COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE
- by J. Sherwood Montgomery
The commedia dell'arte was a theatre form that
began in Italy and eventually swept all of Europe. It was a form that would
influence opera and theatre because of its acceptance by the public. It was
so deeply a part of the artistic landscape, that the characters and situations
became archetypes that would be at once familiar and comfortable through long
association, to many generations of audiences. The trials and tribulations
of the masked characters were instant metaphors for all manner of stories
of the human comedy. The theatre was a theatre of skill, hence the name. It
was the "art" of playing comedy. It was a theatre of style and symbol, of
movement, laughter and music, a blending of all the arts into a performance.
The
commedia troupe was usually made up of eight actors who portrayed a
set of stock characters who were masked and costumed in traditional ways.
The performance was based upon a plot, or argument, that was posted around
the theatre for the players and the audience to consult when they wanted to
find out where they were in the story. These sheets were known as "scenarios".
The scenarios were important because so much of the performance was improvised.
Since much "local color", with names of people in the town, and allusions
to local scandal and gossip, were added, it was hard, even for the actors,
to keep track of where they were in the story without a posted scenario or
road map. For this kind of theatre they are the only written documentation
that we have of what went on during a performance.
There was no theatre building. The performances were given on stages that
were erected from market trestles and wagon covers that could be moved quickly
and often. The audience was free to come and go, to pay attention, or to heckle
when they were bored, which was often if the performer wasn't clever or the
story bogged down. The audience didn't pay if they were not amused. The players
improvised each performance. They were masked and wore traditional costumes.
In addition to all the skills that actors have always possessed of speaking
and moving, these actors were acrobats, jugglers, tumblers, magicians, musicians,
and satirists of everyday life. Actors today are lauded for the variety of
parts they play. The commedia actor assumed one character and portrayed
that one character through an entire career. Sometimes those careers were
very long, and there are records of commedia performers who were able
to do amazing physical things, such as cartwheels while acting, even though
they were eighty-two years old. This long association with the foibles of
one character meant that the performances were deep and rich in the observations
by the actors, of the life lived in the towns they visited. The audience recognized
and admired the local references and current events that were artfully braided
into the day's show. The actors were the chroniclers of the times, and they
were also commentators on the audience. Satire was a bedrock of the form.
No target was safe from the fun.
One of the largest collections of commedia scenarios in the United
States is housed in the De Bellis collection at the San Diego State University
library. A great deal of the collection is from the Il Gelosi company
which was one of the greatest commedia troupes in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, famous throughout all Europe. By studying these scenarios,
scholars have learned a great deal about the performance tradition of the
commedia that we did not know before they were translated. They clearly
show us how much influence the commedia is still having on our theatre,
and opera, today. The plots of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Don
Pasquale are both found in these scenarios dating from long before
the operas' composition. But then so are the plots of Shakespeare, which he
stole from commedia scenarios. These too are in the De Bellis collection.
The
commedia characters came out of the Italian tradition that goes back
to Rome, with the Fessinine farces, and the scripts of Plautus and
his "new comedy" in the Roman theatre. These were characters who represented
typical people found in an Italian family. The old men were "Pantalone" and
"Dottore" who wore dark clothes and hook-nosed masks. They had servants,
who were always smart, named "Harlequino" and "Truffeldino". They wore
black masks with moles on their foreheads, costumes of patches, and often
had a thick dialect from another province of Italy or France than that of
the town being played. There were servant girls, "Harlequina", and "Flaminia",
who were usually romantically linked to "Harlequino" and "Truffeldino". There
was the "Capitano", with a large nose, (think of Cyrano) who was a braggart
warrior, a swordsman, and often a coward. Each had mask and costume touches
that were associated with that character and no other. The audience knew the
traditions of the characters, and it was up to the actor's skill to add or
subtract traits that were funny, and could be applied to the character in
many situations. In short, the actor was to create a memorable character that
the audience would delight in and want to see again in new situations.
In addition to plot lines there were often famous "bits" or "lazzi"
which were performed by certain characters and these too became standard.
Catching a fly and eating it, hanging out the wash, serving the dinner, eating
a banana, all these things turned into bits that could be applied to almost
any scenario as well, so the actor would be doing physical feats that would
astound the audience. The Cirque du Soliel is a perfect example of
a theatre troupe today, which would be recognized by commedia artists
of the past as a theatre that was related to theirs. The same can be said
for the main characters and many things in our own comedy culture on television
and in movies. Saturday Night Live and the satire of politics and current
events with portrayals of character traits that are cartooned and funny are
in the commedia tradition. For that matter, the way that we become
familiar with characters such as Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners,
or Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, and laugh at the way that they respond
to situations, is exactly the same as the commedia characters of Pantalone
and Dottore. This has effected theatre and audiences long after the commedia
tradition has faded and gone. Doctor Bartolo, Don Basilio and Don Pasquale
are examples of the character of Dottore, who was always pompous, who always
used large words in the wrong way. He often was in love with a very inappropriate
girl, and was defeated by a clever servant or the lover or a combination of
both. These stock characters that were such a rich source of fun, came into
the opera world and stayed there.
The influence of the commedia on the opera is another whole topic.
It is easy to see that the influence was a rich vein of fun and melody that
can be seen in musical characters as diverse as Figaro and Bartolo in Mozart's
or Rossini's operas. To say nothing of the work of Strauss and Von Hoffmanstahl
in Ariadne Auf Naxos or of Korngold in Die tote Stadt. Even
Ping, Pang and Pong in Puccini's Turandot are directly traceable to
roots in the commedia dell'arte, a theater of high comedy and deep
skill. We are interested in this kind of kinetic theatre once again and many
new productions use the style of the commedia to make the theatrics
more inviting to the audience.
The commedia dell'arte is still with us after all these centuries and,
if anything, it is more popular and powerful today than ever, with the world's
opera stages being a prime arena for its performance, even in this new century.
Note: There are a number of sites on the Internet which give more details on the individual figures of commedia and their characteristics.
Revised September
2006
Please credit Lyric Opera San Diego when using
these articles.