Abstract

The aim of this paper is a new understanding of some of the main theoretical-problematic knots around which turns the reading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest offered by Giorgio Strehler in its important production dated 1977-1978. In particular, by moving from the highlighting of the character «concrete» as well as «symbolic» of the complex dramaturgical device built up by Strehler, the paper dwells on the analysis of the following motifs: the question of the relationship reality-fiction (which can be transposed as the relationship between art and life); the work performed «on» and «by» the signs as cognitive threshold; the semantically crucial role played by the identity of «island», «raft» and «platform»; the theme of meta-theatre as the aesthetically privileged strategy through which the fiction (auto-unmasking itself) becomes an «experience of truth»