Southern Connecticut State University,
New Haven, Connecticut
Enrico Cavacchioli came to the theater after an early experiment with the futurist movement, of which he was a charter member along with Filippo T. Marinetti. That background is manifest in his early poetry as well as in a number of his plays, including The Bird of Paradise, which completes an important first cycle of grotesque drama and poetics1. This particular work, written as a "confession in three acts" in 1918 and staged at the Teatro Carignano in Turin on March 19, 1919, is widely regarded as the most important play by Enrico Cavacchioli. [...]