Page 30 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41
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COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE:
THE NEW ORDER OF COMEDY
Cameron Hall continues his series on the development of theatre in the western tradition.
Renaissance Italy is the cradle of Performance attributes
the modern theatre. Developments in The plots or scenarios were thin,
theatre architecture, scenery and typically no more than outlines. A
effects, and the inauguration of ballet troupe leader ensured that prompts and
and opera all derive from this time and various stage props were familiar to the
place. The outstanding contribution of players. A prompt book was often
Italian Renaissance performers is also displayed backstage so that an actor
crucial. Despite a paucity of quality would not miss his cue or play the
drama, accomplished actors reshaped wrong scene.
comic stagecraft for the ensuing Some plays were pastoral, others
centuries. tragi-comedies. Musical duets might
A new stagecraft interrupt the performance at some
By around 1550, a different genre point. Outlines of about seven hundred
of theatre was entrenched in Italy. This scenarios have survived and are almost
was theatre of the public squares, all comedies.
theatre on the temporary boards, where Performances were not totally
the performers passed their hats around improvised. Written prologues with no
for their remuneration. specific relevance to the plot were
The term ‘Commedia dell’arte’ common. Set speeches were delivered
stresses that comedy was a profession, as soliloquies, often in the form of
no longer a creative pastime. For the rhyming couplets such as found in
first time, actors were fully professional Shakespeare. These often took the form
and organized into companies. So of long, committed-to-memory
dedicated were the roles that each speeches that could be regurgitated for
performer usually only played one almost any play. They tended to be
character. reserved for serious characters such as
The players did not usually perform old fathers, pedantic lawyers, young
written plays. They improvised on a lovers or braggart soldiers.
grand scale with a skill that took them Comic offerings came in two
to France, Spain, Germany and principal forms. The lazzi provided the
England. Their skills influenced slighter, brief instances of humor
Moliere and Shakespeare. whereas the burle typically involved
Origins longer practical jokes. Humor was often
The origins of the form have been physical, with nothing to do with the
variously ascribed to ancient Greek plot. For example, while the young
comedy, the Roman atellanae and the lovers were immersed in their
Roman imperial mimes. Of course any difficulties, a servant might pretend to
combination of these is possible, such catch a fly. Critical to these moments
is mankind's comic instinct and were the zanni (comic servants). They
naturally there will be similarities with invariably had little to say since their
earlier comic forms. humor was visual. The word zany
derives from this. The early Chaplin
The Renaissance attempts to revive
Il Capitano (top) and Pantalone (above); films, and those of some
the classical past stultified drama, but
the latter Shakespeare's inspiration for contemporaries, the anarchy of the
this failure seems to have liberated an
Shylock. Marx brothers and on to Rowan
alternative form of theatre in which
Atkinson as Mr Bean could be said to
success or failure rested predominantly
have revived something of this spirit.
upon the actors, not the content. The
title ‘commedia dell’arte’ only gained The zanni had license to diverge
prominence in the eighteenth century, from the prescribed path, so long as
by which time the genre itself was they could bring the performance back
winding down. An earlier title, on course. This meant that imagination,
'commedia all’improviso’, with an timing and instinct were all critical
emphasis on improvisation, is perhaps a components in the actor's repertoire.
better description. Nimble exponents could combine the
30 2009 CINEMARECORD
