THE
STYLE OF THE COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE
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 travelling theatre
that can be traced back to antiquity.
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 BCE. 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. Lazzi and Conchetti are also used.
The classic, traditional plot is that the innamorati are in love and wish to
be married, but one or more vecchio are preventing this from happening, and
so they must ask one or more zanni for help. Typically it ends happily with
the inamorati marriage 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.
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.
Here follows a list of the major Italian characters, with other English or French
names, or descendant characters in parentheses, and the towns/regions with which
they became associated:
* Arlecchino (Harlequin, Truffaldino), a servant, one of the zanni. He is a
poor peasant who has left his native Bergamo to seek his fortune in the city
of Venice. He is illiterate, a fact that often causes amusement when a message
arrives and Arlecchino pretends to read it. He is an acrobat and a clown, and
carries a baton which he sometimes uses to bash other characters for comedic
relief, leading to the modern term slapstick. He has several "masters," but
his primary (if covert) interest is for himself. The famous Harlequin costume
with its lozenge pattern of red, green, and blue diamonds originated in a stylised
representation of patchworked clothing that was illustrative of Arlecchino's
poor status, as well as his resourcefulness. There are three types of Harlequin
mask: the cat, the pig and the monkey (some say the bull too). The traditional
Arlecchino mask is speckled with wart-like blemishes. The lozenge costume gave
his name to a fashion motif, the mask to a shape for eyeglass frames: see Harlequin.
Oddly enough, Arlecchino was originally created by the French, and later adapted
by the Italians.
* Brighella (Figaro, Scapin, Mezzetino), a money-grabbing villain, one of the
zanni characters, and often a partner of Arlecchino. He is a self-made man,
who has become comfortably well-off despite humble beginnings. He is sometimes
the proprietor of the local tavern. He is a ladies' man, and a typical Latin
macho, with all the charm that involves, and all the drawbacks. He is associated
with Bergamo.
* Columbina (Columbine, Harlequine, Pierrette), is maidservant to the Innamorata
and lover of Arlecchino. She is usually involved in intrigue and is rather intelligent.
She is associated with Venice.
* Il Capitano (the Captain) is a cheap he-man soldier, but a coward underneath.
He is often one of the vecchio.
* Il Dottore (the Doctor, usually called Dottore Balanzone or Dottore Graziano),
is a local aristocrat, who went all the way to Bologna to read for his degree.
He is extremely rich, with "old" money and is one of the vecchio. He adores
food and good wines, thus he is a little round (fat).
* Innamorata (the Lover) is the leading woman. She wore no mask (see innamorati).
* Innamorato (the Lover) is the leading man. He wore no mask (see innamorati).
* Pantalone (Pantaloon, Cassandro, Cassandrino, Facanappa) is a rich and miserly
merchant who is frequently the father of one of the innamorati, and is one of
the vecchio. He also employs Arlecchino and treats him cruelly. He is associated
with Venice.
* Pedrolino (or Pierino, most commonly nowadays known as Pierrot, also Burrattino,
Bertoldo), is a mild-mannered zanni. He tends to be so kindly that other characters
blame him for things he never did, and he agrees that it was all his fault.
* Pulcinella is a hunchback who still chases women, and is one of the zanni.
He was the model for Punch in the English puppet theatre Punch and Judy. He
is associated with Naples.
* La Ruffiana (Old Woman) is usually a mother or gossipy townswoman who intrudes
into the lives of the Lovers.
* Scaramuccia (see also Scaramouche) is a roguish adventurer and swordsman who
replaced Il Capitano in later troupes. He is the servant to another character.
He wears a black velvet mask and black trousers, shirt and hat.
* Zanni is a threadbare old servant from Bergamo.
THE
INFLUNECE OF COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE
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.
Quite notably, many if not the majority of comic plays from roughly the 16th-19th
centuries have clear influences from the commedia dell'arte, including spinoffs
from the traditional characters. Some examples include Shakespeare's The Tempest,
with a fairly traditional commedia plot structure and Prospero matching up to
the part of Il Dottore, and Ferdanand and Miranda as innamorati; 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
travelling 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 traces of other stock characters in Élise, Frosine, Valère, and
La Flèche. The playwright was also a lead actor, and performed in the commedic
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 (1796 -1846) brought the new forms of
mime to Paris in the 1830s. He standardized the French image of Pierrot. 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.
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's 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
Moliere's relationship to the style.
Dario Fo has taken much inspiration from Commedia, by incorparating it with
poiltcal issues, thus producing Political theatre.