many times four, five and seven-hour sessions. She was used to them, but eventually came to understand that other plays were in rehearsal, and some of her cast was playing at night as well. Miss Abba suggested that she didn't like having actors sit down during rehearsals, it sets the atmosphere and the mood of being on your toes. She instructed (the cast) to listen carefully to scenes they were in and those they were not in." This production was the only time Abba performed in a play by Pirandello in the United States. Abba expressed an interest in starting an acting school, using the sunken garden area of the Severance Estate as a performing area. However, divorce proceedings soon ensued and Abba returned to Italy. Cain Park Theatre: The Halcyon Years, pp. 111-118 In the last years of her life, she suffered from
paresis In medicine, paresis (), compound word from Greek , (πᾰρᾰ- “beside” + ἵημι “let go, release”), is a condition typified by a weakness of voluntary movement, or by partial loss of voluntary movement or by impaired movement. Whe ...
and had to use a wheelchair. She died, at 87, in Milan, from a
cerebral haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is a type of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stro ...
, one day before her 88th birthday She published her autobiography in Italian, ''La mia vita di attrice''.


Selected filmography

* ''
The Haller Case ''The Haller Case'' () is a 1933 Italian thriller film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and starring Marta Abba, Memo Benassi and Camillo Pilotto.Brizio-Skov p.54 The film is based on the 1893 play '' Der Andere'' by Paul Lindau. It marked the s ...
'' directed by
Alessandro Blasetti Alessandro Blasetti (3 July 1900 – 1 February 1987) was an Italian film director and screenwriter who influenced Italian neorealism with the film ''Four Steps in the Clouds''. Blasetti was one of the leading figures in Italian cinema during the ...
(1933) *''
Loyalty of Love ''Loyalty of Love'' () is a 1934 Italian historical drama film directed by Guido Brignone and starring Marta Abba, Nerio Bernardi and Luigi Cimara. It is based on the story of Teresa Confalonieri, a celebrated figure of the Italian reunificatio ...
'', directed by
Guido Brignone Guido Brignone (6 December 1886 – 6 March 1959) was an Italian film director and actor. He was the father of actress Lilla Brignone and younger brother of actress Mercedes Brignone. Brignone was born in Milan, Italy. He was the first Italian ...
(1934)


Selected plays

Some of the plays written by Luigi Pirandello in which Marta Abba acted: *''The New Colony'' (''La Nuova Colonia'') *''As You Desire Me'' (''Come tu mi vuoi'') *''Finding Oneself'' (''Trovarsi'') *''The Wives' Friend'' (''L'Amica delle Mogli'') *''Diana and Tuda'' (''Diana e La Tuda'') *''You Don't Know How'' (''Non Si Sa Come'')


References


Further reading

* ''Caro maestro... lettere a Luigi Pirandello'' (1926–1936), edizioni Mursia edited by Pietro Frassica, Milan, (1994) (in Italian containing 280 letters Marta Abba wrote to Luigi Pirandello) * ''Lettere di Luigi Pirandello a Marta Abba'', edizione Mondadori, collana I Meridiani (1995) (in Italian containing 560 letters Luigi Pirandello wrote to Marta Abba) * ''Pirandello and His muse, The Plays for Marta Abba,'' by Daniela Bini, University Press of Florida 1998 * ''Pirandello's love letters to Marta Abba'', edited and translated by Benito Ortolani (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).


External links

* * Review of Marta Abba's film debu

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abba, Marta 1900 births 1988 deaths Italian stage actresses Actresses from Milan Italian film actresses 20th-century Italian actresses