Alessandro Fersen

Alessandro Fersen (born Aleksander Kazimierz Fajrajzen; 5 December 1911 – 3 October 2001) was a Polish-born Italian dramatist, actor, theater director, author and drama teacher. He is considered an influential figure in the 20th-century Italian theatre.

Life He was born as Aleksander Fajrajzen in Łódź to a Jewish family, that moved to Genoa in 1913. He studied at the University of Genoa under Giuseppe Rensi, graduating in philosophy in 1934 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) and then in Eastern Europe. Back in Italy in 1943, he participated in the resistance in Liguria, in a partisan group linked to the Italian Socialist Party, before working in Switzerland, where he became friends with Emanuele Luzzati and Giorgio Colli.

He returned to Italy at the end of World War II, and after a period in which he devoted himself to political activity (being a member of the Secretary of the National Liberation Committee 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 Emanuele Luzzati, 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 Year Title Role Notes1942 Un colpo di pistola Uncredited1949 The Earth Cries Out Il rabbino 1949 The Walls of Malapaga Uncredited1950 Il sentiero dell'odio 1951 Lorenzaccio 1953 Perdonami! 1953 Woman of the Red Sea Prof. Krauss 1953 Il viale della speranza Director Gabelli 1953 Puccini Padre di Delia 1953 Condemned to Hang Cesare Rovelli 1953 Jealousy Don Silvio 1953 Musoduro Dott. Biondi 1953 Viva la rivista! 1954 Delirio 1954 Theodora, Slave Empress Metropolita 1954 Ulysses Diomede 1954 The Two Orphans Michel Gérard - the father 1954 I cavalieri della regina 1955 The Lost City Padre de Rafael 1955 Le Amiche Uncredited1955 Desperate Farewell Doctor Lena 1956 La capinera del mulino Aimone 1986 Giovanni Senzapensieri Il Professore (final film role)