COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE – What is it?
Commedia was a theatre GENRE created in Italy at the end of the Renaissance. It flourished from 1560’s to the end of the 18th. FEATURING stylized personages it became famous across Europe, IT was THE Popular entertainment of the times.
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  • Performed by Travelling troupes 
  • Performed outside in the town square
  • Format of plays were usually non-scripted scenarios, elements of improvisation
  • Performers were the ultimate entertainer (act, sing, dance, play instrument, cook…)
  • Women performed as women on stage
  • MASKS were worn to distinguish the Stock Characters: Master, Servants, Capitano, Lovers
  • It was social satire and could be seen as politically charged
  • Influenced Western culture and traditions from literature to theatre and from art to film: Moliere, Shakespeare; Opera, operetta, opera buffa, Stravinsky, musicals, vaudeville, Picasso, Watteau, Maurice Sand, clown, slapstick, silent film, masks, improv, sitcoms, stand up, street performers...
Stock characters: Masters, Servants, Capitano, Lovers
Masked Characters:
  • Il Dottore – the quack doctor or rambling teacher/professor
  • Pantalone – greedy miser
  • Arlecchino – mischievous servant
  • Pulcinella – nasty servant
  • Brighella - cut throat servant
  • Capitano – braggart Soldier
 
Unmasked Characters:
  • Innamorati – young lovers (sample names: Isabella, Silvia, Silvio, Flavio..)
  • Servant girl (sample names: Columbina, Smeraldina)
 
PRISM (Posture, Rhythm, Internal Spirit, Mask)
 
3 DRIVES : all characters are driven/want 1 or all of these in varying degrees
            FOOD, SEX, MONEY
 
Examples of Solo Lazzi for each character:
  • Dottore - talking nonsense lazzo 
  • Pantalone - bag of money lazzo
  • Lovers -laughter and crying lazzo 
  • Capitano - bragging lazzo
  • Pulcinella - hunger lazzo, eating the fly 
  • Smeraldina/Arlecchino - fantasy lazzo (food, wealth..)
RESOURCE: Commedia Books 
A Brief Reading/ Viewing List 
 
Resource Books:
Commedia Dell’Arte    Ducharte, Pierre L., Dover Books, Paris 1955
The Commedia Dell’Arte  Orgeglia, G., Metheun &Co, 1968
Scenarios of the Commedia Dell’Arte  Scala, Flaminio
Lazzi  Gordon, Mel
Commedia Scene Study  Rolfe, Bari
Commedia Dell’Arte: An Actor’s Handbook  Rudlin, John
Commedia Dell’Arte: A Handbook for Troupes  Rudlin, John and Olly Crick
The Moving Body (Teaching Creative Theatre)  Jacques Lecoq
The Rise of the Diva  Rosalind Kerr
 
Images:
Masks made by Amleto Sartori or Donato Sartori (Padua, Italy)
Masks made by Antonio Fava
Drawings made by Jaques Callot of the Commedia
Maurice Sand drew a beautiful series of the Commedia characters, around the 1800’s
 
Plays:
  • Carlo Goldoni:   Servant of Two Mastersand any of his early plays
  • Carlo Gozzi: The Stage King,  Turnandot,The Love of three Oranges
  • Moliere
  • Shakespeare: (Merchant of Venice character of Shylock, the rude mechanicals in Midsummer, the jesters and fools, lovers Romeo & Juliet, etc
  • Dario Fo: Mistero Buffo
 
Further Stuff:
  • Dario Fo:  Tricks of the Trade
  • Modern Clowns: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, John Ritter, Kramer
  • TV sitcoms of today, have a look at the characters (Three’s Company, The Simpsons…)
  • Vaudville
  • Stand up Comics
  • Black and White Movies; Chaplin and Keaton
  • Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre – California
  • Antonio Fava (teacher, mask maker and school in Italy)
  • Sartori (masks)
  • National Theatre School - London

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