We have for you another outpost on the extremes of literature, another specimen of the radically long or brief.  This one is on the short side.

The output of the Italian Futurists is uneven: sometimes exuberantly imaginative, sometimes merely creepy and jejune (especially when the fascist strain predominates).  But I usually enjoy the sintesi: bits of theater cut down to their essence.  Some are provocations (a single howl or gunshot), some parodistic (a five-act tragedy reduced to five lines), some gags akin to burlesque blackouts.

Angelo Rognoni, atypically, preferred the charming.  Here’s my translation of his 1923 sintesi “Sunday,” which pares a day in the park down to nine lines.

SUNDAY

A public park.  A bench.  Downstage, a deck chair, with the FIRST MAN, obviously quite bored, stretched out on it.  A girl and a soldier enter from right.  They sit on the bench.

SOLDIER: Lovely day.  What’s your name?
GIRL: Maria.
SOLDIER: Mine’s Carlo.
(A man crosses, holding a little boy by the hand.)
BOY (whimpers, repeats with monotonous insistence): I want a snow cone…  I want a snow cone…  I want a snow cone…
A WORKER (to his wife): Hurry up, hurry up.  If we’re late, the theater will be full and we’ll have to stand.  (They exit.)
SOLDIER (to the girl): How about a little walk?  (They move off slowly.)
FIRST MAN (rising suddenly, exhaling): I’m so bored.  I don’t know what to do with myself.  (He leaves.)
SECOND MAN (enters, takes FIRST MAN’S seat): Ah!  At last!  Today I can take it easy.  (He dozes as a young man enters.)
YOUNG MAN (runs across, shouting): We won!  Two to zero…  Two to zero…  Two to zero…

(Posted by Doug Skinner)