Alessandro Fersen (5 December 1911 – 3 October 2001) was a Polish-born Italian dramatist, actor, theater director, author and drama teacher. Born Aleksander Fajrajzen in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

to a Jewish family, Fersen he moved to

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

with his family in 1913. A student under Giuseppe Rensi, in 1934 he graduated in philosophy from the

University of Genoa The University of Genoa, known also with the acronym UniGe ( it, Università di Genova), is one of the largest universities in Italy. It is located in the city of Genoa and regional Metropolitan City of Genoa, on the Italian Riviera in the Liguri ...

with a thesis later published under the title ''L'Universo come giuoco'' ("The Universe as a game"). Due to the racial laws of 1938 he moved to Paris (where he attended the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris n ...

) and then in Eastern Europe.Enrico Lancia, Fabio Melelli. ''Dizionario del cinema italiano. Attori stranieri del nostro cinema''. Gremese, 2006. . Back in Italy in 1943, he participated in the resistance in

Liguria it, Ligure , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, in a partisan group linked to the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Socialism, socialist and later Social democracy, social-democratic List of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the l ...

, before working in Switzerland, where he became friends with

Emanuele Luzzati Emanuele Luzzati (3 June 1921 – 26 January 2007) was an Italian painter, production designer, illustrator, film director and animator. He was nominated for Academy Awards for two of his short films, ''La gazza ladra'' (''The Thieving Magpi ...

and

Giorgio Colli Giorgio Colli (1917 – 6 January 1979) was an Italian philosopher, philologist and historian. A native of Turin, he taught ancient philosophy at Pisa's university for thirty years; he edited and translated Aristotle's ''Organon'' and Kant's '' ...

."Un maestro in palcoscenico (Alessandro Fersen)", ''Sorgente di vita''.

Rai 2 Rai 2 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's second television channel, and is known for broadcasting ''TG2'' news bulletins, tal ...

. 5 October 2014. He returned to Italy at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and after a period in which he devoted himself to political activity (being a member of the Secretary of the

National Liberation Committee The National Liberation Committee ( it, Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, CLN) was a political umbrella organization and the main representative of the Italian resistance movement fighting against Nazi Germany’s forces during the German occup ...

of Genoa and Liguria) and journalism (as a collaborator of newspapers ''Il Lavoro'' and ''Corriere del Popolo''), in 1947 he began his activity as a theater director with the drama ''Leah Lebowitz'', a play which he had taken from a Hasidic legend; this play started with the artistic collaboration, which will last decades, with

, with whom founded the "Teatro Ebraico" ("Jewish Theatre"), staging dramas written by him such as ''Golem'' (1969), inspired by the Yiddish folklore, or ''Leviathan'' (1974), based on the techniques of mnemodrama. From 1947 Fersen worked for more than a decade for the Teatro Stabile in Genoa, directing adaptations of Shakespeare, Pirandello, Molière, Anouilh, among others. In 1957 he began a career as a drama teacher founding an acting school in Rome, the "Studio di arti sceniche", inspired by the Stanislavski's system. He was also an author of critical and theoretical essays, aimed at an interdisciplinary theater, and an actor active on stage, on television and in films.

Filmography

References

External links

Alessandro Fersen Foundation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fersen, Alessandro 1911 births 2001 deaths Actors from Genoa Italian male film actors Italian male stage actors Italian male television actors Polish emigrants to Italy 20th-century Polish Jews Italian dramatists and playwrights Italian theatre directors University of Genoa alumni Jewish partisans Jewish male actors Jewish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Italian male actors 20th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights