|
|
Commedia
dell’Arte
·
what is special about the
Commedia dell’Arte
·
websites on the Commedia
dell’Arte
The
origins
The term Commedia refers to a dramatic genre where the action leads to a
happy ending. The tone is usually comic and the main themes of the plot contain
comic incidents. The situations depicted in the Commedie reflect everyday life
either in a public or a private
context.
The meaning of the term Commedia, however, has
profoundly changed since the times where it came into being in Greece around VI
century BC. Prior to that period Magna Grecia offered popular and
folklore-derived dramatic plays under the form of unrefined farsae where the
acting of stereotyped characters was the main attraction and focus of the genre.
Farsa Megarensis and farsa
fliacica.
In the Farsa Fliacica, Fliaces actors hit the stage
bulkily rear- or belly-padded and equipped with huge phony genitalia.
Aristotle attributes the birth of Comedy to “those
who sing phallic chants”, where special emphasis was given to the expression
of “Bacchus’ joy”. (Komoidìa). There appears to be a connection
between the Commedia and fecundity-celebrating festivals and popular pagan
rituals aimed to seek protection from the deities of
bountiful Earth.
While the Commedia Attica evolved into
more sophisticated and educated drama, the Farsa Megarensis and the Farsa
Phliacica merged into the newly-appearing folk-bound tradition of the latin
Atellana. In this context the Commedia consists of two main components: acting
characters and the parabasi when the chorus talks directly to the audience
breaking the “make believe” of the play.
A prologue and a parodos (a chant accompanying the
entry of the chorus) were subsequently drawn from the Tragedia format.
The development of the Commedia Attica was subsequently
divided into three periods: the ancient Comedia, the middle comedia and the new
Comedia.
Aristophanes is the most outstanding representative
author of the ancient period, during which greatest emphasis was given to the
chorus and to themes related to political or cultural issues. It used to be
centred on a thesis, where fictitious characters bearing resemblance to real
politicians were satyrically attacked. Some of the characters were the author’s
spokesmen, others embodied satyrically targeted caricatures and attitudes. A
precise and inquisitive analysis of the relational and ideological context
usually would prevail over scanty psychological introspection.
The comic effect is overrepresented and blatant, mixed
with heavy satire over crucial social and political issues.
The Middle Comedia – whose remains are almost
non-existant – is lighter in tone and themes, and satire is less hooked onto
political aspects of public life. Mithology and general cultural issues being
the main focus.
The New Comedia, represented by Menadrus, developed in
the pre-hellenic period. With a radical change in politics, the citizen became a
subject and the dramatic focus shifted from society as a whole to the turmoils,
grievances and clear-cut personality traits of the individual typologies.
Deprived of its choruses, comediae drives its satyrical bites on individual and
impersonal prototypical characters such as : the stingy, the grumbler, the
melancholic, the boisterous, with an embryonic penchant towards psychological
introspection.
From this point onward, a steady and long-lasting
format developed, which would greatly influence drama and comedy throughout the
European world: the basic idea would focus on a story of contrasted love, where
the young couple is engaged in a fight against the elderly, the female hero
routinely being a low-class slave who eventually wins herself a well-deserved
marriage with her beloved high-class partner… and they lived happy ever after.
Servants are there to plot and to add to the overall comic effect of the play.
Was the translator and initiator of the commedia nova
in the Roman world. The pre-hellenistic format blended with autoctonous folk
formats (satura, fascennino, atellana).
With the Church being strongly against secular drama, no outstanding
examples of classical heritage remained, such heritage having already been
abandoned during the last decades of the Roman decadence. The Comic genre – up
to the Renaissance – survived in prose writing (Decameron) and in poetry,
whereas comic drama was underrepresented and confined to low-profile folk
festivals and rites such as the chants of Clerici vagantes and carnivals.
However, such expressions of comic drama were to become a source of inspiration
for Ruzante, and to live again in the French and German farses and soties, in
the Fastanachtsspiele by H. Sachs, partially in Cervantes and Shakespeare.
From the Renaissance Comedy to the Commedia dell’Arte
Organized Comedy had a rebirth throughout the XV and XVI centuries (Humanism
and Renaissance.)
Following the dramatic productions of the XV century, the rebirth of
Comedia is officially dated 1508 and coincides with Ariosto’s Cassaria. The
format remains unchanged also in Machiavelli and Bruno’s prose-based works
which are influenced by Boccaccio’s comic language. Prose was necessary to
avoid the drawbacks from transferring
Plautus versification schemes into Italian-based metres.
The classical format contains also elements (jestling, boutades,
adventure and action, dance and stunts) which are to be transferred into the
canovacci (skeletons) of the Commedia dell’Arte, the great Italian dramatic
genre known all over Europe.
The Commedia dell’Arte plays or pièces did not come in written form.
No script was ever recorded in any form other than oral, however it did greatly
influence other literary dramatic genres.
The Commedia dell’Arte owes its name to the peculiar situation of its
performers: professional actors coming from all walks of life, people living
unorthodox lives whose social acceptability was often questionable and
questioned. Regardless of the quality of their acting skills, they had chosen to
be professional actors and devote themselves to theatre.
The peculiar thing about the Commedia dell’Arte
was that a play sprang up “impromptue” and the lines were created as the
plot went along. Being able to create a script while performing the play
required unparalleled planning, creative punning
verbal and motor skills on the part of the actors, who were usually good
dancers and acrobats too.
Each actor specialized in a single role which became typical of that
particular actor.
|
The role was that of a
“character” or mask coming from the Teophrastic
tradition or of a newly invented one, especially servants.
Such masks typified examples of social roles (il capitano =
the captain) and examples of ever-present nova-comedia
leitmotif heroes: the lovers, the vecchio Pantalone). The
actors, except for the lovers, used to perform wearing the
same masks and costumes, making it possible
|
Who
said what about the Commedia dell’Arte over the web
http://world.std.com/~jcross/iSebastiani/whatis.htm
by Jeff Suzuki
What is Commedia dell'Arte? It is a form of improvisational comedy, which
began in Italy during the 16th century and spread out from there. The performers
(not actors) have a scenario in outline form. A professional (i.e., doing
it for a living) troupe would have a week or so to improvise an entire
performance from stage directions like "Pedrolino and Oratio enter and do
something funny" or, our own personal favorite, "Everyone comes on
stage and everything is resolved happily".
To clear up a few misconceptions about commedia: since it's improvised
and comedy, people seem to think it's easy. Actually, these two features make it
by far the hardest form of Western theater.
The performers write the
dialog, which means that they have to have the wit and imagination of a
playwright.
Since it's improvised, there
are no "cues" and the timing requirements are ever so much greater
than in regular theater.
Since it's comedy, the
timing requirements are unforgiving. An actor can be semi-tragic, and people
will still feel; if the actor is semi-funny, no one will laugh at all.
Characters are stock, but usually
include:
Pantalone
Pantalone is a merchant of Venice (of
whom we'll have more to say later). He's rich, he's greedy, and he's miserly.
Gratiano
Gratiano is a pedant, usually a lawyer.
Because Pantalone and Gratiano are old male characters, they are referred to as
the "vecchi", which is Italian for old male characters.
Pedrolino and Arlecchino
These are the servants of the old men.
Collectively they are known as zanni.
In addition, most plays include amarosi
(the lovers), Capitano (a blustering Spanish Captain who's afraid of his own
shadow), villains, and others.
Commedia, despite being an Italian art
form, has had a great influence on English. Let's start off with a few of the
basics:
The word "pants"
comes from Pantalone (via pantaloons, the type of dress that Pantalone wore
on stage; before Commedia they were called Venetian breeches).
The word "zany"
comes from, you guessed it, the two zanni. This should give you a good idea
of how they act on stage.
Harlequin is the French
version of Arlecchino.
Now for the big influences. I'll just
explicitly mention one, from Scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte, a
translation of Flaminio la Scala's collection of scenario (published in 1611) (taken
from the argument, or introduction to the play): There lived in Florence two
gentlemen called Pantalone and Gratiano. They were of old and noble families,
and bore a long hatred for each other ... Oratio [Pantalone's son] had fallen in
love with Isabella, daughter of his enemy [Gratiano] ... [Isabella] took, with
the help of a physician, a potion which would put her into a death-like sleep
... Recognize it? Sure. Except while Shakespeare turned it into a tragedy, this
was actually the setup for a comedy. In point of fact, many of Shakespeare's
plays (Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Tempest to name two) share so many points
of similarity with commedia scenarios that it seems pretty likely that
Shakespeare had to have seen them, or at least known about them.
So, think you can be a commedia dell'arte
performer? Try this scenario on for size. http://world.std.com/~jcross/iSebastiani/Scen_redhat.htm
http://users.ev1.net/~brighella/whatis.html
Commedia
dell-Arte began in the streets of Renaissance Italy in the mid-16th century,
although it is difficult to know exactly when. What is certain is that at some
point, small groups of actors (considered outlaws and sinners in those days)
began improvising comic scenarios together. They were bawdy, rife with slapstick,
highly stylized and character-driven. Some of the characters created by these
early commediani (can you guess what that is Italian for?) wore masks—presumably
to hide their identity, and others did not (presumably to pique the interest in
those willing to pay for their vices after the show). Shortly afterward stock
characters or archetypes began to appear, such as the Zani (clownish servants ),
the Vacchi (old men of money and power) and the Inamorati (the young lovers).
Troupes in each locale added their own characters and flavor, but as they began
to tour, archetypes became increasingly more uniform. Even so, characters still
varied both stylistically and in name depending on where they originated.
Commedia
remained a popular art form both in the streets and in the noble houses of
Europe for more than 200 years. It influenced the works of such playwrights as
Shakespeare and Moliere. Some scholars would argue that its popularity waned
after that, but most agree tha Commedia evolved or was simply absorbed into
other performing arts. Indeed, even in the 20th century we have seen its
descendants, from Vaudeville to the early slapstick films of Charlie Chaplin,
Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Later on we witnessed the popularity of the Marx
Brothers and the Three Stooges, who did almost nothing but exploit slapstick
comedy; and even today we are all familiar with "Three's Company" and
(yep, you guessed it), "The Simpsons." All of these use elements of
traditional Commedia.
What is Commedia Dell'Arte?
by Tonia Sutherland
http://www.berkeleyrep.org/html/body_rjstudy.html
Welcome
to La Commedia dell'Arte, the completely free theatrical database for
actors, agencies, theatres, shows and every type of performer.
http://www.ac-reims.fr/datice/lettres/lycee/valets/comme.htm
Commedia dell’Arte
C'est en 1545, à Padoue, qu'est créée la première
troupe de théâtre professionnel d'Europe. Rapidement, ils sont l'objet de l'engouement
des Français. Catherine de Médicis les affectionne tout particulièrement.
Pendant tout le XVIIe siècle, ils jouent à Paris, n'entrant jamais en
concurrence avec les Comédiens français : ils ne jouent pas en français !
Mais, avec le temps, le succès aidant, ils représentent pour leurs collègues
une menace, jusqu'au jour où Louis XIV, vieillissant, les chasse de France à
la suite d'une représentation de La Fausse prude, pièce dans laquelle
ils auraient visé Mme de Maintenon. Le Régent à peine installé, les Comédiens
italiens sont rappelés (ils sont les représentants de ce "grain de folie"
qui avait disparu au cours des dernières années du règne du roi soleil). A
leur retour, à partir de 1720, ils joueront en français, les pièces de
Marivaux qui écrira pour eux pendant plus de dix ans.
Une troupe compte alors de 9 à 20 comédiens itinérants
qui circulent dans l'Italie du Nord puis dans toute l'Europe. Mais, quel que
soit l'endroit où ils se produisent, ils jouent en italien, ce qui ne
pose guère problème étant donné que leur jeu repose essentiellement sur le
physique : le comédien gambade, court, saute, et surtout danse. De plus,
les situations représentées sont le plus souvent stéréotypées :
poursuites, bastonnades, rendez-vous secrets, etc. Le peu de paroles prononcées
est généralement appris par les comédiens qui les placent à des moments
"stratégiques" de la représentation.
On sait tous que les comédiens jouaient masqués,
arborant des masque de cuir qui leur cachaient le haut du visage mais laissaient
la bouche dégagée, leur autorisant ainsi des expressions particulières avec
le bas du visage. Seuls les personnages d'amoureux n'avaient pas le visage caché.
Autre point important, ces troupes sont les premières à faire jouer des femmes,
à une époque où celles-ci sont interdites de scène.
La caractéristique essentielle de ce théâtre est évidemment
son caractère improvisé. Néanmoins, on aura soin de préciser que cela n'empêche
pas l'existence d'un scenario (déroulement scène par scène)
et d'un canevas à partir duquel les comédiens "brodent". Le
public connaît ces situations et attend de l'acteur une performance qui le
fasse rire.
Ce ne sont pas à proprement parler des personnages,
plutôt des types. Ce caractère universel est évidemment renforcé par
le port du masque. Ils représentent les qualités et les défauts humains, à
l'image d'autres personnages-types que les élèves auront plus l'habitude de fréquenter :
Tartuffe, Harpagon...
On retrouve ainsi les personnages de Pantalon, le
vieillard amoureux qui cherche à empêcher l'Inamorato et l'Inamorata (l'Amoureux
et l'Amoureuse) de s'aimer. Interviennent également le Dottore, le pédant prétentieux,
et le Capitan, soldat fanfaron. On retrouve encore le personnage du zanne
, le valet, qui est représenté par deux personnages sensiblement différents :
Brighella, le valet sérieux, rusé, intelligent et Arlequin, le valet
gouailleur, grossier, paillard, fainéant, enivré, etc.
|
|
A ce titre, c'est Arlequin qui, très rapidement,
devient le personnage le plus populaire de la comédie.le personnage est
affamé de tout, glouton, paillard. Les très nombreuses illustrations qu'on
pourrait présenter aux élèves, le montrent habillé d'un costume bariolé,
à l'origine fait de multiples pièces d'origines diverses. Il porte à la
ceinture une batte avec laquelle il "bastonne". L'autre attribut
qui le caractérise, est la bouteille d'eau-de-vie ou de vin qui l'accompagne
toujours . |
Commedia
dell’Arte
·
what is special about the
Commedia dell’Arte
·
websites on the Commedia
dell’Arte
The
origins
The term Commedia refers to a dramatic genre where the action leads to a
happy ending. The tone is usually comic and the main themes of the plot contain
comic incidents. The situations depicted in the Commedie reflect everyday life
either in a public or a private
context.
The meaning of the term Commedia, however, has
profoundly changed since the times where it came into being in Greece around VI
century BC. Prior to that period Magna Grecia offered popular and
folklore-derived dramatic plays under the form of unrefined farsae where the
acting of stereotyped characters was the main attraction and focus of the genre.
Farsa Megarensis and farsa
fliacica.
In the Farsa Fliacica, Fliaces actors hit the stage
bulkily rear- or belly-padded and equipped with huge phony genitalia.
Aristotle attributes the birth of Comedy to “those
who sing phallic chants”, where special emphasis was given to the expression
of “Bacchus’ joy”. (Komoidìa). There appears to be a connection
between the Commedia and fecundity-celebrating festivals and popular pagan
rituals aimed to seek protection from the deities of
bountiful Earth.
While the Commedia Attica evolved into
more sophisticated and educated drama, the Farsa Megarensis and the Farsa
Phliacica merged into the newly-appearing folk-bound tradition of the latin
Atellana. In this context the Commedia consists of two main components: acting
characters and the parabasi when the chorus talks directly to the audience
breaking the “make believe” of the play.
A prologue and a parodos (a chant accompanying the
entry of the chorus) were subsequently drawn from the Tragedia format.
The development of the Commedia Attica was subsequently
divided into three periods: the ancient Comedia, the middle comedia and the new
Comedia.
Aristophanes is the most outstanding representative
author of the ancient period, during which greatest emphasis was given to the
chorus and to themes related to political or cultural issues. It used to be
centred on a thesis, where fictitious characters bearing resemblance to real
politicians were satyrically attacked. Some of the characters were the author’s
spokesmen, others embodied satyrically targeted caricatures and attitudes. A
precise and inquisitive analysis of the relational and ideological context
usually would prevail over scanty psychological introspection.
The comic effect is overrepresented and blatant, mixed
with heavy satire over crucial social and political issues.
The Middle Comedia – whose remains are almost
non-existant – is lighter in tone and themes, and satire is less hooked onto
political aspects of public life. Mithology and general cultural issues being
the main focus.
The New Comedia, represented by Menadrus, developed in
the pre-hellenic period. With a radical change in politics, the citizen became a
subject and the dramatic focus shifted from society as a whole to the turmoils,
grievances and clear-cut personality traits of the individual typologies.
Deprived of its choruses, comediae drives its satyrical bites on individual and
impersonal prototypical characters such as : the stingy, the grumbler, the
melancholic, the boisterous, with an embryonic penchant towards psychological
introspection.
From this point onward, a steady and long-lasting
format developed, which would greatly influence drama and comedy throughout the
European world: the basic idea would focus on a story of contrasted love, where
the young couple is engaged in a fight against the elderly, the female hero
routinely being a low-class slave who eventually wins herself a well-deserved
marriage with her beloved high-class partner… and they lived happy ever after.
Servants are there to plot and to add to the overall comic effect of the play.
Was the translator and initiator of the commedia nova
in the Roman world. The pre-hellenistic format blended with autoctonous folk
formats (satura, fascennino, atellana).
With the Church being strongly against secular drama, no outstanding
examples of classical heritage remained, such heritage having already been
abandoned during the last decades of the Roman decadence. The Comic genre – up
to the Renaissance – survived in prose writing (Decameron) and in poetry,
whereas comic drama was underrepresented and confined to low-profile folk
festivals and rites such as the chants of Clerici vagantes and carnivals.
However, such expressions of comic drama were to become a source of inspiration
for Ruzante, and to live again in the French and German farses and soties, in
the Fastanachtsspiele by H. Sachs, partially in Cervantes and Shakespeare.
From the Renaissance Comedy to the Commedia dell’Arte
Organized Comedy had a rebirth throughout the XV and XVI centuries (Humanism
and Renaissance.)
Following the dramatic productions of the XV century, the rebirth of
Comedia is officially dated 1508 and coincides with Ariosto’s Cassaria. The
format remains unchanged also in Machiavelli and Bruno’s prose-based works
which are influenced by Boccaccio’s comic language. Prose was necessary to
avoid the drawbacks from transferring
Plautus versification schemes into Italian-based metres.
The classical format contains also elements (jestling, boutades,
adventure and action, dance and stunts) which are to be transferred into the
canovacci (skeletons) of the Commedia dell’Arte, the great Italian dramatic
genre known all over Europe.
The Commedia dell’Arte plays or pièces did not come in written form.
No script was ever recorded in any form other than oral, however it did greatly
influence other literary dramatic genres.
The Commedia dell’Arte owes its name to the peculiar situation of its
performers: professional actors coming from all walks of life, people living
unorthodox lives whose social acceptability was often questionable and
questioned. Regardless of the quality of their acting skills, they had chosen to
be professional actors and devote themselves to theatre.
The peculiar thing about the Commedia dell’Arte
was that a play sprang up “impromptue” and the lines were created as the
plot went along. Being able to create a script while performing the play
required unparalleled planning, creative punning
verbal and motor skills on the part of the actors, who were usually good
dancers and acrobats too.
Each actor specialized in a single role which became typical of that
particular actor.
|
The role was that of a
“character” or mask coming from the Teophrastic
tradition or of a newly invented one, especially servants.
Such masks typified examples of social roles (il capitano =
the captain) and examples of ever-present nova-comedia
leitmotif heroes: the lovers, the vecchio Pantalone). The
actors, except for the lovers, used to perform wearing the
same masks and costumes, making it possible
|
Who
said what about the Commedia dell’Arte over the web
http://world.std.com/~jcross/iSebastiani/whatis.htm
by Jeff Suzuki
What is Commedia dell'Arte? It is a form of improvisational comedy, which
began in Italy during the 16th century and spread out from there. The performers
(not actors) have a scenario in outline form. A professional (i.e., doing
it for a living) troupe would have a week or so to improvise an entire
performance from stage directions like "Pedrolino and Oratio enter and do
something funny" or, our own personal favorite, "Everyone comes on
stage and everything is resolved happily".
To clear up a few misconceptions about commedia: since it's improvised
and comedy, people seem to think it's easy. Actually, these two features make it
by far the hardest form of Western theater.
The performers write the
dialog, which means that they have to have the wit and imagination of a
playwright.
Since it's improvised, there
are no "cues" and the timing requirements are ever so much greater
than in regular theater.
Since it's comedy, the
timing requirements are unforgiving. An actor can be semi-tragic, and people
will still feel; if the actor is semi-funny, no one will laugh at all.
Characters are stock, but usually
include:
Pantalone
Pantalone is a merchant of Venice (of
whom we'll have more to say later). He's rich, he's greedy, and he's miserly.
Gratiano
Gratiano is a pedant, usually a lawyer.
Because Pantalone and Gratiano are old male characters, they are referred to as
the "vecchi", which is Italian for old male characters.
Pedrolino and Arlecchino
These are the servants of the old men.
Collectively they are known as zanni.
In addition, most plays include amarosi
(the lovers), Capitano (a blustering Spanish Captain who's afraid of his own
shadow), villains, and others.
Commedia, despite being an Italian art
form, has had a great influence on English. Let's start off with a few of the
basics:
The word "pants"
comes from Pantalone (via pantaloons, the type of dress that Pantalone wore
on stage; before Commedia they were called Venetian breeches).
The word "zany"
comes from, you guessed it, the two zanni. This should give you a good idea
of how they act on stage.
Harlequin is the French
version of Arlecchino.
Now for the big influences. I'll just
explicitly mention one, from Scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte, a
translation of Flaminio la Scala's collection of scenario (published in 1611)
(taken from the argument, or introduction to the play): There lived in Florence
two gentlemen called Pantalone and Gratiano. They were of old and noble
families, and bore a long hatred for each other ... Oratio [Pantalone's son] had
fallen in love with Isabella, daughter of his enemy [Gratiano] ... [Isabella]
took, with the help of a physician, a potion which would put her into a
death-like sleep ... Recognize it? Sure. Except while Shakespeare turned it into
a tragedy, this was actually the setup for a comedy. In point of fact, many of
Shakespeare's plays (Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Tempest to name two) share
so many points of similarity with commedia scenarios that it seems pretty likely
that Shakespeare had to have seen them, or at least known about them.
So, think you can be a commedia dell'arte
performer? Try this scenario on for size. http://world.std.com/~jcross/iSebastiani/Scen_redhat.htm
