Ugo Betti was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 judge, better known as an author, who is considered by many the greatest Italian playwright next to Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...

.

Betti studied law in Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

 at the time when World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 broke out, and he volunteered as a soldier. After the war he finished his studies and became a judge. Writing in his spare time, he published his first collections of poems in 1922. These, titled Il re pensieroso (The Thoughtful King), were written while he was in German captivity from 1917 to 18. La Padrona, his first play, was first performed in 1927, and the play's success made him devote himself entirely to the theatre. In 1931 he moved from Parma to Rome. In 1938 he was accused by the fascists of being a Jew and an anti-fascist. After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he was accused of being a fascist, but was cleared of all charges. In his later years, he worked at the library of the Ministry of Justice.

Altogether he wrote 27 plays, the most highly regarded written in the final period of his career, from 1940 until his death. His works explore the nature of evil, the existential guilt experienced by his protagonists, and the theme of redemption. Sometimes referred to as "the Italian Kafka", the criminal investigation is a characteristic motif in his plays. In The Inquiry, the procedure moves gradually from the realistic to the metaphysical level, without it ever being clearly revealed what the object of the investigation is. His best-known play is probably Corruzione al Palazzo di Giustizia (Corruption in the Palace of Justice). In it, an investigation into the possibility of corruption in the judiciary implicates more and more people, until the investigator himself is driven to address his own culpability.

Works

• Il re pensieroso (The Thoughtful King, 1922)
• La Padrona (The Mistress of the House, 1926)
• L'isola meravigliosa (1929)
• Il diluvia (1931)
• Una bella domenica di settembre (1935)
• I nostri sogni (1936)
• Frano allo scalo nord (Landslide at the North Station, 1936)
• Il paese delle vacanze (Summertime, 1937)
• Favola di Natale (1937)
• Il cacciatore di anitre (The Duck Hunter, 1940)
• Il diluvio (The Flood, 1943)
• Spiritismo nell'antica casa (Spirit-Raising in the Old House, 1944)
• Corruzione al Palazzo di Giustizia (Corruption in the Palace of Justice, 1944-1945)
• Delitto all'isola delle capre (Crime on Goat-Island, 1946)
• Ispezione (The Inquiry, 1947)
• Aque turbate (Troubled Waters, 1948)
• La regina e lgli insorti (The Queen and the Rebels, 1949)
• L'aiuola bruciata (The Burnt Flowerbed, 1952)
• La Fuggitiva (The Fugitive
  The Fugitive (play)
  The Fugitive is the last play of Italian playwright Ugo Betti, completed six months before his death. It was first performed posthumously, at the Teatro le Fenice in Venice, in 1953.-Plot:...
  
  , 1953)

Texts available in English

• Three Plays. Edited by Gino Rizzo (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966). Includes The Inquiry
  The Inquiry (film)
  L'inchiesta is a 2006 historical drama film set in AD 35 in the Roman Empire. The story follows a fictional Roman general named Titus Valerius Taurus, a veteran of campaigns in Germania, who is sent to Judaea by the emperor Tiberius to investigate the possibility of the divinity of the recently...
  
  , Goat Island, and The Gambler.
• Three Plays. Translated by Henry Reed. (New York: Grove Press, 1958). Includes The Queen and the Rebels, Summertime, and The Burnt Flowerbed.
• Three Plays on Justice. Translated by G. H. McWilliam. (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing, 1964). Includes Landslide, Struggle Till Dawn, and The Fugitive
  The Fugitive (play)
  The Fugitive is the last play of Italian playwright Ugo Betti, completed six months before his death. It was first performed posthumously, at the Teatro le Fenice in Venice, in 1953.-Plot:...
  
  .

Further reading

• Eric Salmon. "Ugo Betti's Troubled Waters." Modern Drama 11 (1968): 97-108.
• Harold H. Watts. "Ugo Betti: The Theater of 'Shame." Modern Drama 12 (1969): 64-79.