Commedia dell'arte
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| Maccus |
Commedia dell’Arte appeared in the second half of the 16th century, heightened its highest popularity in the 17th century and got to the middle of the 18th century, when it had met its decay.
This theatrical genre, that had lasted approximately two centuries and a half, exert great fascination throughout Europe and influenced (as much as nowadays) many actors, dramatists and directors, as: Shakespeare, Molière, Jean Louis Barrault, Meyerhold, Jacques Lecoq, Dario Fo, Strehler, Marcelo Moretti and many others.
In the Atellanae Fabulae, a sort of farce that had come from the city of Atella, very popular in 240 b.C., they identified some similarities with the genre and types of Commedia dell’Arte.
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| Bucco |
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| Dossennus |
The representation of Atellanae Fabulae consisted in the improvised development of pre-organized intrigues. These intrigues happened amid four stock types strongly characterized within the masks, in the behaviour and in the aspect, stylizing folk types, as: Pappus – a libidinous, avaricious and stupid old man; Maccus – mocker, foolish and bully; Bucco – with an enormous mouth probable because of being way to greedy or even talkative and Dossennus – a malicious hunchback. Would Pappus be the Pantalone, from Commedia dell’Arte, or Maccus, the Arlecchino, even though it is closer to Pulcinello? Or might Brighella be inspired in Bucco? Thus, they are similar masks in a distance of almost two millennia.
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| Ruzzante |
A person who has got a great importance to the Commedia dell’Arte was Paduan writer and actor Angelo Beolco (1502-1542), known as Ruzzante – a character he used to play and that was characterized as a gluttonous, rough, lazy, ingenuous and mocker peasant, being in the middle of almost every comic context. His comedies took the actor to recite in a Paduan accent.
They are important in Italian Theatre History because they represent the first literary document where the repetition of the same features in characters with the same name spirit up a row of stock types which might be considered the precursors of the masks of Commedia dell’Arte.
Commedia dell’Arte was performed by professional actors and it was also named as Commedia all improviso – comedy supported on improvisation; Commedia a soggeto – comedy developed from canovaccio (plot) and Commedia delle Maschere – comedy of masks.
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| Commedia Dell'arte perform |
In 1545, in Padua, the first record of the formation of a Commedia dell’Arte troupe was found, when eight actors compromise themselves to perform together within a determined period of time – up until the Lent of 1546 – establishing rights and duties among them, characterizing a professional contract.
In this way, for the first time in Europe, with Commedia dell’Arte, a theatrical company was established because of a group of actors who had lived, exclusively, on the expenses of their art. Thus, a new organization was set, with specialized and well trained actors to perform their labour.
This theatrical genre was characterized by a sort of dramaturgy that arose by the representation of the actor. The actors more than an intense preparation (vocal, corporal and musical) performed, generally, the same character for a life time, creating, thus, a precise codification of the represented character. Those stock characters represented following a structure of a plot – canovaccio – which oriented the sequence of actions and from this plot they improvise. The canovacci did not vary much in terms of intrigues and the relation among the characters.
Each character, then, had its own repertoire that would be combined according to the situation. The so called improvisation was not, however, an invention of the moment, but the freedom which is achieved by the actor through a permanent training.
Inside the structure of the canovacci there also was the possibility of autonomous interventions, called lazzi, the actors introduced to comment or highlight, comically, the main actions, interconnect the scenes and occupy empty spaces. With this usage, these lazzi were repeated and stated and were introduced within the repertoire of the characters.
The Commedia dell’Arte troupes were formed, generally, by eight or twelve actors. The represented characters were divided in three categories: the innamoratti, the vecchi (elders) and the zanni (servants) that probably derived from Giovanni, a typical name of the Italian peasant environment.
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| innamorati |
The innamorati were commonly performed by handsome and well educated men or women, they spoke with an elegant and Tuscan accent, and occasionally they might be ingenious and even not too bright characters. They dressed up with up to date outfits and did not wear masks. The innamorata, young lover, according to the plot, could be flattered by two candidates, one young and another old.
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| Pantalone |
Amid the characters who were using to wearing masks we find the vecchi and the servants. The vecchi are: Pantalone, a wealthy Venetian merchant, generally avaricious and conservative. He spoke in Venetian dialect and was fond on proverbs, and, in spite of his age, he flattered one of the ladies of the comedy. His mask was black and was characterized by his crooked nose, what alluded to the Hebrews and his spiky goatee.
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| Dottore |
Pantalone, with his lanky silhouette, contrasted and complemented in the scenic playing with another old man, Dottore, who could be a friend or an antagonist to Pantalone. He was pretentious, normally a lawyer or doctor, used to speak in Bolognan dialect interlarded with words in Latin. He loved to flaunt his fake erudition, but he was deceived by everybody as he was extremely ingenious. He was a very jealous husband and generally cornuted. His mask was an Accentuation which highlights the forefront and the nose.
Zannis
The most varying and popular characters of the Commedia dell’Arte were the zanni(servants). They were divided in two categories: the first zanni, who with his intrigues put the actions forward; and the second zanni, rude and simpleton, who with his jumbled jokes interrupted the actions and triggered the comicalness.
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| Arlecchino |
Amid the zanni, Arlecchino, proceeding from Bergamo, was the most popular mask. Firstly a second zanni, he turned, little by little, into the first, he embodied a mixture of astuteness and naïveness, being always in the middle of the intrigues. Initially, he wore a white clothe and a large belt, where he used to carry a wooden short stick, white pants, leather sandals and a white cap. It is supposed that, with time, this outfit received colourful and sparse patches, from where his outfit with diamonds might have come from.
Many researchers say that the origin of the name Arlecchino is in the word Hellequim – the boss of the devils who was in charge of a pack of spirits and demons. Hellequim might have turned into Hellequim and, later, in Hellequim.
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| Briguella |
The most frequent companion of Arlecchino was Brighella, a libidinous servant and cynically mischievous, who also came from Bergamo.
Another zanni, who had existed from the Carnival of Naples and started to take part of Commedia dell’Arte, was Pulcinello. His hunchback and belly are protuberant; his mask depicts a nose in the form of a beak and his voice was creaking, like a bird.
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| Pulcinello |
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| maids |
The maids did not were mask. They would generally be at the innamorata service. Normally they were young, with a rude mood and always ready to make up intrigues. Some other times, they were older and could be the owners of a tavern, the wife of another servant or the target of an old man.
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| Capitano |
Among other important characters, we find the Capitano who descended from Miles Gloriosus by Plautus. He was a coward who boasted of his great prowess in battles and in love, only to be completely discredited in both. He assumed himself as a brave soldier, even though he was coward. He constituted a satire to Spanish soldiers. The sword and the cape were essential accessories of his outfit. To this character, other names were given: Spavento da Vall’Inferno, Coccodrillo, Rinoceronte or Matamoros. His defeats were often a high point of the comedy.
The use of the mask in Commedia dell’Arte was extremely important, because of that it was named, also, Commedia delle Maschere. The actors to use the mask have to dominate its technique. The masks was characterized for being half mask, freeing the lower part of the face, allowing a perfect phonation and a comfortable breathing, adequate to the needs of the scenic playing performed by the actors.
The mask allowed the immediate recognition of the character by the audience. The feelings, the mood of those characters necessarily committed the whole body of the actor, proposing a dynamic and straight playing, essentially theatrical.
PANTALONE, for instance, has got a hard posture. His legs are close, his feet slightly opened and the knees bended because of ageing. His head and hips are pulled forward, clearly meaning that his sexual appetite comes from the head. His belly is pushed inward, revealing his possessiveness, even though food is not his problem. The mask in this case, because of its black colour and because it does not propose a rigid characterization in his expression, allows the character to pass from a feeling to another with great freedom. These are the circumstances in which the character gets involved that define the represented type. It is possible that for a few moments PANTALONE becomes younger and forgets his avarice when he sees a beautiful lady but, just after that, when he remembers of the presence of his bill collector he starts to feel old and extremely sick, almost as he was to die.
The masks of Commedia dell’Arte do not propose a definite characterization of the personae, they are used more to delimit than to define. Thus, as Ferdinando Taviani said, in his article Sulla sopravvalutazione della maschera: “the self of Arlecchino is not a permanent entity but the sequence of several partial selves adequate, each one of them, to a determined situation”. The soul that gives life to the character, that makes it alive, comes from the context around, from the actions in which it is immersed.
The Mask in Commedia dell’Arte more than adding, it takes from the actor the sign of his/her interiority, it turns him into a picture which is whole surface, whose psyche is not inside but outside. Hence, the character only exists when designed in its outlines.