The Popularity of Commedia dell'arte

The theaters of that time did not use scenery but focused their efforts on costumes and special effects. They consistently used fireworks, trap doors, and dramatic flying entrances. Unlike today’s theaters, they were open-air and used natural light, with performances occurring in the afternoon hours. The theater’s circular structure surrounded a central rectangular stage (Thomas). The behavior of the audience often became very rowdy, joining in on the action occurring on stage, threw rotting vegetables at the actors (Thomas). This theatrical atmosphere forced him to write with an interactive, responsive audience in mind, drawing out emotion and passion in each scene

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Performance features of the performances were directed straight to the people. The amount of credit the audience gave the actors, determined the energy of the charcters. For example, if a crowd cheered Arlecchinos antics on, he would play this up by continuing it for a longer period of time. Such was the improvising nature of commedia conventions.

My viewing of the One Man, Two Guvnors production in 2013, and the feelings of chaos, shock, anarchic laughter and anticipation sparked my interest of exploring this play, and why its lazzi and improvisation added to the heightened experience I had, whist viewing this performance. I became interested in how much the One Man, Two Guvnors play written by Richard Bean, was based of the traditional Commedia dell’Arte play The Servant of Two Masters written by Carlo Goldoni. I planned to explore the extent of how much the play was improvised and the extent of how much it was scripted and planned. I looked at why Commedia dell’Arte used improvisation and the approach of incorporating improvisation and lazzi into a performance. I went about doing so by comparing the characters and the scripts of Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors to Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters. I researched the role of Improvisation and Lazzi in traditional commedia dell’Arte and compared it to its role in One Man, Two Guvnors. I decided to carry out my research by surveying audience members who had viewed the production of One Man, Two Guvnors , and finding out how the incorporation of improvisation and lazzi heightened the experience for the audience and impacted them.

Even though the lack of an elaborate set design focused the audience’s attention solely on the performers, it also detracted from the performance as it created no connection of the audience with the setting or, at least, with the important themes. The set designers could have created some sort of background that resembled the emotions expressed throughout the various individual acts or could have even contributed with better props that enhanced the audience’s connection to the performances. Despite the dynamic colorful projections, there was little relationship between the lighting design with the entire performance. It attempted to evoke complementing emotions to the dancer’s movements and the music by using a variety of colors and shapes and it was also used to mark the beginning and ending of each act. Nonetheless, the message remained very abstract and hard to grasp, which did not help to enhance the vicarious experience. Given that this was more of a dance performance rather than a theatrical one, there was not a lot of room for character transitions on and off the stage, yet the lighting would have contributed effectively to the performance if it had been more integrated with the characters’ movements and not just projected on a screen as a separate act. Finally, the costume design attempted to create the same effect as the lighting and stage design by using colors and patterns that reflected the emotions of the performance on-stage. The costumes of some performances showed more elaboration, such as in the ones in “Belinha,” while others were less sophisticated and around plain clothes. Nonetheless, as was the case in “9:35, 11:10, 12:45, 2:20, 4:10,” using plain clothes did not necessarily detract from the performance as it created a connection with the setting and important

The Influence of Commedia dell’arte on Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare Commedia dell’arte had great influence of Shakespeare’s comedy “Much

Furthermore, without the masks, costumes became more important in the identification of the stock characters. This shows that The Servant of Two Masters is a landmark in the history and development in Italian theatre.

(Bradby XVI) It was then that Molière encountered Commedia dell’Arte, the characters and comedic style of which he frequently utilized in his plays. Molière’s creation of comédie-ballet may even have been inspired by the use of lively music and dance in Commedia performances. (Gaines 95-95)

Something else that I never thought about to be utilized in theater were puppets. The line the designers used that really caught my attention in the video was that, “A puppet struggles to live and breathe through a show.” That line really changed how I thought of puppetry. Before I thought they were a type of effect used as props, but they are more than that. A puppet is part of the cast. Right when the puppet enters the stage, it is present in the moment, struggling to stand up, to breathe. Puppets can also make the show more animated and goofy or it could make it look real and professional, depending on the show. What really made this style

The show utilized minimalistic design for all the scenes. For the most part performers wore traditional theater black. Lighting was also kept very minimal however, a few scenes did use spotlights and simple lighting changes. The most impressive thing about the show was that even though it was a stage

The actors also used blocking as they had good movement on – stage as they dance, sing and act. In addition the director give the cues or signals and some actors used downstage,

Commedia dell’arte was established during the sixteenth century at a time when theatre flourished in Italy. Despite such a rich time for the arts, a divide in the church as well as

The main way that the masks were used was to hide the wearers identity. Usually criminals because they did not want their identity to be known. Servent’s used them as well so that they would be recognized as noblemen at events. They were worn mostly at carnivals and fairs. The masks were worn too much that at a point they were banned from being worn on certain months. With the masks no one was considered different, everyone was the same;

One can further define commedia dell’arte as semi-impromptu; it was traditional Italian theatre with professional actors with some written text (Rudlin) Commedia dell’Arte: Influence on Contemporary Comedy Freeman 2 While theater history teaches us that formal commedia dell’arte troupes no longer exist; stand-up comedy, contemporary modern day sitcoms, and comedic movies all share similarities with this sixteenth century art form. In order to understand fully commedia dell’arte it is beneficial that we understand what the term means.

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