COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE

'''Commedia dell'arte''' (Italian: "play of professional artists
" also interpreted as "comedy of humors"), also known as 'Extemporal Comedy', was a popular form of improvisational theatre that began in Italy in the 15th century (1400s) and maintained its popularity through to the 18th century (1700s), although it is still performed today. All of their performances were outside with few props, unscripted, and were free to watch, funded by donations. In a troupe there were 10 people: 7 men and 3 women. Outside Italy, it was also known as "Italian Comedy".
The performances were improvised around a repertory of stock conventional situations: adultery, jealousy, old age, love, some of which can be traced in the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence, which are themselves translations of lost Greek comedies of the fourth century BC. These characters included the ancestors of the modern clown. The dialogue and action could easily be made topical and adjusted to satirize local scandals, current events, or regional tastes, mixed with ancient jokes and punchlines. Characters were identified by costume, masks, and even props, such as the slapstick. Previously rehearsed Lazzi and Concetti are other tools used by a commedia troupe.
The classic, traditional plot is that the ''innamorati'' are in love and wish to be married, but one ''vecchio'' (elder) or several elders, ''vecchi'', are preventing this from happening, and so they must ask one or more ''zanni'' (eccentric servant) for help. Typically it ends happily with the marriage of the ''innamorati'' and forgiveness all around for any wrongdoings. There are countless variations on this story, as well as many that diverge completely from the structure, such as a well-known story about Arlecchino becoming mysteriously pregnant, or the Punch and Judy scenario.

Contents

Style

The characters

The influence of commedia

Commedia today

See also

Further reading

Style

Travelling teams of players would set up an outdoor stage and provide amusement in the form of juggling, acrobatics, and, more typically, humorous semi-improvised plays based on a repertoire of established characters and a rough storyline. Troupes would occasionally perform directly from the back of their traveling wagon, but this is more typical of ''Carro di Tespi'', a kind of traveling theatre that can be traced back to antiquity.

The characters

Characters were portrayed by actors wearing masks, although the innamorati (or ''lovers'') did not wear masks. Like their English contemporaries (Shakespeare), the Italians dressed male actors ''en travesti'' -- in women's clothing and wigs. Unlike the boy players of English renaissance theatre this was for humorous purposes, rather than as a result of social constraints.
In some cases, the characters were also traditionally considered as respectively representing some Italian regions or main towns. Often they are still now symbolic of the related town...

Others included:

★ Burrattino

★ Franceschina

★ Scaramuccia

The influence of commedia

The ''commedia dell'arte'', with its stock situations, stock characters and improvised dialogue influenced many other forms of drama, including pantomime and Punch and Judy.
The archetypes represented by the five main Commedia characters are so universal to storytelling that they can be compared to a wide range of contemporary characterizations. For example, some of the characters in the contemporary American television series ''The Simpsons'' might be considered comparable to Commedia characters: C. Montgomery Burns is comparable to the old and wealthy Pantalone; the bungling policeman Chief Wiggum is comparable to Il Capitano; Principal Skinner could be compared to Il Dottore, the creator of schemes and inventions; and Homer Simpson and Bart Simpson can be compared to Zanni and Arlecchino. In fact the characters of commedia dell'arte are so universal as to be plausibly applied to just about any comedy, contemporary or otherwise, with a large enough cast of characters.
Quite notably, many if not the majority of comic plays from roughly the 15th-18th centuries have clear influences from the commedia dell'arte, including spinoffs from the traditional characters. Some examples include Shakespeare's ''The Taming of the Shrew'', in which Bianca and Lucentio as innamorati "beguile the old pantaloon", and Katherina and Petruchio enact a Punch and Judy plot; Beaumarchais' ''Le Barbier de Séville'', which features a traditional plot, innamorati (The Count and Rosine) the zanni Brighella (Figaro) and the vecchio Dottore (Doctor Bartholo); and Rostand's ''Cyrano de Bergerac'', with Roxanne as innamorata and Cyrano as Il Capitano/innamorato.
Molière was strongly influenced by ''commedia,'' as he had come in contact with traveling Italian actors in the provinces and worked alongside a troupe in Paris for two years. Harpagon in ''The Miser'' (1668) was modeled on Pantalone, and there are many other stock characters in Élise, Frosine, Valère, and La Flèche. The playwright was also a lead actor, and performed in the comedic style, with a love for physical humor.
Aspects of ''commedia dell'arte'' also passed into the silent tradition of mime. The Bohemian actor Jean-Gaspard Deburau ) brought the new forms of mime to Paris in the 1830s. He standardized the French image of Pierrot.
Stravinsky wrote music for a ballet entitled ''Pulcinella'', regarded as the first of his neo-classical period. His ballet ''Petrushka'' is indebted to the Pedrolino figure. (Both ballets were produced by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.)
''Pierrot Lunaire'', the famous and ground-breaking song-cycle by Arnold Schoenberg, draws extensively from commedia dell'arte, or at least, the poems do, originally by Albert Giraud.
Ruggiero Leoncavallo's opera ''Pagliacci'' draws heavily on commedia dell'arte characters and situations.
Richard Strauss used several of the characters in his opera ''Ariadne auf Naxos''.
Sergei Prokofiev wrote ''The Love of Three Oranges'' with commedia stock characters. The commedia technique had a strong influence on its staging.
The characters and tropes of the ''commedia'' have also been used in novels, notably ''Scaramouche'', the 1921 historical novel by Rafael Sabatini, but also in more recent sword and sorcery and literary works, such as Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories and Midori Snyder award-winning novel ''The Innamorati''.
The rock band, Queen, often drew on the themes and imagery of commedia dell'arte, most notably in "Bohemian Rhapsody", the video for "It's a Hard Life" (the intro the song itself is based on the aria "Vesti la giubba" from ''Pagliacci''!), and the cover of the album ''Innuendo''.
Agatha Christie's Harley Quin is a mystical, detective-like character. The characters of the ''commedia'' feature prominently in "Harlequin's Lane", the final episode of Christie's series of short stories featuring Quin. A similarly-named character is part of the DC Comics Batman universe, but apart from her costume there is no direct reference to the forms of the ''commedia''.
The current NBC drama ''Studio 60'' contains references to a recurring comedy skit involving commedia dell'arte, and there was some confusion at one point as to Molière's relationship to the style.
Dario Fo has taken much inspiration from Commedia, by incorporating it with political issues, thus producing Political theatre.
Strong elements of Commedia can also be seen in classic film and television icons such as the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin.

Commedia today

''Commedia dell'arte'' has experienced periods of dormancy and revival since its inception. Commedia had all but disappeared when it was revived by Giorgio Strehler at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan in 1947 with the play ''Arlecchino: Servant of Two Masters''.

★ Current American commedia dell'arte troupes include The Dell'Arte School in Blue Lake, Tutti Frutti in San Francisco and i Sebastiani in New England.

★ In England, the Ophaboom Theatre Company specializes in work rooted in commedia dell'arte traditions, updated for modern audiences. The troupe has performed (in several languages) throughout the British Isles and across Europe since 1991.

★ In Copenhagen, Denmark in Tivoli Gardens "Pantomimeteater" performs every summer.

★ In Dublin, Ireland, the Corn Exchange theatre company, under the artistic directorship of Chicago native, Annie Ryan, works in a "renegade" Commedia dell'arte style, to much acclaim.

★ In Paris, France, Carlo Boso, a former actor of Giorgio Strehler and his Piccolo Teatro, keeps the tradition of the Commedia dell'Arte alive in directing classical commedia plays as well as improvised stories with his company "Le Mystère Bouffe".

★ In Rome, Italy Marco Luly, with his company Luoghi dell' Arte (www.luoghidellarte.com), keeps the spirit of commedia alive, traveling the world with his shows and workshops.

★ In Vienna, Austria, Markus Kupferblum, an Austrian theatre and opera director and founder of the Company "Totales Theater", introduces the rules and the structure of the Commedia dell'Arte plays as well as the hierarchy of its characters into contemporary theatre and opera.

★ In Corfu, Greece, the 'commedia dell' arte' is played every Easter. To be more precise, during the Holy Week the 'Petegolezza' (gossip in Corfiot dialect) are played in the streets satirizing contemporary culture.

★ In Arezzo, Italy, there is a school where Commedia is still taught to both Graduate and Undergraduate college students. The Accademia dell'Arte trains actors with different professional commedia and physical theatre companies.

★ In Spain and Amsterdam, the international theatre company called Teatro Punto trains, teaches, and performs a unique form of Commedia dell'Arte inspired by various masters such as Jacques Lecoq. Teatro Punto was founded in Paris in 1998 with creators from Italy, England, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Holland and Spain. Nowadays we can find two types of Commedia dell'Arte: the one that reconstructs and the one that allows the evolution of Commedia dell'Arte and the Tradition. The first type is an execution of the Commedia made in the same way as they did between the XVI – XVIII centuries. The second type is the most interesting for us, because we apply and respect all the principles from the Commedia dell'Arte with complete freedom of inventing and elaborating. This Commedia of continuity is the one working in the reality of today. Our goal is keeping the archetypes alive, archetypes that represent the human values. Teatro Punto has conceived their own personal approach to Commedia dell 'Arte allowing the student actor to discover the vital force locked into the masks. 
Their point of departure is that the actor is at the service of the mask: this apparently banal notion actually has far-reaching effects on the performers own practice and their relationship to the public.
It also has sometihng to do with the mask carnival in Venice but I'm not quite sure what.(8/2007 http://teatropunto.net/)

See also

★ History of theatre

★ Lazzi

Further reading

★ ''Commedia dell'Arte: A Practical Handbook for the Actor'' by John Rudlin

★ Playing Commedia'' and ''Commedia Plays''by Barry Grantham

★ ''The Comic Mask and the Commedia dell'Arte'' by Antonio Fava

★ ''The Innamorati'' by Midori Snyder is a novel with the commedia as its central conceit. ISBN -X

★ One version of ''The Love Of Three Oranges'' is subtitled "A Play For The Theater That Takes The Commedia Dell'arte Of Carlo Gozzi And Updates It For The New Millennium". The authors are Carlo Gozzi and Hillary DePiano. ISBN

★ Flamino Scala's ''Il Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative'', translated into English by Henry F. Salerno as ''Scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte''. ISBN

★ ''The Commedia dell'Arte'' by Kenneth Richards and Laura Richards is an overview of Commedia dell'arte. It provides many original documents in translation including scenarios, lazzi and descriptions of characters, players and companies by contemporaries. ISBN

★ Martin Green and John Swan's ''The Triumph of Pierrot: The Commedia Dell'Arte and the Modern Imagination'' discusses interpretations and adaptations of commedia dell'arte in 20th-century literature, music, art, and film. ISBN

★ An annotated bibiography from Judith Chaffee.