Maria Elena Capitani is Adjunct Professor of Anglophone Literatures and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Parma, Italy.
She holds a BA and an MA in English and French from the University of Parma, by which she was also awarded the title of Doctor Europaeus for a PhD thesis on “The Politics of Re-(En)visioning: Contemporary British Rewritings of Greek and Roman Tragedies” (2016). A revised version of the thesis will be published as a monograph entitled Contemporary British Appropriations of Greek and Roman Tragedies: The Politics of Rewriting (Palgrave).
Her research interests lie in twentieth- and twenty-first-century British literature and culture, with a special focus on drama/theatre, fiction, intertextuality and adaptation/translation for the stage. Since 2010, she has published extensively on Martin Crimp’s theatre, examining it from different angles. Her research has also explored Scottish playwright David Greig’s work. A significant part of her output concentrates on adaptation across different genres and media. Some of her most recent contributions focus on the intersections between gender studies, affect theory and theatre.
Maria Elena is a co-investigator for “Gender, Affect and Care in the Twenty-First Century British Theatre” (PID2021-126448NA-I00), a three-year research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the EU European Regional Development Fund (FFI2016-75443). In 2014 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Universitat de Barcelona, under the supervision of Mireia Aragay, and in 2015 she visited the Department of English Literature at Reading, under the supervision of Kate Bassett. She is currently working on a research project entitled “Reprising Romanticism: Romantic Re-Creations in Contemporary British Theatre (1980-2020)” (https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4844).
She is also a member of CDE (German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English), RADAC (Recherches sur les Arts Dramatiques Anglophones Contemporains), AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica) and ESSE (European Society for the Study of English), and forms part of the Editorial Staff of Parole Rubate/Purloined Letters, the University of Parma’s international peer-reviewed e-journal of quotation studies.
Contemporary British Theatre
(forthcoming): “‘Will the Gods Be Watching?’ politique, réécriture et échos helléniques dans Cruel and Tender de Martin Crimp”, Il Confronto Letterario.
(forthcoming): “‘Please Put the Head in the Pot. You’re Losing the Script’: Corporeal and Textual Dismemberment in Lucy Gough’s Head, a Remeditation of Keats’s Isabella“, Skène: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies.
2021: “The Crimpesque: Pinter’s Legacy in the Theatre of Martin Crimp”, Harold Pinter: Stages, Networks, Collaborations. Eds. Basil Chiasson and Catriona Fallow. London: Bloomsbury Methuen, pp. 174-193. https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/harold-pinter-stages-networks-collaborations/ch10-the-crimpesque-pinter-s-legacy-in-the-theatre-of-martin-crimp
2021: Review of Graham Saunders, Elizabethan and Jacobean Reappropriation in Contemporary British Drama: ‘Upstart Crows’, Catherine Rees, Adaptation and Nation: Theatrical Contexts for Contemporary English and Irish Drama and Kara Reilly, Contemporary Approaches to Adaptation in Theatre, Atlantis: Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies 43: 1, pp. 243-256. https://www.
2020: “Blood and Ice, or Liz Lochhead’s ‘Hideous Progeny’”, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 1818- 2018. Eds. Maria Parrino, Alessandro Scarsella, and Michela Vanon Alliata. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 111-122. https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-5275-4889-3-sample.pdf
2020: “A New Reality: Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey”, British Women’s Writing 1930 to 1960: Between the Waves. Eds. Sue Kennedy and Jane Thomas. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 215-231. https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/37443/chapter-abstract/331605326?redirectedFrom=fulltext
2019: “An English Playwright on the Italian Stage: Exporting, Translating, and Staging Martin Crimp’s Drama”, special issue on “Crossing Borders: Anglophone Theatre in Europe”. Eds. Susan Blattès and Christine Kiehl. Coup de Théâtre HS5, pp. 93-111.
2019: “Nineties Lear: Neo-Jacobean Echoes in Martin Crimp’s and Sarah Kane’s ‘In-Yer-Face’ Drama”, Worlds of Words: Complexity, Creativity and Conventionality in English Language, Literature and Culture, Vol. II: Literature and Culture. Eds. Roberta Ferrari, Sara Soncini, Fausto Ciompi and Laura Giovannelli. Pisa: Pisa University Press, pp. 189-200. https://www.pisauniversitypress.it/scheda-libro/autori-vari/worlds-of-words-complexity-creativity-and-conventionality-in-english-language-literature-and-culture-978-883339-2479-575585.html
2019: “The Politics of Spectatorship: Community, Ethics, and Affect in Contemporary British Rewritings of Ancient Tragedies”, Redefining Theatre Communities: International Perspectives in Community-Conscious Theatre-Making. Eds. Marco Galea and Szabolcs Musca. Bristol-Chicago: Intellect, pp. 68-84. https://www.intellectbooks.com/redefining-theatre-communities
2018: “Narratives of Terror: Palinsesti, Displacement e Englishness nei drammi di Martin Crimp e Simon Stephens”, special issue on “Di fronte all’evento. La rappresentazione della cronaca nelle arti contemporanee”. Eds. Teresa Manuela Lussone and Gennaro Schiavo, SigMa: Rivista di Letteratura Comparata, Teatro e Arti dello Spettacolo 2, pp. 47-61. http://www.serena.unina.it/index.php/sigma/article/view/5968
2017: “Non-Places as Sites for Intercultural Clashes in Sarah Kane’s Blasted and David Greig’s Damascus”, Transnational Subjects: Cultural and Literacy Encounters, Vol. I. Eds. Rossella Ciocca, Annamaria Lamarra and Carmela Maria Laudando. Napoli: Liguori, pp. 168-178. http://www.liguori.it/schedanew.asp?isbn=6737
2017: “Re-Membering the Bard: David Greig’s and Liz Lochhead’s Re-visionary Reminiscences of The Tempest”, Parole Rubate / Purloined Letters: Rivista internazionale di studi sulla citazione / An International Journal of Quotation Studies 16, pp. 235-250. http://www.parolerubate.unipr.it/fascicolo16_pdf/F16_13_capitani_tempest.pdf
2017: “The Sense of (Un)Belonging: David Greig’s (Un?)Scottishness in Pyrenees and Damascus”, special issue on “Language Choice and Ideologies of ldentity”. Eds. Ian Brown and Ksenija Horvat. International Journal of Scottish Theatre and Screen 10, pp. 19-39. https://ijosts.glasgow.ac.uk/vol-10/the-sense-of-unbelonging-david-greigs-un-scottishness-in-pyrenees-and-damascus/
2017: “‘Perhaps That Taste of Nothing Is What You Can Taste’: Sensory Landscapes, Absence, and Objects in Martin Crimp’s The Country”, special issue on “II teatro e i sensi. Teorie, estetiche, drammaturgie”. Ed. Paola Ranzini. Itinera: Rivista di filosofia e di teoria delle arti 13, pp. 299-310. https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/itinera/article/view/8734
2016: “Appropriating Macbeth in the Contact Zone: The Politics of Place, Space, and Liminality in David Greig’s Dunsinane”, special issue on “Stage and Beyond Space and Place in Contemporary Theatre”. Eds. Carmen Gallo and Clément Levy. Anglistica AION 20: 2, pp. 17-29. http://www.serena.unina.it/index.php/anglistica-aion/article/view/8554
2016: “From Page/Stage to Screen through Poetry: Relocation, Rewriting, and Remediation in Tony Harrison’s Prometheuk”, Remediating Imagination: Literatures and Cultures in English from the Renaissance to the Postcolonial. Eds. Gioia Angeletti, Giovanna Buonanno and Diego Saglia. Roma: Carocci, pp. 205-12. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jcde-2013-0013/html?lang=en
2013: “Dealing with Bodies: The Corporeal Dimension in Sarah Kane’s Cleansed and Martin Crimp’s The Country”, special issue on “Bodies on Stage”. Eds. Anette Pankratz and Ariane de Waal. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 1: 1, pp. 137-148. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jcde-2013-0013/html?lang=en
2012: “‘The treatment was wild’: medicina, desiderio e coscienza in The Country di Martin Crimp”, special issue on “Patologia e terapia tra Scienza e Letteratura”. Ed. Laura Dolfi. La Torre di Babele: Rivista di letteratura e linguistica 8, pp. 213-235.
2011: “Blurring Ethical Boundaries: (Im)Moral Ambiguity in Martin Crimp’s Characters”, Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance 2: 1, pp. 65-68. https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/peet.2.1.65_7
2011: “Drammaturgia transtestuale. Martin Crimp fra autocitazione a riscrittura”, Parole Rtibate Purloined Lettere: Rivista internazionale di studi sulla citazione / An International Journal of Quotation Studies 3, pp. 83-112. http://www.parolerubate.unipr.it/fascicolo3_pdf/F3_4_capitani_crimp.pdf
Other
2021: “A Tale of Two Countries: The Shadow of Brexit in Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016) and Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land (2017)”, Thinking Out of the Box in Literary and Cultural Studies. Eds. Rocco Coronato, Marilena Parlati and Alessandra Petrina. Padova: Padova University Press, pp. 495-508. https://www.padovauniversitypress.it/system/files/attachments_field/9788869382574.pdf
Contemporary British Theatre
2023: “‘That’s All We Fucking Have. To Listen to Each Other. To Know Each Other’: Intersections Between Queernes, Care and Gender in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride“, paper presented at the international symposium “Care and/in Twenty-First Century British Theatre”, organised by Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, University of Barcelona, 16-17 November.
2023: “Jane Austen and Remediating the Regency on the Contemporary British Stage”, paper presented at the 20th International Conference of the Society for English Romanticism (Gesellschaft für Englische Romantik, GER) “Romanticism and its Media”, University of Leipzig, 5-8 October.
2021: “When the Public Enters the Domestic: Palimpsestic Wars and Gender(ed) Conflicts in Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender”, paper presented at the International Conference “Rewriting War and Peace in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Contemporary British and American Literature”, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 8-9 September [online].
2021: “‘The Dignity that Comes with Being Heard’: Changing Attitudes to Sexuality in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride”, paper presented at 15th ESSE Conference, Université de Lyon, 30 August-3 September [online].
2021: with Gioia Angeletti, “Europeanness, Border Aesthetics and Resistance in David Greig’s anti-Brexit Plays”, paper presented at the International Conference “Border Narratives – Brexit, Europe, and the UK”, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 5-7 May [online].
2019: “Keats on Air: Corporeal and Textual Dismemberment in Lucy Gough’s Head, a Remediation of Isabella”, paper presented at the International Conference “Late Romanticism: Past and Present”, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 12-14 December.
2018: “An English Playwright on the Italian Stage: Exporting, Translating, and Staging Martin Crimp’s Drama”, paper presented at the International Conference “RADAC 40: Crossing Borders: Contemporary Anglophone Theatre in Europe”, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, 11-12 October.
2018: “The Crimpesque: Pinter’s Legacy in the Theatre of Martin Crimp”, paper presented at the International Conference “Staging Pinter: Networks, Collaborators, Legacies”, University of Birmingham, 6-7 April.
2018: “Blood and Ice, or Liz Lochhead’s ‘Hideous Progeny’”, paper presented at the “International Bicentenary Conference on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 21-22 February.
2017: “Nineties Lear: Neo-Jacobean Echoes in Martin Crimp’s and Sarah Kane’s ‘In-Yer-Face’ Drama”, paper presented at the XXVIII AIA Conference “Worlds of Words: Complexity, Creativity, and Conventionality in English Language, Literature and Culture”, Università di Pisa, 14-16 September.
2017: “Contemporary British Tragedy: Re-imagining Spectatorship and Community through Ethics and Affect”, paper presented at “English: Shared Futures – A Major Conference Across the Discipline”, co-organised by The English Association, University English, the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), the Institute of English Studies and the Higher Education Academy, Newcastle Civic Centre, 5-7 July.
2017: “Re-Membering the Bard: David Greig’s and Liz Lochhead’s Revisionary Reminiscences of The Tempest”, paper presented at the International Conference “The Past is Back on Stage: Medieval and Early Modern England on the Contemporary Stage”, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, 19-20 May.
2017: “Crossing Boundaries: Terror, Tragedy, and Displacement in Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender”, paper presented at the Interdisciplinary Colloquium: “Terror on Tour: Borders, Detours & Contingencies”, Universität Innsbruck, 29-31 March.
2016: “Camp Tragedy: genere letterario, gender e teatralità in The Bacchae (2007) di David Greig”, paper presented at the XIV Compalit Conference “Maschere del Tragico”, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 14-16 December .
2016: “The Sense of (Un)Belonging: David Greig’s (Un?)Scottishness in Pyrenees and Damascus”, paper presented at the 13th ESSE Conference, National University of Ireland – Galway, 22-26 August.
2016: “Re-presenting (Women’s) Reality: Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey”, paper presented at the International Conference “Revision, Revival, Rediscovery…‘Re’ Words in British Women’s Writing between 1930 and 1960”, University of Hull, 24 June.
2016: “‘Perhaps That Taste of Nothing Is What You Can Taste’: Sensory Landscapes, Absence, and Objects in Martin Crimp’s The Country”, paper presented at the International Conference “Le théâtre et les cinq sens. Théories, esthétiques, dramaturgies” [Trilateral Project funded by SENSES / Creative Europe 2015-2017: Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse, Università degli Studi di Milano, Universitatea “Dunărea de Jos” din Galați], Maison de l’Italie, Cité Internationale Universitaire, Paris, 13-14 June.
2015: “Non-Places as Sites for Intercultural Clashes in Sarah Kane’s Blasted and David Greig’s Damascus”, paper presented at the XXVII AIA Conference “Transnational Subjects: Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Encounters”, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II” and Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, 10-12 September.
2014: “‘Will the gods be watching?’: Échos helléniques dans Cruel and Tender de Martin Crimp”, paper presented at the International Conference: “Le citationnisme au théâtre: réécriture, allusion ou citation veritable”, Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse, 10 October.
2013: “From Page/Stage to Screen through Poetry: Rewriting and Remediation in Tony Harrison’s Prometheus”, paper presented at the XXVI AIA Conference “Remediating, Rescripting, Remaking: Old and New Challenges in English Studies”, Università degli Studi di Parma, 12-14 September.
2013: “‘’Tis England, My Boy. England’: The Trouble with National Identity in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem”, paper presented at the International Conference “New Elizabethans 1953-2013: Nation, Culture, and Modern Identity”, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London, 13-15 June.
2012: “Dealing with Bodies: The Corporeal Dimension in Sarah Kane’s Cleansed and Martin Crimp’s The Country”, paper presented at the 21st Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE) “Bodies on Stage”, Mülheim an der Ruhr (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), 7-10 June.
Contemporary British Theatre
2024: “Keat’s Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil and Lucy Gough’s Radio Adaptation: ‘Writ in… Air'”, paper presented at a series of lectures entitled “Romanticism, Now and Then: Re-Creations in Contemporary British Drama and Theatre”, organised by Maria Elena Capitani, University of Parma, 7 March.
2023: participation in the seminar VIII Laboratorio Malatestiano “Simultaneità e polifonia. Le voci del coro nel dramma contemporaneo e nelle arti”, Rocca Malatestiana, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 29-30 September.
2023: participation in the study day on care in/and twenty-first century British theatre within the project “Gender, Affect and Care in Twenty-First Century British Theatre”, organized by the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group, Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Filologia i Comunicació, 24 February.
2022: “‘Please Put the Head in the Pot. You’re Losing the Script’: Lucy Gough’s Keatsian Remediation for BBC Radio 4”, paper presented at the workshop “Reprising Romanticism: Romantic Re-Creations in Contemporary British Theatre (1980-2020)”, co-organised with Gioia Angeletti and Diego Saglia, Università di Parma, 10 May.
2017: “Narratives of Terror: Palinsesti, Displacement e Englishness nei drammi di Martin Crimp e Simon Stephens”, paper presented at the Laboratorio Malatestiano “Di fronte all’evento: Le rappresentazioni della cronaca nelle arti contemporanee”, Rocca Malatestiana, Santarcangelo di Romagna, 29-30 September.
2016: with Gioia Angeletti, “The Bard in a Kilt: riscritture shakespeariane nel teatro scozzese contemporaneo”, within the session “Figure dell’immaginario europeo: Ariosto, Shakespeare, Cervantes 2016. I grandi anniversari”, European Researchers’ Night, Cinema D’Azeglio, Parma, 30 September.
2015: “The Politics of Rewriting Tragedy”, paper presented at the PhD Forum at “Theatre and Spectatorship”, 24th Annual Conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), Universitat de Barcelona, 4-7 June.
2014: “Martin Crimp e il teatro francese: ‘The Extreme of My Empathetic Range’; o, tradurre Marivaux”, guest lecture delivered at MA in Etudes Romanes, Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse, 9 October.
Contemporary British Theatre
2021: Maria Gaetano, “L’arte della violenza nel teatro esperienziale di Sarah Kane” / “The Art of Violence in Sarah Kane’s Experiential Theatre”.
2020: Giulia Montani, “Il teatro di Marcella Evaristi: femminismo, identità e conflitti” / “Marcella Evaristi’s Theatre: Feminism, Identity, and Conflicts”.
2018: Alessia Ingo, “Storia, memoria e identità nel teatro scozzese di Liz Lochhead, Ann Marie Di Mambro, Sue Glover e Jackie Kay” / “History, Memory, and Identity in the Scottish Theatre of Liz Lochhead, Ann Marie Di Mambro, Sue Glover, and Jackie Kay”.
2018: Simona Pedrelli, “David Greig’s Engaged Theatre: Mapping Identity through the Dialogue with Alterity within and without National Borders”.