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Fawlty Towers -
Zanni - Manuel
Brighella - Mr. Fawlty
Dottore - Guest

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I Want My Sausages! | Fawlty Towers | BBC Comedy Greats

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Convention - Character Shape & Physicality

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Convention - Character Shape & Physicality

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Each commedia character has a specific physical shape and way of moving. This film was made over a two day workshop with a group of young actors and lead by Didi Hopkins. The film was made by Deborah May.

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(The Witch)

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(First Actor / Lover)

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(First Actress/Lover)

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Theatrefolk link

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In Introduction to Teaching Mask, Allison Williams gives you a toolkit of mask and movement exercises to teach students to make big, confident physical choices, t...

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Ask Ms. Kimi to share

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The Comic Mask in the Commedia dell'Arte | Northwestern University Press

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The mask--as object, symbol, character, theatrical practice, even spectacle itself--is the central metaphor around which Fava builds his discussion of structure, themes, characters, and methods. Drawing on twenty years of research conducted through his work as performer, director, mask maker, and scholar, he offers extensive practical, philosophical, and technical guidelines to performing the stock characters of Commedia, observing its structure, extracting its poetics, exploring its themes, and using the mask.

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Working on the techniques of practitioner Jacques Lecoq, paying particular focus to working with mask, it is clear that something can come from almost nothing. With a wide variety of ingrediants such as tension states, rhythm, de-construction, major and minor, le jeu/games, and clocking/sharing with the audience, even the simplest and mundane of sinarios can...

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Masked Theatre is such a fantastic unit to teach your students because there are so many styles of masked theatre that you can explore. It also allows students to think about their physicality.

I have recently just started Commedia dell Arte with my Year 10 students. Here are some ideas for introducing Masked Theatre to your students:
1. Show & Tell
Collect a selection of different types of masks or pictures of different types of masks and lay them on the floor for the class to look at. I use a selection of masks that my previous classes have made. You can also find a selection of masks from films, masquerade, Commedia, Noh, Kabuki, tribal etc. Discuss what they notice about the masks (colour, size, features). Ask the students to consider why masks were used in early performances.
2. Disguising and Revealing.

Provide some reading material on the background to masked theatre. I like to focus on information that looks at the duality of mask. That it not only has this way of concealing an actor but also forcing a revelation of character through other means, such as their physicality. Consider using "An Overview of Mask" from Clausen's textbook Centre Stage. It has a fabulous explanation of the history of mask.

You can then either:

- Choose a path. That is, specifically look at Greek Theatre, Noh, Kabuki or Commedia.

-Or provide an overview all of them.

You could show clips here or provide brief informative text snippets of each. I set a mini in-class research task for my students to complete and they have to learn about one of the masked theatre styles (either Noh, Masquerade or Greek).

I then specifcally provide information on the background to Commedie dell Arte. There is a heap of stuff on the Internet about it but I would also recommend the Commedia Chapter in the Navigating Drama textbook.
3. Types of Masks
Using what the students know from the initial show and tell and the background informatioe, give the students some notes summarising the types of masks. They are:

NEUTRAL MASK: Expressionless, no character. Usually full face.

CHARACTER MASK: Includes features which exaggerate the sex and expressions.

FULL FACE MASK: Covers the entire face. Can't speak.

HALF MASK: Shows character. Can speak.

4. The Rules of Mask Work
It is also at this point, before we hop up and start to have a play, that we discuss the rules of maskwork. In particular:

Turning away to put the mask on or leaving the room.

Not playing with your hair or fussing with the mask.

Not touching your face throughout a performance.

I also like to point out that many people, when performing in mask, actually feel liberated and less self conscious. That even a neutral mask can look different on different people and that ultimately the effectiveness of masked theatre is dependent upon the interralation between the actor's body and their mask.
5. Exercises
I specifically look at warming up the body before working with the masks. In particular looking at neck stretches.

Stand in a circle. Stand in neutral.

Stretch your neck slowly to the left and then right to strengthen.

Turn your neck to the left and then right.

Turn to your left and massage the shoulders and neck of the person in front of you.

Find a wall, door or whiteboard that you can bring into the performance space.

Have students begin to practice putting on their mask following the rules.

Student's go behind the wall, door, whiteboard and have to "peep" around revealing their character, keeping their back straight and their neck to one side. Ensure the actor's eyes are looking straight ahead.

Pulled By a String

Have student's walk around the room pretending that a nominated body part is being pulled by a string. For example, stomach, pelvis, chest, eyes, one shoulder, forehead.

Have a discussion with the class about how the neutral masked character changes as a result of this physicality.

Form groups.

As a class brainstorm different emotions and write them on the board.

Select one of the emotions on the board.

Each member of the group wears a neutral mask and uses body language to express that emotion.

Check out what my kids created for the emotion of "HOPE."

Image Credit: Máscaras / Mário Tomé / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
"Yr 10 Drama - Masked Theatre, Hope" by karlao, 2012

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Masked Theatre is such a fantastic unit to teach your students because there are so many styles of masked theatre that you can explore. It also allows students to think about their physicality. I have recently just started Commedia dell Arte with my Year 10 students.

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In our discussions with Alyssa Ravenwood, she had so many good ideas and tips for working with masks that we simply couldn't fit them all in the magazine. Here's some more exercises for actors and directors she sent us. Actors portraying characters in mask must have an awareness of their body first, experiencing and experimenting with ways to use it differently. Here are a few exercises to help with that.

1. Get into physicality with newfound body awareness. Portray things that aren't human, like textures, colors, animals, and emotions - fluffy, scratchy, bouncy, angry, red for example - using your body in different ways. Make larger movements with the arms and torso, use the floor, move your chest and hips more. Respond to others' actions.

2. Know your personal body traits and learn to change them for different body types. Notice what your body is doing, how you walk and gesture. A wrist turned up or down makes a subtle difference in character. Try isolation exercises. Move just your torso, from neutral position, to out front, then push it back. Isolate your chest, your hips. Incorporate mime as a discipline to separate body parts and to demonstrate how one thing happens at a time - action, then response.

3. Embody the mask. Choose a mask that "speaks to you" from a collection and decide what kind of body matches and extends the quality of that mask. Keeping the mask in mind without wearing it, become the body at the core of the mask, no emotion. Where is this character's center of gravity? Walk neutral, shift to low center, feel what that does to change energy, rhythm, and tempo. Switch to a high center, feel those changes as well. Go back to the neutral walk. Now choose one part of the body that becomes most noticeable about your walk and emphasize this, lead with it. Maybe it's a caved in chest, or a chest puffed out. What kind of person does this feel like? Grumpy? Happy? Cocky? Drop it and relax. Actors offstage guess what masks the actors onstage are portraying. Try different body leads. Creating the body for the character and keeping that body while changing emotion is difficult. You can even change gender by switching body type. Getting it right comes with experimentation. Use the mask in surprising ways. Challenge yourself.

4.Freeze Frame emotions with specific body language. Obscure the face behind a black translucent hood or material, a paper plate with the eyes cut out, or a neutral mask without expression. An actor or actors are given an emotion by the instructor, such as greed. They must use their bodies to evoke the emotion, and then freeze it. Audience members guess the emotion portrayed. If they can't, the teacher and students give specific suggestions for adjusting the body, like arms outstretched with palms up, head craning forward. This exercise demonstrates how specific mask work is, showing how little it takes to completely change the emotion your body is portraying. Subtle change makes a huge difference in what your body says to the audience.

5.Respond rather than create. Hide things in paper bags. The actors come onstage, open the paper bag, and create a scene out of what they find. This is a responding mindset. It's better not to preplan, but to respond in the moment, even in a scripted play. Change with the energy that's happening that evening, in that performance, with what that audience and fellow cast members bring to it. Much original physical theater performance comes out of improvisation. With heightened emotions and heightened characters, simple actions become fascinating.

6. "Experience The Chair" Exercise. This contains all elements of mask performance. Put a chair on stage. Have your actor in mask. They match their body to the mask, based on earlier exercises they did - if they're playing someone who's happy and excited, their chest might be exposed and open and up, so the rhythm would be fast and the energy high; if they're playing someone sad, their chest would be caved in, the center of gravity low, hands loosely at their sides.

They turn to the audience or come out from behind the curtain and do a reveal, an introduction of the character - this is who I am at my core. I am Happy Guy wearing Happy Guy mask. You have to hold the moment longer than feels comfortable. As an actor, holding your head still for five seconds feels like an eternity.

Now I turn and see a chair. Action: I see a chair. Response: turn toward the audience. Whatever emotion the chair brings up in you, mark it. Happy Guy would likely be excited. I turn to the audience with my response: I saw a chair, isn't that great! I go and sit down in the chair, which does something that changes your state. It makes me a little depressed. That's action. I turn and share that reaction with the audience. Oh, I don't feel so good any more. You show the dialogue going on in your head, in your body. You cave in your chest a little more or lower your energy or rhythm to show that. You get up and you're going to leave, and just before you make your final exit, you turn back again at the audience and do the tag. The tag is the punctuation mark at the end of your scene, an exclamation point, a period, or a dash. When a character leaves they do this looking to the audience. Happy Guy entered with a high energy and his chest puffed out, so he may leave with his chest caved in a little and a lower sense of energy and his head tilted to one side to show the sadness that happened because he sat in the chair and that made him sad.

Overcoming Technical Difficulties - Wearing Masks Like a Pro

A famous mask commedia performer, Daril Fo, said "Masks hurt." You can't breathe, you can't see. A full mask resembles blinders, because your peripheral vision vanishes. Someone in mask for the first time is usually clumsy. Coming from both sides of the curtain as masked actor and director, Alyssa offers the following tips.

1.Get used to it. That's the style you're in, so you must deal with it.

2. One size does not fit all. There's a certain amount of discomfort you can't get around. Masks should be lightweight with flexibility so they can move a bit with your face. Alyssa's masks are made of neoprene casting rubber, with the padding cut to fit the mask inside. The masks have sizes and adjustable elastic to fit.

3. If your mask is impeding your speech, particularly a 3 / 4 type, put a bit of foam padding on the cheeks to push it away from your face. If you're having trouble blinking or it's pressing down on you, add 1 /4 inch of foam padding and glue it into the mask to lift it off your face.

4. Apply a bit of anti-perspirant to the face if sweating becomes an issue. Padded masks help with sweat absorption.

5. Wear a mask like sunglasses with the elastic over your ears. Pull your hair over the elastic so that it covers it and if you have bangs, pull them over the edge of the mask so that it becomes part of your face. Hats help frame the face as well.

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More Mask Exercises and Tips - Stage Directions

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In our discussions with Alyssa Ravenwood, she had so many good ideas and tips for working with masks that we simply couldn't fit them all in the magazine. Here's some more exercises for actors and directors she sent us. Actors portraying characters in mask must have an awareness of their body first, experiencing and experimenting with ways to use it differently.

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from expertvillage

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Sign in now to see your channels and recommendations!

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Commedia dell'Arte Arlecchino Dream by Fabrizio Paladin (fragments)

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For RP, it has to be a solo

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Plays and Scenari - La Commedia dell'Arte

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Free commedia dell'arte plays and scenarios, performance listings, books and music shopping, character descriptions -- everything you need to find about the Italian commedia dell'arte!

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If we go back to the heydays of Commedia dell'Arte the concept of canovaccio becomes more complicated. It was used both as a full scenario or just a plotline in a scenario. The word means "what's on the canvas". But I will use the word as I have learned it from Antonio Fava and then developed to my interpretation of the word, which I think is the most useful.

A canovaccio can be described as a simple plotline with a beginning, a development and an ending. It does not have more than one thread and it does not refer to anything outside itself. It is easy to see how the canovacci are related to the early ritual plays that were played during the rituals that formed Commedia dell'Arte. See HERE.

A canovaccio is one of the building blocks that make up a scenario. A scenario is built up from several canovacci. For example:
1, Arlecchino steals Brighella's money and Brighella seeks revenge. Arlecchino dress up as a soldier to get away. Brighella who are now poor signs up in Arlecchino's army. Arlecchino then force Brighella to do military drill and to always be faithful to the king, the fatherland and most of all Arlecchino.
2, Pantalone explains to his son, Flavio, that he is about to marry Dottore's daughter, Silvia. Flavio protests because he wants to marry Silvia himself. Pantalone gets mad and sends away Flavio to the war to get rid of him. Flavio dress up as soldier. He gets instantly involved in a duel with another soldier who he thinks has abducted Silvia. It shows that the other soldier is Silvia who also has dressed up as a soldier. The both unmask themselves and decide to marry anyway.
3, Silvia who has been informed by her father, Dottore that her beloved Flavio are going to war and that she is espousal with Pantalone dress up as a soldier. She recruits a couple of soldiers and goes to attack Pantalone, who in turn is protected by Capitano's army whish she defeats. Pantalone promises to have Flavio to come home and that he can marry who he will.
4, Capitano comes to a new town after just having lost a battle. Then Pantalone comes and hires him as a . But Capitano gets into a fight and must flea the town.
Naturally a scenario can be more complicated with more canovacci interspersed. But we can see how each canovaccio have fairly simple plotline, that when it gets interspersed with other canovacci gets to be a quite complicated net of plotlines. It can also be much more tightly knitted than this example.

A canovaccio can also be played isolated. Something that can be very useful when playing in the streets where simplicity is much more demanded. To just play one canovaccio is also helpful since it keeps the plot simple and gives the cast the possibility to expand on the content such as the tricks and lazzi within the plot. When teaching using canovacci is unbeatable since we don't have to worry about keeping a plot.

Back to Performance structure

This entry was posted in Performance structure and tagged Arlecchino, blog, blogg, buffoon, buffoons, canovacci, canovaccio, carnival, comedy, commedia, Commedia dell arte, Dottore, fixed masks, fools, jesters, Klingvall, Kompani Komedi, Kulturama, lazzi, lazzo, mask, masks, Micke Klingvall, Pantalone, physical theatre, plot, Pulcinella, renaissance, rite, rites, rituals, scandinavian theatre, Scenario, Teaterstudion, theatre, theatre education, theatre school, theatre student, theatre teacher, Theatrestudio, vulgar, vulgar comedy, women in comedy, women in theatre, Zanni. Bookmark the permalink.

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If we go back to the heydays of Commedia dell'Arte the concept of canovaccio becomes more complicated. It was used both as a full scenario or just a plotline in a scenario. The word means "what's on the canvas".

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Ask Ms. Kimi to borrow

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commedia plays: scenarios - scripts - lazzi

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Commedia Plays: Scenarios - Scripts - Lazzi

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A collection of short commedia dell'arte plays, sketches, and exercises for use in the classroom and drama workshop. Each play has a detailed introduction and is presented in both outline form and full text. Each of the pieces is suitable for performance on stage and may also be used as the...

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Carlo Goldoni

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The Servant of Two Masters, by Carlo Goldoni, translated by E. J. Dent

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The improvised Comedy of Masks, the history of which goes back to the days of ancient Rome, was frequently coarse and obscene. In the early eighteenth century, as Goldoni himself says, there was an English theatre and a French theatre, but no real Italian theatre.

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The liar; a comedy in three acts : Goldoni, Carlo, 1707-1793 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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texts All Texts latest This Just In Smithsonian Libraries FEDLINK (US) Genealogy Lincoln Collection Additional Collections

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Theatrefolk

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Commedia dell'arte is a style of theatre that was popular in Italy during the 1500's. It was recognized for being comedic, improvised, and having clear elements:

Stock characters including servants ( ), masters ( ), and young lovers ( innamorati ), who were easily recognized by their movements, look, and mannerisms

Performances based on scenarios with mostly improvised themes (generally either love, money, or food)

Use of mime, movement, music, and masks to tell the story

Lazzi, which are comedic physical "bits" or jokes within the story

Commedia dell'arte is a lot of fun for students to explore. They get to be funny and over the top, while working within the limits of their characters and the scene. The movements are exaggerated, melodramatic, and active. Each character willr eact differently to something occurring in a scene, depending on that character's stock traits. However, no matter what character a student is playing, the goal is to make the audience laugh - you really can't go overboard with commedia!

Lazzi, as mentioned above, are comedic physical "bits" or moments within story. They're added to commedia performances to highlight a character. Traditionally, commedia performers would have lazzi memorized so they could insert them whenever needed. Audiences would instantly recognize lazzi because they're physical, familiar, and funny. Physical bits and jokes are still used in modern theatre, film and television today! Think of silly "bits" that garner the canned laughter on sitcoms, such as:

A butler saying "Walk this way" and the guests walk exactly the same way the butler walks.

A phone or the doorbell rings, a character finds out it's his/her mother, and frantically hides.

Someone tries to hide by pretending to be a statue or putting a lampshade on their head.

Someone eats a cob of corn or piece of watermelon like a typewriter, from left to right, and then snaps back to the beginning.

Twins switching places to try to get out of a problem and then end up getting into bigger trouble than before.

How can you put together a lazzi?

First, you'll want to learn more about the stock characters involved in commedia, which you can read about here.

Every commedia character's lazzi will be different, even in a similar situation. For example, let's say a character opens up a door and another character jumps out and yells, "Boo!" - a lazzi of surprise.

An innamorata (the young lover stock character) might drop her handkerchief and faint to the floor.

A servant character like Arlecchino ttrickster servant) might gasp and leap away into a back somersault.

A master character like Pantalone (old miser) might clutch at his heart and pretend to have a heart attack from the shock.

All those reactions are recognizable and specific to the character. The most important thing is that the reaction has to be specific and over the top, with multiple steps. Pantalone can't just drop to the ground - he might first start by jumping back, pausing and posing with a look of terror, then grab his heart, then start shaking, then fall to the floor, then call for help and go into great detail about the pain and fear he's experiencing. Specific and over the top with multiple steps.

Try creating your own lazzi of surprise. Have students try the scenario with over the top actions and comedy as caricatures of themselves. Once they understand the concept of over the top movements and reactions, they can explore performing as a specific commedia character, or performing the same scene three times - as a master character, as a servant character, and as a lover character.

When creating your own scenarios, have the character do something mundane - brushing their hair, reading the newspaper, eating a piece of fruit - then SOMETHING HAPPENS! (Their hair gets caught in the brush, they read something shocking in the paper, they choke on a little bit of fruit...)

Come up with 5-7 reactions that occur one after another, getting more and more ridiculous. For example, with the hair-brushing scenario, the character might react the following way:

1. They realize the brush is stuck.

2. They try to gently untangle the brush, with no effect.

3. They pull on the brush harder, with visible pain.

4. They yank on the brush with both hands, panting from the effort.

5. They lay on the floor, pull on the brush with their hands and feet.

6. They call for a friend to come help, the friend enters but still can't pull the brush out.

7. With the final pull, the brush comes free and either flies across the room, or takes the hair with it (either mimed or with a wig), or doesn't come free and the character is resigned to leaving the brush stuck in their hair forever.

Remember, all movements and reactions have to be exaggerated. Don't forget details like facial expressions and verbalizations!

Click here for a downloadable PDF of lazzi scenario starters to create lazzi for (this exercise includes one, two, and three-person scenarios).

Kerry Hishon is a director, actor, writer and stage combatant from London, Ontario, Canada. View her blog at www.kerryhishon.com .

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Commedia dell'arte is a style of theatre that was popular in Italy during the 1500's. It was recognized for being comedic, improvised, and having clear elements: Stock characters including servants (zanni), masters (vecchi), and young lovers (innamorati), who were easily recognized by their movements, look, and mannerisms Performances based on scenarios with mostly improvised themes ...

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Lazzi are essentially “gags” or stock jokes which can be added into a commedia dell’arte play or performance in order to ensure the comic action keeps pace. Traditionally the writers and actors in a troupe would have lazzi memorized so that they could insert them where needed. This trick kept up in

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This is Brantley Ivey, Stephen Craig, Nate Quetel, and Will Dameron's final project for Dr. Steve Earnest's Theatre History and Literature class at Coastal Carolina University, Fall 2013.

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Ed pack from Homunculus Theatre

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Ask Ms. Kimi to borrow

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Commedia dell'Arte: A Historical Overview

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A short film giving an overview of the history of Commedia dell'Arte. In this film Didi Hopkins from commediaworks describes the influence of commedia dell'arte on modern theatre and other dramatic formats such as film and television. The film was made by Deborah May.

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Ask Ms. Kimi to borrow

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Ask Ms. Kimi to borrow

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lazzi: the comic routines of the commedia dell'arte (paj books)

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performing arts / theater / history & criticism

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performing arts/theater - history & criticism

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Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell'Arte (PAJ Books)

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"An important addition to the literature on Italian Commedia dell'Arte."-ChoiceThis best-selling PAJ volume presents over 250 comedy routines used by commedia performers in Europe from 1550 to 1750. Includes an introduction, two complete commedia scenarios, and a glossary of commedia charac...

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Ask Ms. Kimi to borrow

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commedia plays: scenarios - scripts - lazzi

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Commedia Plays: Scenarios - Scripts - Lazzi

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A collection of short commedia dell'arte plays, sketches, and exercises for use in the classroom and drama workshop. Each play has a detailed introduction and is presented in both outline form and full text. Each of the pieces is suitable for performance on stage and may also be used as the...

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Commedia dell’arte | History, Characters, & Facts

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Commedia dell’arte, Italian theatrical form that flourished throughout Europe from the 16th through the 18th century.

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In relation to Modern Day

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Make 'Em Laugh: Common Ground in Comic Characters | Matthew R. Wilson | TEDxUM

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Are some things always funny? While most jokes rely on cultural context, comic performers throughout history have found common sources of amusement that transcend linguistic or national boundaries. Actor and historian Matthew R. Wilson finds the funny in character types from Greco-Roman comedy, Commedia dell'Arte, Kyōgen, and contemporary film and television.

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il dottore explains  commedia dell'arte to us all

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Il Dottore Explains Commedia Dell'Arte To Us All

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Education Pack from Homunculus Theatre

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Commedia companies toured outside of Italy, to France and Spain, and so Gromalot evolved, a nonsensical babble speak that carried the truthful emotional intention of a character. This language meant that audiences were able to understand the action on the stage and enabled commedia dell'arte to become an international type of theatre.

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In Italian, but understandable with some subtitles

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Today I'd like to celebrate Dario Fo, in my opinion Italy's greatest actor, play-writer, theatre director, comedian, singer, painter and political campaigner. Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997.

Today, he celebrates his 90th birthday.

I can't stop laughing if I think about all his performances I have seen, both in theatres and on television.

As a student of Italian, you MUST see him performing in Grammelot, a kind of odd, fake, funny language that anybody, speaking any language, could understand. Grammelot is a style of language used by the Commedia dell'Arte, with onomatopoeic elements used in association with mime and mimicry. This theatrical style reflects centuries of European culture (and not only).

As a modern jester, Fo re-introduced Grammelot in the theatre as a universal language. There is an American version too!

His shows are a masterpiece of storytelling. On stage - with his beloved wife, the actress Franca Rame, who died last year - he would tell intriguing stories, with a profoundly deep sense of humanity.

I am also grateful to him for all I learned from his writings, and his political engagement for civil rights and social justice.

I had the chance to meet him once early in the morning in Milan on a busy bus like a any other commuter. Dining with him and his wife later that day, he was the one who asked questions and listened carefully to other people.

At 90 years-old, he is still a great actor, with the same vibrant, funny voice.

Daniela Passeri,

Sustainability teacher

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Siena School - Via Enea Silvio Piccolomini, 2 - 53100 Siena

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In trouble with your Italian? Speak Grammelot! - Teachers' Blog - Siena Stories - Siena School

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Today I'd like to celebrate Dario Fo, in my opinion Italy's greatest actor, play-writer, theatre director, comedian, singer, painter and political campaigner. Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997. Today, he celebrates his 90th birthday. I can't stop laughing if I think about all his performances I have seen, both in theatres and on television.

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What Different Languages Sound like to Foreigners

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What Different Languages Sound like to Foreigners

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An exercise in gibberish

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Commedia dell'Arte: Emotion | National Theatre

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Commedia dell'Arte is a high energy and stylised theatrical tradition that was born in Italy in the 16th Century. Commedia dell'Arte is a combination of the following:

stock characters

mask

exaggerated and stylised movement

lazzi (comic business, gags and games)

improvisation

audience interaction

gibberish or grommelot

Commedia dell'Arte was innovative and ahead of its time for the 16th Century. For example the term, dell'Arte, loosely translates to 'professional'. This meant that Commedia troupes were profitable businesses and actors were recognised and paid as professional artists. Commedia was also progressive for breaking with tradition and encouraging women to perform on stage, like pioneering actress, Isabella Andreini.

Social and political satire was the inspiration for the stock characters and scenarios. Although Commedia is hundreds of years old the concept of satire is still current, we laugh at character types and stereotypes in popular commedia like, 'Modern Family', 'Family Guy' or 'The Simpsons'. The exaggerated, larger-than-life characters are similar to the exaggerated grotesque quality of the masks used in Commedia.

The stock characters from the Commedia dell'Arte may have been re-invented in our modern day comedies but they are still easily identified and relevant. For example Pantalone (or Il Magnifico) is the archetypal rich, stingy old man. Here we can easily make parallels with Pantalone and Mr Burns from 'The Simpsons'.

The masks can be inspired by animals that reflects the character's traits or idiosyncrasies. The actor then embodies these animal qualities in their development of the character. For example, Arlecchino's physicality and attitude reflect his mask, a cross between a cat and a monkey!

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Commedia dell'Arte is a high energy and stylised theatrical tradition that was born in Italy in the 16th Century. Commedia dell'Arte is a combination of the following: stock characters mask exaggerated and stylised movement lazzi (comic business, gags and games) improvisation audience interaction gibberish or grommelot Commedia dell'Arte was innovative and ahead of its time for the 16th Century.

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il dottore explains  commedia dell'arte to us all

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Il Dottore Explains Commedia Dell'Arte To Us All

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From Artistic Director of 'Faction of Fools' (Washington D.C. CdA troupe)

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"If we are to make plays of commedia dell'arte, we shall want to make them well." So insists the fictional Placida, a leading actress depicted in Carlo Goldoni's play The Comic Theatre.

Her sentiment seems obvious enough, but-like commedia itself-it merits a second look.

For starters, this sentence penned in 1750 is often cited as the first appearance of the term commedia dell'arte. Though the tradition of Commedia had begun in Italy more than 200 years earlier, it was previously known by other names: The Improvised Theatre, The Zanni-esque Theatre (with reference to bumbling servants called Zanni, from whom we get the English word "zany"), The Theatre of Masks, or-more widely in Europe-simply, The Italian Comedy. It was Goldoni who popularized a new and lasting name for the art form: commedia dell'arte, which is best translated into English as Professional Theatre (with Arte denoting "skill, technique, craft, or profession"). Ironically, Goldoni, whose name is forever linked with the commedia, coined the phrase to describe a style of theatre that he did not like.

Goldoni's dissatisfaction with commedia dell'arte raises a larger issue embedded in Placida's plea, an issue that still plagues modern comic artists: What is the measure of a well-made comedy? Is it enough to do as Donald O'Connor insists in Singin' in the Rain and "Make 'em laugh"? Or, if we agree with Placida and want to make our plays well, must we do something more?

This question undergirded the positive critical reception of Christopher Bayes' The Servant of Two Masters when it premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2010. Reviewers unanimously insisted that the play was funny-genuinely funny. They guaranteed a good time and promised audiences, "It has you belly laughing yourself silly." (Begelman, David, The News-Times, 2010).

However, most critics verged on apologia when insisting that the play was not mere empty guffaws, but rather something more. They wrote urgent disclaimers to assure readers that the silliness was something sophisticated. Surely a cultural icon as venerable as Yale Repertory Theatre (or the lauded Shakespeare Theatre Company, for that matter) would not subject its patrons to something so frivolous as a good time! No, this play, critics assured their audiences, is commedia dell'arte, but it is commedia dell'arte "made well." Not merely "funny" but also "enchanting" and "magical."

Rave reviews are nothing new for commedia dell'arte. Five-hundred-year-old audience reports describe a similar sense of enchantment and magic. The tradition grew out of necessity and invention, when, around the 1520s, Italian comic actors began to create models for achieving that elusive dream: to make a living in the arts. The resulting work not only kept them fed, but it revolutionized drama throughout Europe, spawning many innovations that are now taken for granted. Italian Commedians signed the earliest documents of incorporation recognizing performance as an industry and the theatre "company" as a business entity. These artist-entrepreneurs were the first to employ women on the professional stage, a regular occurrence in Italy 100 years before it would become standard practice in England. Touring companies played to every major court from Queen Elizabeth's London (1602) to Empress Anna's Moscow (1733), and Italian Comedy was at the vanguard of modern, trans-national business. For its contributions to the theatrical profession alone it is fitting that Goldoni dubbed the style c ommedia dell'arte: Theatre of the Professional.

As for the product, 16th- and 17th-century commedia dell'arte performers set new standards in dramatictechnique and audience members describedwitnessing a theatrical virtuosity never seen before.Touring companies brought the rich heritage ofItalian stories, characters and dramaturgy to therest of Europe, helping to fuel the Golden Age inSpain and the Renaissance in France and England.Their legacy inspired subsequent entertainers asdistinct as Mozart and the Marx Brothers.

Scholarly consensus has highlighted myriad ways in which Elizabethan dramas (including the plays of Shakespeare himself) are indebted to commedia conventions, and it is likely that Shakespeare's famous clown Will Kempe traded professional secrets with Italian Commedians on tour in England. In France, the connection was stronger still as Italian companies made Paris a permanent home, occasionally sharing venues with Molière. The French playwright was quick to "share" their material as well, borrowing heavily from the commedia repertoire in the creation of a French national theatre.

By the mid-18th-century, Italian artists like Goldoni lamented that their own native theatre paled in comparison to their European rivals, whose national dramatic traditions had blossomed after, ironically, taking root in soil fertilized by earlier Italian tours. Within Italy, however, innovation had apparently slowed and commedia was on the wane. In The Comic Theatre, Goldoni's mouthpiece Placida describes the situation:

The world is bored with always seeing the same things, with always hearing the same words, and the audiences know what Arlecchino is about to say before he even opens his mouth.

(act 1, scene 2)

To Goldoni, this "Professional Theatre" had grown stale and commercial, marked by predictable improvisations, hackneyed knockabouts and ubiquitous scatological humor. Apparently the artist-entrepreneurs had lost the hunger that had first prompted their ancestors to innovate.

Goldoni responded with a self-described mission of "reform," a project which he details in his Memoirs. In his view, Commedia had given a propitious birth to modern theatre, but it was high time for the Italian stage to grow up. The Venetian lawyer-turned playwright planned to lead this painful maturation himself, waging war on three fronts.

First, Goldoni worked with renowned commedia actors of his day, whose careers had been built onimprovisation, but he dared to give them scripts,insisting as Shakespeare had done 150 years earlierthat the actors "speak no more than is set downfor them." Detractors claimed that the playwrightwas squelching creative fire, but literarily-mindedaudiences agreed that Goldoni's poetry andcrafted narratives were an improvement overimprovised texts.

In his scripts, then, Goldoni attempted to shift the theatrical style from "farces" to "comedies of character." In his view, the farce was built on theatrical conventions-tired gags and worn-out shells of archetypes named Arlecchino, Brighella, the Doctor and Pantalone. These stock characters had once been unique creations by innovative actors, but after two centuries of use the old types were verging on cliché. Goldoni hoped that a new "comedy of character" would revive the theatre with a sense of realism and particularity drawn from modern, middle-class life: merchants, courtiers, waiters, porters and the like- real people presented not as types but as individuals.

The last and most controversial of Goldoni's reforms was a slap to the very face of Italian culture: he began to require that his actors perform without their venerated leather masks. Commedia-the so-called Comedy of Masks -had flourished based on a system of character masks, and the material culture of the leather mask was a source of Italian popular pride, even outside of the realm of theatre.

In some cases, the public responded with rage, and Goldoni describes being accosted by people who accused him of killing their culture by daring to present unmasked comic actors. Goldoni, however, saw himself as a harbinger of the future, insisting that modern, realistic theatre required a nuance, a pliability and a life that the mask would not allow: "The actor must, in our days, possess a soul; and the soul under a mask is like a fire under ashes."

Some theorists still say that Goldoni killed commedia. In his words, he merely reformed it. Either way, his work helped to shape a new Italian national theatre based on more realistic characters, more naturalistic representations and the primacy of the playwright over the actor. As Shakespeare was to 16th-century London, as Molière was to 17th-century Paris, so Goldoni was to 18th-century Venice. It is worth remembering, however, that all three of these legendary poets built their craft on the backs of comic actors from Renaissance Italy. Poor players strutting and fretting their life upon the stage with one simple goal, a goal shared by Truffaldino in Servant: to work hard enough to gain a bite to eat.

Hunger and hard work. Heartache and happiness. These are the basic ingredients of commedia dell'arte, and of Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters. Servant is one of Goldoni's earliest plays, in which Commedia clearly exerts its lasting influence and the innovations that would mark his later career are only faintly prefigured. Nevertheless, the playwright demonstrates his care for the genre and his love of the characters by painting broad comedy in gentle brushstrokes. It is funny, yes-audiences laughed at the commedia when it first revolutionized theatre in the 1500s; they laughed through Goldoni's reforms of the 1700s; and they are still laughing today-but it is also something more. Familiar but spectacular, universal but particular. Silly, yes, but also "enchanting" and "magical." This is commedia dell'arte "made well."

Matthew R. Wilson is Artistic Director of Faction of Fools, D.C.'s Commedia dell'Arte theatre company. He holds an MFA from STC's Academy for Classical Acting and is pursuing a PhD in Renaissance Theatre History at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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A Well-Made Comedy: The Legacy of commedia dell'arte & Carlo Goldoni - Shakespeare Theatre Company

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"If we are to make plays of commedia dell'arte, we shall want to make them well." So insists the fictional Placida, a leading actress depicted in Carlo Goldoni's play The Comic Theatre. Her sentiment seems obvious enough, but-like commedia itself-it merits a second look.

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Ideas for creating a scene

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This is my friend, Carlos performing his variation on "The Lazzo of the Fly."

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This film is an introduction to the world of Commedia dell'Arte. Learn about all of the stock characters in Commedia, the masked and the unmasked, their status, their physical shapes and their characters. This film was made from a two day workshop with young actors held at the National Theatre with Didi Hopkins from Commediaworks.

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Workshops and presentations focusing on commedia dell'arte and improvisation.

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The Acting Style of the Commedia dell' Arte

(Paper submitted for a course in drama Indiana University 1968/9)

The Italian comedians learn nothing by heart: they need but
to glance at the subject of a play a moment or two before going upon
the stage. It is this very ability to play at a moment's notice which
makes a good Italian actor so difficult to replace. For a good Italian
actor is a man of infinite resources and resourcefulness, a man who
plays more from imagination than from memory; he matches his words
so perfectly with those of his colleagues on the stage that he enters
instantly into whatever acting and movements are required of him in
such a manner as to give the impression that all that they do has been prearranged.
There is always a happy blend of gesture and inflection with
the discourse, and the actors come and go, speak, and act as informally
as in ordinary life.

These quotations do not make clear exactly what improvisation is, and Duchartre's assumption that dialogue and action were completely spontaneous has been questioned. It may be true that there was no written play, but it does not follow as a matter of course that the actors invented all their speeches and actions on the spur of the moment. From the research, it is clear that the term 'improvisation' covers a highly complex acting style that included comic tricks, mime and dialogue. What we need to discover is the extent to which these were unplanned.

Allardyce Nicoll is concerned to bring to our attention the spoken aspect of this style of acting:
This comedy was based on a combination of language and
action, not on pantomime alone. Often those who, in our own
times, make an attempt to describe Commedia dell' Arte
performances tend to stress the movements of the actors
and to insist upon their purely physical tricks; yet this
is a false view.

This inquiry, therefore, first considers improvisation in language and second examines improvisation in movement.

Language
As actors were presented with very sketchy scenarios, some with a little dialogue, others with indications of dialogue, and still others with the outline of the plot only, they had to improvise the words that they spoke. But words are the end product of thought, intention and action and all these are inherent in a scenario. The actors, therefore, had the scenario as a guide for speech; they had to find words for intentions and actions already indicated in the plot. In preparing for their roles, the actors would have studied the scenarios, known them well and in playing would have spoken words that followed the plot. Much of their speech would have been premeditated and as they were encouraged to build up a stock of memorised passages appropriate to their characters and to the action, very little would have been spontaneous.

When they were advised to read books of a style suited to their
roles, we realise that this was designed simply to whet their
imaginations, so that on the basis of such reading they could
create their own improvised speech; but in addition to that they
were specifically instructed to pen out and to learn by heart a
variety of passages which might serve them in good stead during
their performances.

So in addition to the outline of the comedy, which gave them the basis for their words, they had a repertoire of stock passages that they had committed to memory. According to Nicoll, some of these stock passages, those called uscite and chiusette, were generally written in couplets. The former were used for making exits and the latter for bringing speeches to a suitable conclusion. Other stock passages were longer, single speeches. The actors were warned, however, that these had to blend in with the rest of the improvised dialogue. In addition, actors "wrote songs and sonnets and 'conceits' to express their ideas on the philosophy of love and other intellectual problems of the time."

Stock passages seem to have formed the basis of their dialogue and it was when their memories failed them that they improvised

It is well-known that Italian actors were particularly apt
in improvising dialog - they had had enough practice on
the charlatan's bench - and in changing their program
according to their audience. When they were performing
as they often did, for weeks together at some aristocratic
house where the one cry was for variety, they would naturally
be unable to learn by heart the number of plays demanded,
and would be forced to help out their memories by their wits.

Improvised dialogue seems also to have been a response to the unforeseen when unexpected circumstances were incorporated into the playing and used as entertaining interludes. Spontaneous speech, therefore, seems to have been opportunistic and outside the bounds of the scenario that was being performed.

As an actor took on the role of a stock character, Harlequin (Zanni) or Pulcinella, or Pantaleone, for instance, which he played for the whole of his career and in every scenario, he developed a complete understanding of the character's personality and idiosyncrasies, and through constant repetition, he built up a routine or habitual sequence of ideas and expressions for communication. He could, therefore, command dialogue that had become fixed in his memory.

As speech, for the most part, consisted of memorised passages or habitual responses, improvisation to a large extent consisted in the freedom of the actor to select from his stock of passages. Spontaneity, which is what is generally thought of by the term 'improvisation', seems to have been resorted to for expedient reasons, mainly when audiences needed or demanded stimulation. Actors then incorporated incidental occurrences, unforeseen circumstances, bravura performances, quips and jokes into their dialogue which either brought freshness to familiar situations and novelty to stock portrayals or gave relief in departing from them.

It seems, therefore, that dialogue, though not written, was well prepared for and words that appeared to be off the cuff came out of habitual situations in stock scenarios from actors in stock roles. The fixed framework of scenario and stock characters provided the solid foundation upon which to invent. And because spontaneous speech, which occurred mainly in digressions from the scenario, was vivid, highly entertaining and had immediate impact, it was made to characterise all Commedia language. But the improvised language of Commedia was spontaneous only in part; much of it had been fixed in memory even though there was no formal script.

Movement
Turning now to improvisation in movement, we see that, as with dialogue, actors built up a stock of tricks, gestures and actions.

The word (lazzi) means 'turn' or 'trick' or 'Italian business'
and an actor would resort to lazzi whenever a scene
began to drag or his eloquence gave out.

Certain comic tricks became trademarks of different characters. "For example, Harlequin would pretend to throw cherry stones in Scapin's face, or to catch a fly on the wing and munch it with great gusto." (Duchartre, p. 36) Other types of pantomimic lazzi were the stock-in-trade of all and were used by different characters in different situations. "Lazzi of joy, of recognition, of kissing the hand, of hiding, and falling asleep, merely call for appropriate gesture. Others such as lazzi of nightfall, of the gun-shot, of hiding in the corner, demand dumb-show." Lazzi also included all kinds of hoaxes by which actors got out of difficult situation.

Lazzi that were developed into comic routines depended on a group. "Two of the most important of these devices may be described as repetition and thievery." (Nicoll, p.144) Here the comic trick was not entirely irrelevant to the plot. It may even have been directly connected with it. It generally involved an action or words repeated in a continuous sequence by several actors who each gave it a different quality. The comedy rested upon the repetition.

"Let us take an example, expanding slightly upon the
bare description given us in the scenario. Pandolfo
hands over a gold collar to Zanni for safe keeping, bidding
him guard it carefully. Pulcinella, watching from the side
of a house, determines to get it, hastily slips on a devil's
disguise, roars at Zanni and snatches the collar as the latter
rushes away in abject terror. Pulcinella, however, has not
been alone in his eavesdropping, for Cola has secretly spied
on this piece of chicanery; in turn, he puts himself into a shroud,
confronts Pulcinella with awesome ghostly movements and
sepulchral tones, and triumphantly seizes the collar. And there
is still more to come. Pandolfo and Ubaldo have also witnessed
the trickery, hurriedly put on gendarme dress, threaten to arrest
Cola and let him go only when he surrenders his booty.

Sometimes lazzi were simply exhibitions of acrobatic and athletic skill.

Many actors were acrobats, and could easily turn a
somersault, walk on their hands, and do the grand ecart, or
'split'. Some were as accomplished as the agile Scaramouch
who, at eighty-three years of age, could box his fellow actor's
ears with his foot without the slightest difficulty.

There was an actor who turned a somersault with a glass of water in his hand without spilling a drop, and another actor who walked along the outside of the boxes in the theatre to the great trepidation of the audience.

In addition to lazzi, the actor's bag of tricks also contained stock gestures and attitudes that were characteristic of his role. Harlequin, for example, appears fairly often in what seems a typical pose. He leans forward and slightly to one side, with one hand on his slapstick and the other, either on his belt or touching his cap. In illustrations in Nicoll's book, The World of Harlequin, many different actors are shown in this characteristic attitude. Actors were probably identified as much by stock gestures and actions as by their costumes which never changed. New actors, who succeeded to the roles, brought different qualities and competences to characteristic attitudes and movements. An actor called Bigottini who took over the role of Harlequin from Carlin Bertinazzi is described as follows. "His movements, without having the suppleness which characterise the slightest gestures of Carlin, are of extraordinary precision and lightness."

Reproductions of paintings and engravings depicting Commedia dell' Arte show a great variety of attitudes and gestures and suggest modifications in style over time. The engraving entitled Pantalone woos his Lady shows the characters in greatly exaggerated attitudes and gestures. Pantalone and his Zanni appear almost contorted. The torsos of both are twisted unnaturally. Nearly all the characters in the picture use big hand and arm gestures. The style is far removed from the realistic. The reproduction of Pantalone in a rage, displays the same style; the highly exaggerated attitude and almost distorted body. In the picture of Harlequin on stilts, the exaggeration is in the situation and in the affectations of the characters as well as in their gestures and attitudes, which are exaggerated but not distorted. The burlesque in this scene is connected with properties, the slippers, the glass of wine and the sentimental flower, and is not made to depend on gesture alone.

In reproductions of early seventeenth century paintings, there is less exaggeration in gesture. Pantalone stands on his toes in a fairly ridiculous attitude, with stomach pushed forward and hands behind his back. His Zanni too leans back in an artificial manner with arms crossed in an unnatural fashion. This picture shows us a heroine, one of the 'serious' characters of Commedia and we see that her gestures and attitude, though exaggerated, are altogether graceful and beautiful. In the second reproduction, the heroine is shown with Harlequin and the Captain. We have again the graceful, stylized attitude of the heroine, but the Captain, who retains a more burlesque attitude, does not present a spontaneous expression of emotion, unlike Pantalone in the wooing of his Lady; the Captain's attitude is clearly calculated.

In Johann Probst's engravings, gestures and attitudes though still unrealistic and large, have a lustiness and tongue-in-cheek quality that give a sense of great energy and vitality. The burlesque element is very apparent and applies more to the situation and madcap tricks of the characters than to their pretensions. Great use is made of properties and the comedy appears to be more slapstick than burlesque. For more tomfoolery, actors also resorted to disguises, which Duchartre describes as "theatrical 'hokum'." Zanni is often disguised as a woman. One picture shows Harlequin, in his black mask, wearing a dress with the skirt sticking out where he is holding his slapstick in its usual position.

Though illustrations portray markedly different styles, common characteristics in the quality of acting are clearly apparent. They all show that the style of Commedia was not realistic. It involved exaggeration, burlesque, stylised attitudes and gestures, great vitality and zestful movement. The actors " are very ready in imitating all kinds of persons and all human actions, especially those which are apt to rouse laughter, in which they are so excelling that they move to mirth Heraclitus himself."

The pictures also show a distinction in style between the comic and the 'serious' actor. Comic characters wore half-masks that did not cover the mouth. It has been suggested that the use of masks placed greater emphasis on the body and that actors had to be supple and able to use all their physical attributes to help them give expression to their roles. So comic actors indulged in exaggerated gestures and attitudes often undignified and lewd, whereas 'serious' actors were always dignified, but their gestures and actions were equally removed from the realistic. Victoria is a 'beautiful witch of love with harmonious and pleasing speech, accomplished and graceful actions, enticing and charming sight, savorsome and sugared smiles, a carriage haughty and noble.' But even 'serious' actors were tempted to indulge in comic business. "Lelio, as Andreini invariably called himself on stage, preferred comic effects to tragic and rarely missed a chance for burlesquing in his role."

This mixture of styles was not uncommon as the following quotation illustrates:
"Amid the laughter excited by his (Harlequin's) buffoonery he would at times suddenly surprise his audience into tears. 'Often after beginning by laughing at the manner in which he expressed his pain, one ended by experiencing the emotion by which he was penetrated.'" In order to move the audience, this actor would have had to convince them of his humanity so that they would sympathise with him in his predicament. The acting, therefore, would have moved from the presentational to the representational, so that the audience could be caught up in the illusion. This was the style of Thomasin, who was considered a very great actor.

Commedia players were much praised for being able to play together seamlessly despite the fact that they were improvising. This is probably partly due to the fact that they worked in small companies. Commedia dell' Arte consisted of many troupes of travelling players such as I Gelosi, I Accesi, I Confideti and I Fideli. These companies were generally held together by a strong leading actor or actress and usually received the patronage of a nobleman. The actors travelled and worked together as a company, were used to performing with one another and were familiar with one another's styles. Their closeness as a group facilitated their ability to play together as an ensemble and to improvise,

In addition to being accomplished acrobats and actors, Commedia performers had also to be accomplished musicians, singers and dancers as music played an important part in the staging of a Commedia play. Music and singing provided interludes between acts and scenes, were background accompaniments to scenes or part of scenes when actors played and sang in character. The following account of the performance of an improvised comedy at Trausnitz in Bavaria 1568, makes reference to the interludes of music.

After the prologue Messer Orlando arranged for a madrigal
in five parts to be sung.
Then followed the first episode, (of the play)
after which Pantalone entered. He touched his lute and sang;
'Whoever passes down this street, and sighs not, happy man
is he,' and after repeating this twice he left the stage.
Another episode.
Then there was music by five violas-da-gamba.
(The account ends with the following)
"Peace made, Camilla was given to Zanni as his wife and in
honour of the marriage they joined in a dance after the Italian fashion."

In Sand's chapter on cantatrice in History of the Harlequinade, Vol. II, he speaks of young singers who were actresses and played a variety of roles. Many pictures show actors and actresses with musical instruments in their hands. Many of the actors are also shown dancing. "The courtly demands for splendour of costume, for music wherever possible and for a dance at the close of the play were as carefully regarded by Massimo Trojano as by his followers in the creation of scenarios." Dance seems always to have provided the grand finale to the comedy.

Conclusion

As both improvisation of action and speech depended on the actor's selection from his stock-in-trade, only he was aware of what he would pull out of the bag, so he worked with the element of surprise and could thwart the audience's expectations and thus give rise to laughter and enjoyment. Since the plots and characters did not change much, the acting had to incorporate the elements of surprise and the unexpected and a successful actor of Commedia had to be wide-awake and alert to all kinds of possibilities in the immediate situation on stage and in the audience. Like stand-up comedians, it was the aim of the actors to raise laughter and they would go to any lengths to do so. They give the impression of being practical jokers ready to put anything over on the audience and other actors. In his comparison of Hamlet to Harlequin, Allardyce Nicoll explains that Commedia characters were non-finite creations within a framework that was finite. In their ever-changing performances, Commedia actors made it difficult for audiences to pin them down and their flexibility brought spontaneity and novelty to well worn plots. Thus they became renowned for improvisation. Theirs was an exciting challenge that resulted in many brilliant performances.

What we can learn about acting from Commedia dell' Arte:

1. Physical and mental resourcefulness and concentration. The actor's body has to be so skilled and his head so full of ideas that he can respond spontaneously to any situation.
2. Concentration on the immediate environment and complete awareness of the immediate present during performance. Although the actor nowadays is not required to improvise his speeches, it is only by trying to exist within the moment and from moment to moment on the stage that his art can acquire spontaneity. It was easier for the Commedia actor. As he was not tied to a written script, he was able to live in the moment and thus infuse his art with vitality and dynamism.
3. Ensemble acting, the ability to play off one another requires the ability to communicate at all levels.
4. In addition to technique, it is necessary to broaden one's experience, to stimulate the imagination through wide reading. The actor should be familiar with great writings.

In other words, the actor must be well prepared and have built up huge resources to give life and vitality to a character.

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The Acting Style of the Commedia dell' Arte

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(Paper submitted for a course in drama Indiana University 1968/9) The Italian comedians learn nothing by heart: they need but to glance at the subject of a play a moment or two before going upon the stage. It is this very ability to play at a moment's notice which makes a good Italian actor so difficult to replace.

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Commedia dell'Arte scene- Pantelone and Grizella the Witch

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Commedia final at the Accademia dell'Arte in Arezzo, Italy. Spring 2014. Danni Krehbiel and Grant Meacham

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I call the character that I am going to play "la strega," which translates to "the Witch." I do not intend for her to be a pointy-hatted, broom-wielding, warty, green-faced witch that we have come to know in the media. Rather, I see la strega as an eccentric older woman.

The Witch is the antithesis of the Widow; she is her own woman, completely unfazed by what people around her expect of her. She is loud, rambunctious, crass, and unseemly. Probably single and without children, la strega goes about her household duties despite her lack of ties - and all the while pinching bottoms and accusing people of being Fascisti. She probably has her own agenda, but heck if anyone can tell what it is.

La strega is a character who is heavily influenced by my training in the commedia dell'arte. Strega is actually one of the stock characters, born during the commedia revival of the 1970s, if I'm not mistaken. She is a typical earth-mother, dancing-under-the-moon-naked sort who loves to play pranks and try to sleep with all the beautiful young men.

My own strega is a little different than that - but anyone who plays a stock character plays that character in their own way. I do very much intend on bringing some of the classic jokes into my show - hopefully lots of back-and-forth physical comedy stuff if I can.

My Witch likes to sing and dance and essentially brighten things up around the place. As I said, the antithesis of the Widow. But I have a suspicion that the two actually have a lot in common, and they certainly have a caring relationship that I want to showcase.

About lapiccolacoccinella

I consistently have trouble with self-definition, but I'll give it my best shot here.... I am a twentysomething Italian-American woman from New England who loves clowning and cats and goth subculture and animanga and art and writing and books. I am an aspiring author and artist who currently blogs for Amazing Stories Magazine. I love getting feedback and advice from readers in order to allow my work to grow. View all posts by lapiccolacoccinella

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I call the character that I am going to play "la strega," which translates to "the Witch." I do not intend for her to be a pointy-hatted, broom-wielding, warty, green-faced witch that we have come to know in the media. Rather, I see la strega as an eccentric older woman.

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A form of theater developed in late-Renaissance Italy, Commedia dell'Arte ("artists' comedy") relied on a Universal-Adaptor Cast of stock characters, whose roles, characteristics, and costumes were well-defined and widely known. The troupe would take a scenario, which would outline the plot, and ad-lib all their dialog and the details of the action.

The Commedia dell'Arte is an ancestor of the British tradition of Pantomime, which also relies on stock characters and audience interaction. It also set the stage (no pun intended) for the Romantic Comedy genre, and has been emulated by the likes of Gilbert and Sullivan, William Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew is a particularly good example), Molière, Bertolt Brecht (expertly retooled the stock characters in Mr Puntila and His Man Matti) A. A. Milne (albeit without the romance), and the writers of Black Adder and of Fawlty Towers.

See Villainous Harlequin for a more contemporary depiction of this genre's most famous character.

Commedia dell'Arte stock characters usually included:

(innamorati) Their romance tends to drive the plot whether or not they're the main characters. Frequently rather airheaded and reliant on their much smarter servants.

The Guy (innamorato): Never masked; not especially well-developed as a character, since his only function is to be in love. His name is usually Lelio, Leandro, or Claudio. Generally in love with himself, and with the idea of being in love, and with the innamorata; if anyone gets any Character Development, it will be him learning to reverse that order.

The Girl (innamorata): Never masked; not especially well-developed as a character, since her only function is to be in love. Will have a Pimped-Out Dress. Has a good chance of being named Isabella. Generally in love with herself, and with the idea of being in love, and with the innamorato; if anyone gets any Character Development, it will be her learning to reverse that order.

The Old People (vecchi) get in the way of the lovers' happiness; often, two of them (usually the Doctor and Pantalone) are the lovers' respective fathers. The innamorato's father may want to marry the innamorata himself.

The Captain (il Capitano): Blowhard, thinks he's God's gift to women, will turn out to have Feet of Clay. Often serves as the Romantic False Lead. If the innamorato's biggest rival for the innamorata's hand isn't his own father, it's this guy. Typically a disliked foreigner, often from Spain (as Spain, the superpower of the time, held political sway over Italy). Usually has an Overly Long Name (very common in Spanish nobility). A variant is Scaramuccia.

The Doctor (il Dottore, Graziano): No, (probably) not that Doctor. Often an Absent-Minded Professor type; often the father of one of the innamorati. If he's the father of the innamorata, then he will rarely have much plot relevance, and will just sort of hang around and be funny. A parody of the Bolognese laureate intellectual (Bologna has one of the world's oldest universities). Mostly portrayed as a doctor in law, usually intersperses his lines with dog Latin and mangled renditions of commonplace Latin sayings for comical effect. Sometimes a Know-Nothing Know-It-All. May go off on long free-associating tangents in an attempt to sound intellectual.

Pantalone: Often the father of the other innamorato/a. Rich and miserly. Keeps propositioning Colombina, the Dirty Old Man. Is also a Bad Boss to Arlechino. Sometimes an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist. Based primarily on the stereotype of the rich Venetian merchant. Has a peculiar, shuffling walk, because he's always wearing Turkish sandals.

Tartaglia: Defined by his terrible stutter; is often blind as a bat as well. Often a priest, whose main role is to conduct whatever marriages happen at the end.

The Servants/Commoners (zanni, from whom we get the word "zany") Frequently the ones to ensure the marriages, as you can't count on the lovers being able to pull it off.

Arlecchino (Harlequin): Cheeky but loyal servant to Pantalone or the Doctor; audience favorite; usually drives the action. Can interact with the audience. Forms a Beta Couple with Colombina. Often a Big Eater or Lovable Coward, and tends to suffer Amusing Injuries. Although can also appear as an intelligent and/or amoral trickster. May also be a Bumbling Sidekick. Wears bells on his hat, and an outfit covered in red and black diamonds, and carries the original slap-stick. Known for acrobatic movements on stage. Varients include: Trivelino/Trivelin, Truffa/Truffaldin/Truffaldino, Guazetto, Zaccagnino, and Bagatino.

Colombina (Pierrette): Distaff Counterpart of Arlecchino; servant of the innamorata. Forms a Beta Couple with Arlecchino. Often the smartest/sanest person in the play. (What, you thought Women Are Wiser was a invention?) Usually plays a musical instrument, sings, dances, or does all three. Wears lots of bright colours. Also can be known as Arlecchina.

Pierrot (Pedrolino, Pedro): Loyal, hardworking, dependable servant; the story's Chew Toy. In love with someone, usually Colombina, who doesn't love him back. May be the Sad Clown. Usually dressed almost entirely in white, with a little bit of black. Variants include: Pedrolino, Burrattino, Bertoldo, Pagliaccio, Peppe Nappa, and Gian-Farina.

Brighella: Another greedy character, but much less rich than Pantalone. Sometimes a middle class shopkeeper or tavern owner instead of a servant. Has no problem lying through his teeth. Tends to be a Manipulative Bastard and a Lovable Rogue, perhaps even a Magnificent Bastard. Dresses in white with a bit of green, and probably plays the lute. Typically has a small, pointy beard. Variants include: Fenocchio, Flautino, Sbrigani, Franca Trippa/Francatrippa/Francatrippe, Turlupin/Tirelupin, Sgnarelle, and Gandolin.

Pulcinella (): A hunchback or otherwise disabled/disfigured character, based on the stooping walk of Renaissance Italian coal carriers. Can be an idiot, can be a Genius Cripple. Very violent, especially towards Arlecchino and Pierrot, and speaks in an unusually squeaky voice. His name means "little chicken".

Other characters

La Signora: Often the wife of Pantalone and/or the mistress of Pedrolino, she is tough, beautiful and calculating but narcissistic. Sometimes a courtesan and often called Rosaura.

Beltrame: similar to Brighella, was either or both a shrewd villager and a blunderer who was always trying to appear of a higher rank than he really is.

Scapin/Scapino: similar to Brighella, and often seen as his brother or son, he was the more toned-down version. He's usually more interested in charming a servant girl or eating than carrying out Brighella's villainy.

Mezzetino: Often seen as the brother of Brighella, he is fond of the ladies even if they weren't fond of him. His character has many variations: a loyal or scheming servant or a deceitful or cuckolded husband.

La Ruffiana: An "old windbag" type; like the rest of the old people, she's out to thwart the innamorati.

The Pavironica family:

Sandrone: a crude, clever, and cunning peasant.

Pulonia: the wife of Sandrone.

Sgorghiguelo: the son of Sandrone.

Examples and references in modern media:

Harlequin Valentine, by Neil Gaiman, is explicitly based on commedia dell'arte tropes, with Harlequin as a trickster spirit romancing a mortal woman (who is, in the Columbine spirit, the sanest and most sensible character, and things don't go quite as expected). Along the way, Harlequin nominates the other characters as filling various stock roles, although it's ambiguous whether this is genuine insight or just a case of labelling people according to his preconceptions.

In one of the volumes of De cape et de crocs, a group of protagonists who get captured, are forced to perform one of these for their captors.

The cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fit this pretty well, for the most part:

Brad and Janet are the Lovers.

Eddie makes a passing Arlecchino.

Columbia, fittingly, is a Colombina.

Frank-N-Furter has elements of both The Captain (obviously "not from around here," interested in Anything That Moves) and Pantalone (abusive of Eddie, his Arlecchino, hints of a relationship with Columbia.)

Riff Raff is a dead giveaway as the Pulcinella, hunchback and all.

The Criminologist is perfect as the Doctor.

The others are a bit of a stretch - presumably Rocky as the Pierrot, Magenta as the Brighella, and Dr. Scott as the Tartaglia.

The Marx Brothers fit the archetypes quite nicely.

Groucho: Arlecchino, though with aspects of Brighella, given his costant schemes.

Chico: Brighella

Harpo: Pierrot. A Night at the Opera even has a scene of him dressing up in the costume that he stole from a production of Pagliacci.

Zeppo: In early productions, the Innamorato. Later on, he becomes a more toned-down Arlecchino for Groucho to boss around, before leaving the pictures altogether, in favour of...

Alan Jones: Innamorato all the time.

Margaret Dumont: Columbina, or a Gender Flip of Il Dottore.

Andre Moreau of Scaramouche is a heroic fugitive who goes undercover in the commedia dell arte troupe his beloved Lenore acts in, discovering an unexpected talent for slapstick.

The cast of Beauty and the Beast fits nicely:

Belle and the Beast: Innamorati (main romantic leads of the movie, although much more fleshed out than the usual innamorati)

Gaston: Il Capitano (vain, boasting antagonist who lusts for Belle)

Maurice: Il Dottore (Absent-Minded Professor, father of the innamorata)

LeFou: Pulcinella (ugly and stupid servant of the main antagonist)

Lumiere: Arlecchino (smart, confident and flirty leader of the Beast's servants)

Cogsworth: Pierrot (Butt-Monkey, although lacks the "hopeless lover" trait of the usual Pierrot)

Mrs. Potts and Fifi the Feather Duster have the traits of Colombina divided between them: Mrs. Potts embodies Women Are Wiser, while Fifi is Lumiere's love interest

Monsieur D'Arque: Brighella (cunning and greedy minor villain)

Jean Renoir's The Golden Coach is a 1952 film Homage to Commedia'dell Arte, bringing the style to cinema with legendary actress Anna Magnani playing Colombina

Moulin Rouge! is an example with Christian and Satine as the innamorati, The Duke and, to a lesser extent, Zidler, as the Old People trying to keep them apart, and Toulouse and the Bohemians as the Servants trying to keep them together. The difference is that The Lovers are the ones clearly driving the plot while the Servants are more sidelined. It also does not have a happy ending.

It is less evident from the book's final edition, but in The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov two of the devil's servants bear some resemblance to the most popular zanni characters. Koroviev, the talkative trickster dressed in checked clothes brings to mind Arlecchino, and in certain early version of the novel there's a character called "Fiello", a hunchbacked brute with mouth full of fangs, dressed in white, grotesque clothes with bells attached, who seems to have some of Pulcinella's characteristics. The latter was subsequently modified by the writer to become Azazello, another servant of the devil. Azazello lacks any significant resemblance to Commedia dell'Arte characters.

Commedia dell'Arte motifs figure in the later Jerry Cornelius stories by Michael Moorcock, particularly The Condition of Muzak and The Entropy Tango.

The characters do not fit the archetypes, but in The Vampire Lestat, the title character joins a Commedia dell'Arte troupe in his pre-vampire days. He plays Lelio, and counts his time as an actor among the best experiences in his human life.

In John C. Wright's The Golden Age, Phaethon donns a Harlequin outfit for the Masquerade. The Earthmind salutes his fidelity when he greets her. Possibly inspired by this, his foes don the forms of Scaramouche and Columbine to pursue him.

Agatha Christie wrote a series of stories featuring a Mr. Harley Quin, who had a knack for turning up where there were two lovers in trouble and, seemingly by chance, saying or doing just the right thing to influence events in their favour. (Being Agatha Christie stories, this often involved inspiring a Eureka Moment in somebody trying to solve a murder, but it didn't always - and there's at least one Harley Quin story in which nobody dies at all.)

The story "Puss-in-Boots" in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is essentially a commedia dell'arte play in prose form, with the titular cat helping his owner get in bed with Pantalone's young beautiful wife. Several stock characters of the genre are referred to by name.

Winnie-the-Pooh, albeit without the romance or the social class:

Pooh himself, with his clumsy nature, very little brain, and great appetite, is Arlecchino, of course.

The self-important Rabbit has aspects of both Pantalone and Brighella.

Owl, a rambling fool who thinks himself a wise and learned fellow, is pure Il Dottore.

The rambunctious, unintentionally-violent Tigger is primarily a Pulcinella figure.

Both Eeyore and Piglet have aspects of Pierrot - Eeyore the perpetual gloominess, and Piglet the defeatist, timid attitude.

Kanga is a sort of a Columbina figure, albeit a fairly bland one, while her son Roo is a Pulcinella-in-training, but with some of the wide-eyed innocence of the innamoratti.

Partly-inverted in the Jeeves and Wooster series of P. G. Wodehouse. On the one hand, the manservant Jeeves is always ready with a Zany Scheme to help his social betters work their way around a Parental Marriage Veto or some other such problem. But on the other hand, he - and most other servants - are portrayed as highly dignified characters, with all of the real clowning done by the upper classes, with his master, Bertie Wooster, as a rare aristocratic Arlecchino. That said, many of the upper class characters fit these archetypes pretty well, despite not being servants, with Bertie's aunts Dahlia and Agatha representing different takes on the Signora (as Bertie puts it in a moment of hyperbole, Agatha eats broken bottles and turns into a werewolf by the full moon, while Dahlia is the sort of werewolf whom it is a pleasure to know), the constantly-infatuated Bingo Little is an innamorato (with the tendency to fall in love with barmaids; rather appropriate, given the class inversion at play here), the drippy newt-enthusiast Gussy Fink-Nottle is a Pierrot, Madeleine Basset (who believes every time a fairy blows its nose, a baby is born) is a comedic take on the innamorata, the unscrupulous bookmaker Rupert Steggles is Brighella, and the paranoiac nerve-specialist Sir Roderick Glossop is Il Dottore. Likewise, there's always a violent Pulcinella figure on hand to threaten Bertie with bodily harm, most notably the hot-tempered Tuppy Glossop and the would-be fascist dictator Roderick Spode.
Wodehouse's other most notably series, the Blandings Castle stories, also apply zanni tropes to the aristocracy, with the doddering Clarence Threepwood, Earl of Emsworth, as a kindly Dottore figure, his domineering sister Lady Constance Keeble as a Signora, their disreputable brother Galahad as an elderly Arlecchino, and Clarence's nemesis and neighbour Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe as a sort of Brighella figure, and there are always a pair of innamorati on hand, one of whom will generally be a grandchild or distant in-law of Clarence. This time, however, the servants are a bit more in on the act, with the eternally put-upon butler Beach as a toned-down, non-romantic Pierrot, and the truculent gardener Angus MacAllister as Pulcinella (without the violence or threats thereof), and the opportunistic pig-keeper George Cyril Wellbeloved as a more conventional Brighella.

The theatre troupe in Players of Gor is this with the serial numbers very half-heartedly filed off - with justification, since all human Gorean cultures originated on Earth and have adapted to the local customs as necessary. Characters include Bina (a truncation of "Columbina", but also previously established as Gorean for "Slave Beads" and a common slave name) Brigella (note spelling) who is a female character, Chino and Lecchio who are an Arlecchino double-act, and Petrucchio who is often a Miles Gloriosus. As this is low art, female players are always slaves and have an alternative means of earning coins if the plays are doing poorly. (On the other hand, men do the heavy lifting and are more likely to be flat-out killed if they fall into bandit hands.)

The characters of Arrested Development can do this frequently, although the main character, Michael Bluth, can shift between an Innamarata and a Pantalone multiple times in any given episode, most of the time, however, he is Pierrot.

Rarely actually seen, but apparently a regular sketch on Show Within The Show of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Nobody gets the joke, of course.

Blackadder is basically an extended series of mutations of this central trope, particularly emphasizing the social classes and power dynamics of the stock characters.

Edmund Blackadder himself is always some variant on the Brighella figure, defined by his greed, cowardice (particularly in the first series), and the fact that he is never the highest-status person around - even when he's the son of the king, he's only the second son, and as the series progresses, his rank in the world gradually drops.

Baldrick, whether the Hypercompetent Sidekick of the first series or the cheerful dimwit he is the rest of the time, is always some kind of Arlecchino, consistently the lowest-status character present, and always with some kind of 'cunning plan' on hand.

The gloomy, supercilious Percy is pure Pierrot, especially in the second series, where he's constantly hopelessly in love with some offscreen woman.

His fourth-series incarnation, Captain Darling, is more of a particularly British take on Il Capitano, however - Edmund's rival and nemesis, but more out of priggish professionalism than hammy bravado. He also occasionally borders on the Pierrot, devotedly following General Melchett's orders, often the butt of Blackadder's jokes and awaiting in vain to marry Doris...

The first series' Prince Harry is an Il Capitano.

Whenever Flashheart shows up, he's a more straightforward Capitano, with all the bravado that implies. Unlike most versions of Il Capitano though, he's The Ace, especially in the second series.

Either incarnation of Melchett - and, indeed, any character played by Stephen Fry, such as the third series' Duke of Wellington - is generally a Dottore figure.

George is an odd case. Appearing in series three as a kind of dimwitted Innamorato figure (with aspects of Pantalone, given his lechery and high-ranking position as Prince Regent), but when he returns in Blackadder Goes Forth as Lt. George - this time, subservient to Cpt. Blackadder - he's more of an assistant Arlecchino to Pvt. Baldrick.

King Richard IV of the first series is a cross between Il Capitano, given his military background and hearty, exuberant manner, and Pantalone, given his position of power and often-unreasonable nature. The second series replaces him with a much more straightforward Signora in Queen Elizabeth I.

The third series' Mrs. Miggins is a pretty straightforward Columbina, given her quasi-romantic relationship to Blackadder, middle-class social status (she owns and operates an inn/pie shop), and her collaborative role in many of Blackadder's plots. This also applies to Kate/Bob of the second and fourth series.

On The Amazing Race, a Fast-Forward task involved a routine with such a troupe. The green pass would appear during the performance, upon which it could be claimed.

"The Carnival Is Over" by Tom Springfield, a signature song of The Seekers:

Like a drum my heart was beating
And your kiss was sweet as wine
But the joys of love are fleeting
For Pierrot and Columbine.

Characters from Molière's plays tend to fit in those roles.

Carlo Goldoni's early plays are classic Commedia dell'Arte. From Momolo Cortesan onwards, though, his works take a completely new style, often violently clashing with the classic Commedia dell'Arte popular in Italy and France at the time.

In the plays of William Shakespeare:

Playfully mocked in Much Ado About Nothing. The aptly-named Hero and Claudio are the innamorati, Antonio is the tartaglia, Margaret is the colombina, etc. It's mockery because Beatrice and Benedick are the real main characters, and they are probably the only ones who don't fit any stock models. Also, the Zany Scheme is cooked up by Don Pedro, probably the highest-ranking person in the play, and his chief compatriot, Hero's father Leonato, really should be a Pantalone figure.

Romeo and Juliet is, if anything, a deconstruction. It has its eponymous Innamorati, Friar Lawrence as the Tartaglia (with the subversion that he's sort of right about everything), Lord and Lady Capulet as the pantalone and the signora, Tybalt as the Capitano, the nurse as the Columbine, Mercutio as the Arlecchino and Benvolio as the Pierrot. However, the Zany Scheme doesn't work out, the innamorati don't get a Happily Ever After, and a lot of people die.

The Merchant of Venice has Portia and Bassanio the innamorati, as well as Shylock the Pantalone. And of course, Touchstone, Bottom, Gratiano, and many others are perfect arlecchini.

The Merry Wives of Windsor has Fenton and Anne as the innamorati, the foolish doctor Caius, Evans as the priest with a "speech impediment" (actually an outrageous Welsh accent), and Falstaff of all people as a sleazy Pantalone-type.

Twelfth Night has Andrew Aguecheek as a Miles Gloriosus Scaramouche, Malvolio the Pierrot, Feste the Arlecchino, Maria is the Colombina to Sir Toby Belch's Capitano, with Duke Orsino as the hopeful Innamorato to Olivia, ending up with Viola after she reveals her disguise as Cesario, and Olivia falls for Sebastian, mistaking him for Cesario, who is really Viola, his fraternal twin sister.

At least one version of The Taming of the Shrew, produced for television in the '70s by WNET New York, is explicitly Commedia, down to the costumes and presentation style.

is a classic opera, by Ruggero Leoncavello, about a Commedia troupe. The title literally means 'clowns'. The Show Within a Show is that Colombina is cheating on Pierrot with Il Capitano, and it's played for laughs, but backstage, Canio (the actor playing Pierrot) finds out that his wife (Colombina) is actually cheating on him with the actor playing Il Capitano. He sings the classic aria Vestia la giubba ('put on the costume') and then goes mad with grief.

The Pantomime Theatre in the Copenhagen amusement park Tivoli frequently features new and old plays with this. Here the loving couple however usually is the trickster Harlequin and the beautiful Colombina. The latter is the daughter of the old rich man Kassander, who won't accept their love, but of course they always get each other in the end. The favourite of the audience is however Kassander's always unlucky and not too bright servant Pierrot. In fact Pierrot has become quite a symbol in Tivoli - and in three other Danish amusement parks which also have a Pierrot each entertaining the children.

Servant of Two Masters:

Based directly on Servant of Two Masters, Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors updates the plot to 1963 Brighton:

Sweeney Todd might be seen as a very twisted version:

Anthony and Johanna, of course, are the innamorati.

Judge Turpin is Pantalone, Pirelli is il Capitano, and Beadle Bamford is some evil twin of Brighella.

Todd himself and Mrs. Lovett are Arlecchino and Columbina, making Toby Pierrot.

Aspects of this structure are present in all of Gilbert and Sullivan's works, but The Yeomen of the Guard is probably the most pronounced form it takes, albeit with a few unexpected twists.

Jack Point is introduced as an Arlecchino figure, but by the end, he's become a tragic Pierrot.

Wilfred Shadbolt is set up as the Pierrot, given his unrequited love for Phoebe, but in the end, he wins her hand (though not her love) and becomes more of an Arlecchino.

Col. Fairfax is set up as Innamorato to Phoebe's Innamorata, but we gradually learn Fairfax to be more of a Capitano.

Elsie Maynard is pure Colombina.

Lieutenant Sir Richard Cholmondeleigh probably should be Il Capitano, but he and Sgt. Meryll are both more Dottore figures in their ineffectualness and lack of insight.

Dame Carruthers is a Signora figure.

In the Giacomo Puccini opera Gianni Schicchi, much of the characterization is in the commedia dell'arte tradition. Rinucchio and Lauretta are obviously the innamorati, with nothing much to do while most of the vecchi are trying to keep them apart. Maestro Spinelloccio is il Dottore, complete with Bolognese accent. The title character combines the mercuriality of Arlecchino with the greed and magnificent duplicity of Brighella, and is the father of the innamorata.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, many of the characters from the Plautus play "Pseudolus" upon which this is based are probably the Ur-examples of several Commedia dell' Arte types, so it's not surprising that they show up here in spades:

Pseudolus is the arlecchino

Gymnasia (despite being The Speechless) is the colombina
(Speechless in the movie. Has one line in the play.)

Hysterium is the pedro

Hero is the innamorato

Philia is the innamorata

Senex is the pantalone

Lycus is the brighella

Miles Gloriosus is the capitano

In Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice, a crime ring uses characters from the Commedia dell'Arte as code names for the various members:

Il Capitano: Communications, Antonio Fango

Scaramuccia: Security Systems Expert, Gina

Brighella: Thief, Nico Petit

Il Dottore: Boss, Helena Berg

Arlecchino: Smuggler, Enrico Tazza

In Majora's Mask, Anju and Kafei are the Innamorati, Mayor Dotour is il Dottore, and Link seems to be a male version of Columbiana. The Curiosity Shop owner is Brighella, Tingle might be Pulcinella, and I'm sure other characters fit into other roles as well.

Commedia 2X00 uses the Commedia dell'Arte characters and plot as a vehicle, except in the skewed sci-fi/video-game setting of the Twenty-Xth Century; Dottore is a deranged cyberneticist who loses his funding for crimes against nature and arranges for his daughter Isa to marry billionaire Mr. Pants in exchange for a massive dowry, despite the fact that Isa is in love with Mr. Pants' son Flave. Dottore's project is the creation of Super Fighting Cyborgs. So far the only one we've seen is Arlecchino, who in a shout-out to Mega Man, "having a strong sense of loyalty, volunteered to be converted to a Super Fighting Cyborg."

The characters of are strikingly like Commedia characters:

As can The Simpsons:

Arlecchino: Homer/Bart

Colombina: Marge/Lisa

Pantalone: Mr. Burns

Pierrot: Smithers

Brighella: Moe

Warner Bros.' classic cartoon characters also show their Commedia roots:

Bugs Bunny: Scapino

Daffy Duck: Arlecchino - due to his tendency to receive slapstick as often as he doles it out.

Porky Pig: Tartaglia

Yosemite Sam: Il Capitano

Wile E. Coyote: Il Dottore - his "education" brings out his foolishness.

In a similar manner to Winnie-the-Pooh, is like a Goth version of the commedia, minus the romance:

Ruby herself seems a benign Arlecchino, being the one administering conflict rather than being involved.

Iris is Columbina, in the hard-working, go-getter, rational voice of reason sense, sort of combining traits with Pulchinella. Doom Kitty is a more traditional Columbina.

There are two Pierrots - Scaredy Bat with his defeatist, afraid of everything attitude, and Misery with her constant depression and well...misery.

Poe the Crow is both Pantalone in the sense of puffing himself up and Il Dottore in the sense of his claimed profession and actual class amongst the cast.

Skull Boy is both a more benign Pantalone in the sense of his versatility and trying many jobs, and also a Scapino in his general attitude.

Frank and Len are both Pulchinella, being oafish and dimwitted, as well as often initiating slapstick.

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A form of theater developed in late-Renaissance Italy, Commedia dell'Arte ("artists' comedy") relied on a Universal-Adaptor Cast of stock characters, whose roles, characteristics, and costumes were well-defined and widely known. The troupe would take a scenario, which would outline the plot, and ad-lib all their dialog and the details of the action.

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Commedia dell'Arte, also known as "Italian comedy", was a humorous theatrical presentation performed by professional actors who traveled in troupes throughout Italy in the 16th century.

Performances took place on temporary stages, mostly on city streets, but occasionally even in court venues. The better troupes-notably Gelosi, Confidenti, and Fedeli-performed in palaces and became internationally famous once they traveled abroad.

Music, dance, witty dialogue, and all kinds of trickery contributed to the comic effects. Subsequently, the art form spread throughout Europe, with many of its elements persisting into present-day theater.

Given the vast number of Italian dialects, how would a touring company make itself understood?

Apparently, there was no attempt made to change the performance's dialect from region to region.

Even when a local company performed, much of the dialogue would not have been understood. Regardless of region, il Capitano would have spoken in Spanish, il Dottore in Bolognese, and l'Arlecchino in utter gibberish. The focus was placed on physical business rather than on spoken text.

Influence

The impact of commedia dell'arte on European drama can be seen in French pantomime and the English harlequinade. The ensemble companies generally performed in Italy, although a company called the comédie-italienne was established in Paris in 1661.

The commedia dell'arte survived the early 18th century only by means of its vast influence on written dramatic forms.

Props

There were no elaborate sets in commedia. Staging, for example, was minimalistic-rarely anything more than one market or street scene-and the stages were frequently temporary outdoor structures.

Instead, great use was made of props including animals, food, furniture, watering devices, and weapons. The character Arlecchino bore two sticks tied together, which made a great noise on impact. This gave birth to the word "slapstick".

Improvisation

In spite of its outwardly anarchic spirit, commedia dell'arte was a highly disciplined art requiring both virtuosity and a strong sense of ensemble playing. The unique talent of commedia actors was to improvise comedy around a pre-established scenario. Throughout the act, they responded to each other, or to the audience's reaction, and made use of lazzi (special rehearsed routines that could be inserted into the plays at convenient points to heighten the comedy), musical numbers, and impromptu dialogue to vary the happenings on stage.

Physical Theater

Masks forced actors to project their characters' emotions through the body. Leaps, tumbles, stock gags ( burle and lazzi), obscene gestures and slapstick antics were incorporated into their acts.

Stock Characters

The actors of the commedia represented fixed social types, tipi fissi, for example, foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravado. Characters such as Pantalone, the miserly Venetian merchant; Dottore Gratiano, the pedant from Bologna; or Arlecchino, the mischievous servant from Bergamo, began as satires on Italian "types" and became the archetypes of many of the favorite characters of 17th- and 18th-century European theatre.

Arlecchino was the most famous. He was an acrobat, a wit, childlike and amorous. He wore a cat-like mask and motley-colored clothes and carried a bat or wooden sword.

was Arlecchino's crony.He wwas more roguish and sophisticated, a cowardly villain who would do anything for money.

Il Capitano (the captain) was a caricature of the professional soldier-bold, swaggering, and cowardly.

(the doctor) was a caricature of learning-pompous and fraudulent.

was a caricature of the Venetian merchant, rich and retired, mean and miserly, with a young wife or an adventurous daughter.

Pedrolino was a white-faced, moon-struck dreamer and the forerunner of today's clown.

Pulcinella, as seen in the English Punch and Judy shows, was a dwarfish humpback with a crooked nose, the cruel bachelor who chased pretty girls.

Scarramuccia, dressed in black and carrying a pointed sword, was the Robin Hood of his day.

The handsome Inamorato (the lover) went by many names. He wore no mask and had to be eloquent in order to perform speeches of love.

The Inamorata was his female counterpart; Isabella Andreini was the most famous. Her servant, usually called Columbina, was the beloved of Harlequin. Witty, bright, and given to intrigue, she developed into such characters as Harlequine and Pierrette.

La Ruffiana was an old woman, either the mother or a village gossip, who thwarted the lovers.

Cantarina and Ballerina often took part in the comedy, but for the most part, their job was to sing, dance, or play music.

There were many other minor characters, some of which were associated with a particular region of Italy such as Peppe Nappa (Sicily), Gianduia (Turin), Stenterello (Tuscany), Rugantino (Rome), and Meneghino (Milan).

Costumes

The audience was able to pick up on each character's dress the type of person he was representing. For elaboration, loose-fitting garments alternated with very tight, and jarring color contrasts opposed monochrome outfits. Except for the inamorato, males would identify themselves with character-specific costumes and half masks. The zanni (precursor to clown) Arlecchino, for example, would be immediately recognizable because of his black mask and patchwork costume.

While the inamorato and the female characters wore neither masks nor costumes unique to that personage, certain information could still be derived from their clothing.

Audiences knew what members of the various social classes typically wore, and also expected certain colors to represent certain emotional states.

Masks

All the fixed character types, the figures of fun or satire, wore colored leather masks. Their opposites, usually pairs of young lovers around whom the stories revolved, had no need for such devices. Today in Italy handcrafted theater masks are still created in the ancient tradition of carnacialesca.

Music

The inclusion of music and dance into commedia performance required that all actors have these skills. Frequently at the end of a piece, even the audience joined in on the merrymaking.

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What You Need to Know About Commedia dell'Arte

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Commedia dell'Arte, also known as "Italian comedy", was a humorous theatrical presentation performed by professional actors who traveled in troupes throughout Italy in the 16th century. Performances took place on temporary stages, mostly on city streets, but occasionally even in court venues.

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Make 'Em Laugh: Common Ground in Comic Characters | Matthew R. Wilson | TEDxUM

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Are some things always funny? While most jokes rely on cultural context, comic performers throughout history have found common sources of amusement that transcend linguistic or national boundaries. Actor and historian Matthew R. Wilson finds the funny in character types from Greco-Roman comedy, Commedia dell'Arte, Kyōgen, and contemporary film and television.

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Faction of Fools | A History of Commedia dell'Arte

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2012 Helen Helen Hayes Recipient of the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company Home * Productions * Education * Commedia Day * About Us * Press * Join Us * Contact ©2009-18 Faction of Fools. All Rights Reserved.Privacy Policy Website byPaul Reisman Design

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An overview of the Italian improvised drama known as Commedia dell'arte.

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You can't use another human, so you'd have to solve that challenge - lifesize doll? body pillow with face painted on it? cardboard cutout?

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Amo Gulinello in the CLOWN CAR ACT / Cirque du Soleil

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9.9k Views

Most people know what slapstick is. When we think of physical comedy, we may think of TV classics such as the pratfalls of Charlie Chaplin or Chevy Chase, the slap-fights of The Three Stooges, or the exaggerated facial reactions of Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. Using physicality to sell the joke, however, goes all the way back to Commedia dell'Arte in about 1550, when Italian troupes literally cataloged and numbered the funny "bits" (tropes) that could be used over and over, without fail, to produce a laugh. The site Laugh Button identifies some of humanity's favorite slapstick as shticks like "the fall, the slip, the trip, the collide and the double take." Commedia dell'Arte is shortened from a name which means "the comedy of the craft of comedic improvisation." Our famous performers today are still practicing this art!

Modern movies, Broadway shows, TV and youtube shorts frequently use the same reliable comedic routines as those Renaissance Italians, and we're still laughing-hard. Think of current comedy masters like James Cordon, Melissa McCarthy, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Zach Galifianakis, Jim Carey, Conan O'Brien-they are all masters of what boils down to the Commedia dell'Arte playbook. The comedic actors of Commedia were usually trickster servants called Zanni, from which we get the English word "zany." The Zanni over time were broken down and divided into various subtypes, like the famous Harlequin that goes back as far as the 14th Century. These masterful performers would have a hundred stock physical joke scenarios memorized so that they could plug them into a scene improvisationally.

The stock jokes, or gags, were called lazzi (pronounced ˈlɑ-tsi) which is the plural of "lazzo," meaning "joke or witticism." Mel Gordon's book, Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell'Arte, categorizes 250 routines from 1550-1750, many of which survive today, some in modified forms. For example, the "Running around the Balcony Lazzo" is just as you'd imagine, and you can see this timeless joke in the Disney ride Pirates of the Caribbean where the pirates are chasing women around the town, but in the next balcony, a large threatening woman has turned the tables and is chasing a pirate around her house with a broom. Some other predictable lazzi are "The Chair" being pulled out from under someone or breaking under them; The Laughter and Tears Lazzo where hilarious laughing turns into crying mid-scene; and the Lazzo of the Foreign Language, where a character is forced to pretend to know another language and makes up gibberish in the style of that language they don't know, while another character translates the language. This last one is the central comedic situation driving the plot of the famous play The Foreigner, by Larry Shue.

Now let's look at some fun clips and examples of physical comedy from the modern era that are straight out of the Commedia Lazzi...Classics of TV Comedy:

The very famous I Love Lucy chocolate factory scene relies on physical comedy, where Lucy and her best friend Ethel can't keep up with the speed of the conveyor belt producing the chocolates they are tasked with wrapping, and come up with "creative" ways to try and fix their conundrum.

If you want more of Lucille Ball, check out "Vitameatavegamin," where Lucy accidentally gets drunk filming a TV commercial, or "Lucy's Italian Movie," where she wrestles a local Italian woman in a grape vat!

The Three Stooges embody the "lowly" trickster/servant with their slapstick routines as they pinch, slap, poke, swing, fall, and break things on a minute-to-minute basis. A famous scene is where they attempt to fix a doorbell, but end up pulling Moe through a wall attached to the electrical wires. Laurel & Hardy did very similar gimmicks.

Saturday Night Live, and in movies and TV shows, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase are known for their career-spanning pratfalls. They fall and trip and slip and fail to get up to great comedic effects. Pratfalls fall under the lazzo category "Acrobatics," and there is a specific ladder lazzo that involves falling" from a ladder or wall after being shaken off, shot, or gravitationally abandoned" which can include "desperate attempts not to fall," and "pratfalls over furniture." See Steve Martin doing pratfalls in his Pink Panther movies, The Jerk, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Chevy Chase's early SNL sketch with a ladder is a classic, and his Clark Griswold is a serial pratfall specialist. Martin Short All three doing classic Commedia physical humor together in The Three Amigos, like in this trailer:

Think about this: even the most recent Captain America: Civil War movie used the entrance of teenage Spider Man in a brand new suit to produce physical comedy, making him awkward in his newfound skills against his more polished team members. As he swings and shoots webs, yelling and colliding and trying to "keep up with the big kids," he's embodying the Commedia "Acrobatics" style of physical humor. Listening to the crowd in the theatre, it worked!

Much of Commedia and modern humor is, well, based on dirty humor. Jim Carrey is known for his hilarious (and sometimes disgusting) physical humor. Remember his Ace Ventura Rhino "birth scene," where he is trapped in and then slowly emerges from the nether region of an African Rhino? There's also a scene in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls where he helps an African woman give birth by simply pushing on her belly as in CPR, "popping" the baby out and across the room into its father's arms, umbilical cord still attached. Finally, remember that in Me, Myself & Irene, Carrey pulled off a breastfeeding joke where a nursing mother looks up and suddenly he is also attached to her!? Well, in classic Commedia, believe it or not, there is actually a whole category for sexual and "scatological" humor-that literally means poop and bathroom jokes! And it seems that for good or bad, Jim Carrey is a master of both.

If you were doubting it, women do this style of humor too. Bridesmaids actors Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rebel Wilson, and Wendy McLendon-Covey went there with humorous scenes involving diarrhea in the street, mile-high "steam heat" propositions with an Air Marshall, and submarine -sandwich foodie sex in the outtakes.

James Cordon One Man, Two Guvnors creates an internal fight with himself that becomes physical. His Tony performance of this scene is amazing and explains his wide appeal and current fame. The show launched him to everyday household fame, and now he's got the Late Show and that wonderful series of in-the-car lip syncs with other celebrities, including Adele, Justin Bieber, Lin Manuel Miranda and other B-way celebs.

Zach Galifianakis is known for his oddball characters in movies and his own web show "Between Two Ferns" and the TV series Baskets. "On Physical Comedy" is a strange but hilarious casual scene he appears to have recorded on his own, where he is talking seriously about the art and craft of comedy being text-based, yet his chair keeps breaking under him in the oldest Commedia joke in the book. When he gives up and continues from the ground, comics Patton Oswalt & Brian Posehn make an appearance to ridicule him-but they're wearing only towels and their junk is censored out with the infamous black bar! Plus, the physical comedy of their height different keeps the silliness going. ( A bit of language in this one)

Melissa McCarthy is a genius of physical comedy and improvisation in such films as Spy, Tammy, The Heat, Identity Thief and Bridesmaids, as well as her recently wrapped TV series Mike & Molly. Other actors and directors attest to her playfulness on camera and the fact that she's willing to try a scene over and over with different tactics for a laugh. This goes to the heart of the Commedia practice, where the zanni actor knows an entire playbook of moves, shticks, gags, and tropes that can be applied to any situation, and they can (seemingly) effortlessly change it up for the best laughs. Many of her films have outtakes where we get to see these moments, and her pratfalls are some of the best around.

If you're a theatre student, a relatively famous resource to learn more is The Physical Comedy Handbook by Davis Robinson, (1999) which breaks down physical comedy into different forms and techniques, and guides readers through "how to" exercises to help anyone develop their sense of comedy and play.

In addition, The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell'Arte, 2014, is a full-sized university text covering a thorough grounding in the subject by Judith Chaffee and Olly Crick. "From Commedia dell'Arte came archetypal characters that are still with us today, such as Harlequin and Pantalone, and the rediscovered craft of writing comic dramas and masked theatre. From it came the forces that helped create and influence Opera, Ballet, Pantomime, Shakespeare, Moliere, Lopes de Vega, Goldoni, Meyerhold, and even the glove puppet, Mr. Punch."

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Make 'Em Laugh: Tracing Modern Physical Comedy Back To Commedia dell'arte - Theatre Nerds

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Most people know what slapstick is. When we think of physical comedy, we may think of TV classics such as the pratfalls of Charlie Chaplin or Chevy Chase, the slap-fights of The Three Stooges, or the exaggerated facial reactions of Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett.

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Hillary de Piano
(You may have to create a Goodreads account to view)
https://www.goodreads.com/reader/12204-the-love-of-three-oranges

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The Love of Three Oranges by Hillary DePiano (.pdf ebook)

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The Red Hat: A Commedia dell'arte scenario

Copyright 1993, by Jeff A. Suzuki

Pantalone, a merchant
Arlecchino, his servant
Isabella, his daughter
Clarice, her servant
Gratiano, a scholar
Oratio, a young law student
Pedrolino, his servant
Spavento, a Spanish Captain
Maria, Spavento's mother
Francheschina, her servant
a Priest
some food vendors

Props:
a book
a red hat
a bag of money
a sword for Spavento
a sword for Oratio
a will

Act I: In front of Chez Pantalone

PANTALONE and ARLECCHINO enter. Pantalone berating Arlecchino about something, beating him a few times, eventually chasing him off stage. Enter GRATIANO, who wants to ask a small favor: he wants Pantalone to lend him some money so he can buy an astrology book. Pantalone refuses until Gratiano mentions that this book will enable him to make more precise astrological predictions; Pantalone picks up on the business possibilities. Agrees to loan him the money. Exit both.

ORATIO and PEDROLINO enter, Oratio wearing a red hat. Oratio bemoaning his fate, to be in an arranged marriage with a woman he doesn't love. Pedrolino says that his father will catch them eventually. Oratio comes up with the idea of finding his true love and marrying her before his marriage with Laura. Pedrolino suggests he goes door to door, not seriously; Oratio takes him seriously, and determines to look for someone to marry. He takes off his hat to wipe his head, hands it to Pedrolino. Pedrolino accidentally drops the hat, leaving it on stage; both exit.

ARLECCHINO enters, on an errand. Finds hat, tries it on and decides it's not his, since it doesn't fit. Decides to find its true owner. Enter ISABELLA and CLARICE, discussing men and her latest disaster. Arlecchino tries the hat on them, decides it doesn't fit; they exit, telling Arlecchino to get back to work. Enter PRIEST. Arlecchino tries the hat on priest; it doesn't fit either. Priest asks where Isabella is; Arlecchino points the way. Priest exits.

SPAVENTO enters. In town looking for work, tries to interrogate Arlecchino. Gets nowhere, slaps him around some. Arlecchino tries the hat on Spavento --- it fits, and Arlecchino says he is the true owner. Spavento is about to throw the hat back at Arlecchino when he decides he likes the hat and will keep it. Both exit in opposite directions.

Enter ISABELLA, CLARICE, and PRIEST; Isabella is talking about her latest disaster with men, and how she wishes she could find someone with half a brain, like perhaps a lawyer. Priest tells Isabella that she must be getting married soon. Enter ORATIO, looking for Pedrolino. Priest begins to quote canon law, saying that Isabella must be married by the time she is 16 or else she will have to join a nunnery. Oratio overhears, corrects the Priest. They argue over law for a while. Isabella and Clarice draw off to the side, wondering who the new person is; they exit. PEDROLINO enters, drags Oratio off. Exit Isabella and Clarice.

Enter PANTALONE. Priest sees him, reprimands him for not giving a proper amount to the Church, and warning him of the peril of purgatory. Pantalone says he's still young and not going to die anytime soon, and will give to the Church later, when he's older. Both exit, arguing.

GRATIANO enters, with his book, exceptionally happy. As a favor to Pantalone, he will cast his horoscope, but he doesn't remember his birthday. ARLECCHINO enters on some errand. Gratiano grabs him and asks him for Pantalone's birthday; Arlecchino answers in his own way but gives three days after St. Michael's day as the date. Gratiano exits.

ISABELLA, CLARICE enter, see ARLECCHINO just standing there. They ask Arlecchino what he's doing; he mentions in passing that Gratiano wanted to know Pantalone's birthday so he could cast a horoscope. Isabella is excited over this, and suggests to Clarice that she have Gratiano cast her horoscope, and perhaps find out what sort of man she will marry. Isabella and Clarice exit.

MARIA and FRANCHESCHINA enter. Maria is looking for Spavento to drag him back to Spain so he can face up to his ``responsibilities''. She grabs Arlecchino and demands information; when Arlecchino doesn't deliver, she throws him aside and storms off, Francheschina following.

Enter PANTALONE, who sees Arlecchino just standing there. Demands to know why Arlecchino hasn't completed the errand he sent him out on; Arlecchino says he forgot. Pantalone beats Arlecchino, sends him back out. Both exit.

Enter PEDROLINO, looking for Oratio. Says he was supposed to keep Oratio out of trouble, and now look what has happened. Enter ISABELLA and CLARICE; Isabella recognizes Pedrolino as Oratio's servant and asks about him, tries to get details, who he is, etc. Pedrolino stalls, when ORATIO enters. Their eyes meet, they talk, they fall in love. Eventually, Pedrolino drags Oratio offstage.

Enter GRATIANO, distraught, says he must talk to Pantalone immediately. Clarice runs off to get him. Isabella and Gratiano talk briefly, CLARICE, ARLECCHINO and PANTALONE enter. First, Gratiano says that Isabella will be happily married to a man wearing a red hat. But second, Gratiano says that Pantalone will die a very wealthy man. When Pantalone begins to celebrate, Gratiano adds the terrible news that he will die very wealthy --- but in only three days. Gratiano leaves, leaving Isabella, Arlecchino and Clarice to comfort Pantalone in their own ways. Pantalone decides that he must make amends for his life of parsimony, and just maybe forestall Gratiano's prediction.

Act II: The Marketplace

Some food vendors are around.

PANTALONE and PRIEST enter. Pantalone is trying to give a large sum of money to the Church; the priest is refusing because he thinks that Pantalone has some ulterior motive and doesn't want to get involved. Both exit in opposite directions.

ORATIO and PEDROLINO enter, buying food. Oratio waxing eloquent about Isabella and how he is certain that this one will be his true love; Pedrolino gets nauseated, certain his master is going to get in more trouble than he can handle.

ISABELLA and CLARICE enter. They meet, talk; Isabella mentions her father's upcoming demise; Oratio is sympathetic. Isabella looks Oratio over carefully, but finds no red hat. *sigh* They talk for a while, then Isabella and Clarice exit, rather distant. Oratio and Pedrolino wonder what happened, then Oratio exits, threatening to throw himself in the river; Pedrolino offers useful suggestions, following.

SPAVENTO enters, tries to get food from vendor at a very low price. CLARICE and ISABELLA enter. Clarice notices Spavento's red hat and points this out to Isabella. Spavento notices Isabella and approaches her, attempting to be amorous. Isabella and Spavento talk disastrously. Spavento exits, certain that Isabella is swooning over him. Isabella is convinced that Spavento is the man she must marry; they exit.

Enter PEDROLINO to buy food, muttering about how Oratio always gets into these moods, etc. MARIA and FRANCHESCHINA enter, Maria full of dire threats of what she will do to Spavento once she catches him. Maria grabs Pedrolino and demands information on the whereabouts of her son, Spavento; Pedrolino knows nothing, exits hastily.

PANTALONE enters, decides to do a good deed by giving the ``poor old woman'' some money. Maria takes great offense at being called a poor old woman, and beats Pantalone off stage. She stays, complaining about the price of food.

GRATIANO enters, looking for something to cure his upset stomach. Maria interrogates him. Gratiano answers in his own way; Maria, frustrated, and Francheschina exit.

Enter ISABELLA. Isabella asks Gratiano how accurate astrological predictions really are. Gratiano goes into a long spiel about how some practitioners are mere amateurs, using imperfect works, but with the new book he has he is certain that his predictions are accurate --- he's dreadfully sorry about what will happen to Pantalone, but isn't it better that he knows about it in advance and can prepare for it. Isabella asks about the prediction for her, and whether or not she has to marry someone wearing a red hat. Gratiano says that if she does not, then she would be defying the natural order of the cosmos and she would be very unhappy. Exit Isabella.

PANTALONE enters, distraught. Every time he's tried to give his money he's been miserably unsuccessful, since no one trusts his motives. Gratiano tries to cheer Pantalone up, purgatory isn't all that bad, then exits.

ARLECCHINO enters, sees Pantalone, is overjoyed because he just remembered what he was supposed to have done yesterday, and he did it. Pantalone shouts that he needed it done yesterday; having it done today is useless, and is about to beat Arlecchino until he realizes what he is doing and decides to be nice to him instead.

SPAVENTO enters; Spavento asks Pantalone for a job. Pantalone immediately notices Spavento's red hat, and says he has just the job for him: he's going to marry him to his daughter, and his dowry will be the Pantalone family fortune. ISABELLA and CLARICE enter; Pantalone announces the plan and how they must be married soon, so that Pantalone is still alive to give her away.

Act III: In front of Chez Pantalone

PANTALONE enters, following FRANCHESCHINA. Pantalone wants to give Francheschina some money; she accepts graciously and tries to give Pantalone something back. Pantalone is mortified (since this would only increase his debt of sin...), and runs hastily off stage. Francheschina reacts; both exit.

SPAVENTO and ISABELLA, followed by CLARICE. Spavento and Isabella not hitting it off at all. Enter PEDROLINO, who talks to CLARICE. Says that Isabella is quite taken with Oratio, but it was foretold that she would marry a man with a red hat. But Oratio has a red hat, Pedrolino says, and I have it. Pedrolino realizes that he doesn't have it, and that he must have dropped it, and Spavento must have picked it up. Don't worry, Pedrolino says, he has a plan, but don't tell anyone. Just make sure everyone's at the wedding as scheduled. Pedrolino exits. Spavento exits, leaving Clarice and Isabella to talk about him.

Enter ORATIO, who pours out his heart to Isabella. Although she is very taken with him, she explains, she must marry Spavento, or else the natural order of the universe will be disrupted and she will be unhappy. Oratio exits, depressed. Clarice and Isabella exit.

PANTALONE and GRATIANO enter. Pantalone has been miserably unsuccessful in giving his money away for charity in person, so he wants Gratiano to write up a will giving it to the appropriate agencies, so that hopefully he won't have to spend a long time in purgatory. He gives Gratiano a bag of money to carry on his work as well. Gratiano leaves ecstatic, saying now he can buy more astrology books. Pantalone exits downcast.

Enter PEDROLINO and ARLECCHINO. Pedrolino wants Arlecchino to get back Spavento's red hat. Arlecchino refuses, saying that the hat is Spavento's because it fits him. Pedrolino tries to explain the situation, eventually getting it across that the hat fits Oratio much better than Spavento. Enter SPAVENTO. Arlecchino tries several times to get the hat, but is unable to do so. Pedrolino notices someone coming, and runs off.

Enter PANTALONE and PRIEST. They talk for a while; Pantalone sends Arlecchino out to get Isabella. (Arlecchino can still be trying to get the hat off Spavento) Arlecchino exits.

Enter GRATIANO, still carrying the bag of money, saying he has the will. Pantalone signs it; says that Gratiano might as well stay for the wedding.

ISABELLA, CLARICE and ARLECCHINO enter. Isabella says prediction or no prediction, she doesn't want to marry Spavento, since she can't stand the man.

Enter ORATIO, PEDROLINO, at a distance. Oratio *sigh*ing because the woman he's fallen in love with is going to marry someone else, and he'll have to marry...Laura. Pedrolino says not to worry about a thing, because....

Enter MARIA, fuming at Spavento. Spavento cringes when he hears her voice. She tells him of his responsibilities back home, etc., etc., while he protests to no avail. Pedrolino pushes Oratio into the fray, telling him to help return Spavento to Spain. Oratio eventually draws his sword and threatens dire consequences unless Spavento goes with Maria. Exit Maria and Spavento; Pedrolino grabs the red hat from him, and returns it to Oratio. Oratio explains the whole situation. Isabella and Oratio get married. All exit except Gratiano, Pantalone, and Arlecchino, and Priest.

Pantalone begins discussing funeral plans for himself. The Priest says he looks quite healthy; Gratiano interrupts saying that because Pantalone was born three days after St. Michael's day, he will die tomorrow. Pantalone corrects Gratiano, saying that he was born three days before St. Michael's day. But if that's true, then the prediction of your death is completely wrong, says Gratiano. Pantalone is overjoyed, but he takes great pains to destroy the will he has just signed. Gratiano mentions in passing that if Arlecchino hadn't told him the wrong day, none of this would have happened, and exits.

Pantalone glares at Arlecchino and chases him off the stage.

FINIS

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Pantalone, a merchant Arlecchino, his servant Isabella, his daughter Clarice, her servant Gratiano, a scholar Oratio, a young law student Pedrolino, his servant Spavento, a Spanish Captain Maria, Spavento's mother Francheschina, her servant a Priest some food vendors Props: a book a red hat a bag of money a sword for Spavento a sword for Oratio a will Act I: In front of Chez Pantalone PANTALONE and ARLECCHINO enter.