Vito Pandolfi, born in 1917, is a leading Italian theatre critic, historian, and director. The article we are publishing was taken in part from his book, Contemporary Italian Theatre (Teatro italiano contemporaneo, Milan, 1959). Pandolfi revised and updated his analysis for TDR. A graduate of D'Amico's Accademia d'Arte Drammatica, Pandolfi has directed plays by Tasso, Goethe, Lorca, and Moravia, as well as adapting and directing The Masks’ Fair (La fiera delle maschere, 1947), derived from commedia dell'arte scenarios. His best known scholarly work is the five-volume study of commedia texts and history, La commedia dell'arte (Florence, 1956-1959). Pandolfi's critical method springs both from his Marxism and from his conviction that the Italian theatre no longer reflects Italian society accurately because working-class characters are excluded from most Italian plays. Pandolfi's theatre criticism is indicative of a very strong current in today's Italian thought.