The name commedia dell’arte is difficult to interpret. It roughly translates to ‘humor of the artists’, referring to performances by professionals as opposed to amateur performers. This form of theater has been given other names that better reflect its nature and characteristics, including commedia dell’arte all’improvviso, commedia improvviso (improvised comedy), and commedia alla maschera (masked comedy).
Moreover, the term la commedia dell’arte” was never used to describe the activities of actors or professional acting companies until the eighteenth century. It was Carlo Goldoni who first employed it to distinguish the masked and improvised drama from scripted comedy, which he favored as a dramatist. Earlier expressions used for expert performers and organizations were more precise, such as “la commedia all’italiana,” “la commedia mercenaria,” “la commedia degli Zanni,” or “la commedia a soggetto.”
The genuine expression is not used in Andrea Perrucci’s Dell’arte representation, Premeditata Ed All’improvviso,” written in 1700.
Commedia dell’arte is a form of entertainment performed by skilled actors known as artists. Only performers approved by the management were considered Commedia performers. The term arte” disguised the fact that it included various theatrical arts, bringing those who were allowed to perform for counts, dukes, and other high-ranking individuals closer together.
Throughout the twentieth century, the question of how to retrieve information from scholarship in such a way that actors’ efforts at self-authored Commedia improvisation are not merely illustrative of what the original form may have been like, has remained despite the efforts of Craig, Meyerhold, Copeau, Reinhardt and later directors. Craig was the first to get to the heart of this problem:
History, to creative minds, is often a dry and lifeless thing. It tells the story of the past, while creators are focused on the present and future. This is where our old friends Harlequin, Pantaloon, Pulcinella or Punch and their companions come in…the Doctor, Brighella, Scaramuccia, Coviello and the Captain. It may seem like just fun and games but it’s also genius – because the inventors of these characters were themselves geniuses. Whether they were peasants or actors doesn’t matter.” (James Laver, 1999)
The point has not yet been decided, but it has been clearly recorded that the inventors were not playwrights. As we approach the end of the century, this point remains undecided and cannot be determined by scholarship alone.
The fact is that scholars, directors, teachers, and actors alike are dealing with an oral tradition, not a literary one. It is a phenomenon of the folk which became part of their lore before being patronized by the mighty. It is an organic growth from popular origins which only later became a set of cultivated conventions that could be adopted by “play-writers”. The culture of the people was illiterate but only in the sense that many Irish jig violinists cannot read music. Those who can notate find such improvisations almost impossible to score. As with folk music, there is a literacy of performance in Commedia which was originally developed without a conscious sense of culture as a common social denominator between performer and spectator.
In the sixteenth century, performers in Italy transformed pre-existing spontaneous masking, dance, folk and music forms into a theatrical masterpiece. Over the next two centuries, they selectively passed on their developed performance techniques to their siblings and younger members of their troupes as professional secrets. This is similar to Japanese Noh theatre where the symbol or kana for Noh means ‘accomplishment’ or ‘professional ability’, and arte should be translated as a combination of ‘tradesmanship’ and ‘artistic know-how’. Within the family-based Ryu of Noh, Zeami’s treatises were secretly passed down from generation to generation until they were published in 1909 when specialized spectators became essential for survival. Commedia does not have such a treatise; Perucci, Riccoboni, Gherardi’s works were written retrospectively during its mature inflorescence and do not reveal much that is useful beyond general reading. In 1985 Brighton Festival devoted to Commedia Barry Grantham wrote in his program as ‘Harlequin in Residence’:
Unfortunately, present-day performers do not have access to a handy manual for the skills used in Commedia dell’Arte. These skills were once regarded as professional secrets and were not documented. To gain a better understanding of these techniques, we must search for evidence in Commedia sources as well as contemporary performing arts related to it. Additionally, by attempting to recreate laboratory conditions that mimic those of the comedians’ work environment, we can expand our knowledge further. Comparing our experiences with the limited material available (particularly iconographic) against more easily recoverable recent traditions like pantomime, Music Hall, and silent movies can also be a rich source of information.
Training should involve active research through practice rather than relying on archaeological reconstruction. This approach not only benefits professional actors but also helps non-specialists develop a literacy of performance. Throughout the 20th century, several schools attempted this approach, including Copeau’s at the Vieux Colombier in Paris and Burgundy, Dullin’s at the Atelier in Paris, Saint-Denis’s in London, New York and Canada, and Lecoq’s in Milan and Paris. Today, American schools such as Dell Arte and courses offered by Exeter University Drama Department continue to investigate this method. Carlo Boso’s stages and Patrick Pezin’s work are also noteworthy. In my experience, Antonio Fava’s International School of the Comic Actor in Reggio Emilia is particularly effective.
Craig posed an important question: Is it possible to create a drama that holds the stage for two centuries without assistance from literary men?” His answer was affirmative: “It can be created once; it can be created twice.”
First, though, a short history of when, why, and how Commedia dell’arte ‘died’ (or rather went into suspended animation) may help set the scene. No theatre form fully dies until the culture that generated it disappears. Even then, fragments remain for scholars to pore over – shards from which to make guesswork reconstructions – as has been the case with Greek tragedy. Commedia dell’arte was also thought to have perished as a living theatre form as far back as the late eighteenth century.
Originally a folk form, Commedia had progressively been monopolized by well-to-do ‘society’. It was painted and engraved by artists such as Callot, Watteau and Domenico Tiepolo; written up by playwrights such as Goldoni, Molière, Beaumarchais and Marivaux; and eventually condemned like any other fashion that became outmoded – a seemingly exhausted seam of amusement which it was no longer rewarding to work.
The old commedia dell’arte had fallen into decrepitude. It wasn’t just that the type itself was exhausted, although subsequent circumstances proved this to be the case. What was more important is that popular taste turned against it. Under the prevailing dominance of French fashions, a style of drama previously unknown to Italians became popular. The so-called comédie larmoyante, or pathetic comedy (of which Nivelle de la Chaussée, a now-forgotten archimage of middle-class sentimentalities and sensibilities, is the reputed inventor), caught Europe’s attention.
Commedia, like many vital rites of yesteryear, was relegated to the nursery. Its imagery continued to animate the minds of young children through toys and picture books in a bowdlerized form. However, its outward shell returned to the people and lived on as popular as gondolas and gallopers in fairground booths and puppet shows. Arguably, it was culturally significant. We now know that Commedia survived as theatre not only in the bizarre afterpiece of English pantomime known as harlequinade but also in modest touring companies in Italy where it originated from. Unfortunately, no one bothered to record it since it was a commonplace thing there. The Carrara family is currently the sole example of such a troupe surviving until today.
By the mid-nineteenth century, a consciousness of something special being lost and a unique species endangered almost to extinction was already stirring. One dull evening in the winter of 1846 at Nohant in France, near La Châtre in Berry, a group of genteel literati consisting of the novelist George Sand, her family, and close acquaintances including her current partner – the ailing Chopin – decided to pass the rest of their evening playing charades over dinner.
Chopin invented theatre at Nohant. In its beginning stages, he improvised on piano while young people acted scenes or danced comic ballets. The scenario for their first playlet – an unusual piece entitled The Indelicate Druid” – was devised during dinner and read out during dessert before being performed an hour later. This extempore method became the accidental basis for their later discoveries as they instinctively eschewed written texts for their scenes. Gradually these divertissements became more complex along with subsequent analysis:
After exploring and discussing all the phases of Greek, Roman, and medieval popular forms in their amateur academy, they finally settled on one that seemed to them to be the most extraordinary and fascinating: the Italian commedia dell’arte.
Obviously, the Masks initially played with were the Franco-Italian transplants of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not the original sixteenth century forms of the Italian piazzas. If they had referred to Scaramuccia, Pedrolino, Pantalone, Leandro and Colombina instead, it would have been clear that they were referring to those original forms. However, commedia dell’arte had spread all over Europe as companies found they could profit more from exile than from adhering to strict Council of Trent rules. Dissemination went as far as Russia, Czechoslovakia and Denmark. Wherever Commedia was found, it adjusted to local circumstances without compromising its essentials. National variations contributed to its universality rather than detracting from it. Itinerant companies even re-imported developments made in France in the seventeenth century back into Italy.
In Nohant, two centuries later, the game of reconstruction became a fixation that lasted until January 1848. This resulted in the creation of a small theatre complete with wardrobe and scenery, followed by a marionette theatre. Finally, their research was recorded in a book written by one of George Sand’s two sons, Maurice. Their work and that book have remained crucial resources throughout the twentieth century. It is possible that Maurice Sand’s illustrations for his own book have had too much influence in fixing the characters’ images.
The Théâtre de la Foire was the remaining resource for amateur researchers and performers of Nohant. Italian Commedia performers had retreated there after the Parisian Théâtre Italien closed in 1697. They were not allowed back on the legitimate stage until 1716, by which time many had permanently returned to performing in public squares.
The Italian players in France returned to an earlier time, using a portable trestle stage and performing a more lively repertoire reminiscent of their ancestors. They traveled through the country at a discreet distance from the capital and experienced hardships they had never imagined.
Dialogue was not permitted in the fairs by law, except in the puppet booths. Therefore, live actors had to go back to their origins as jugglers, tumblers, dancers, singers and pantomimists. This was the nature of commedia dell’arte which crossed the Channel to English fairs. It was commonly used for ‘barking’ outside the booths as a catchpenny box-office attraction. More legitimate and less fantastical fare being played within. When English spectators attended a Pantomime in a theatre during winter and saw Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin and Colombine dance on at the end after the transformation scene; they were renewing acquaintance with figures last seen on a summer’s day before going into a tent to watch a play.
Throughout the twentieth century, there have been many revivals of commedia dell’arte. These revivals were based on enthusiastic attempts, such as that at Nohant, to revive the Masks. Part III of this book discusses some of these essays, but not all. Additionally, experiments in the invention of new stock characters are also discussed in Part III. The assumption is that old characters have lost their social relevance and new ones must be created to go beyond just resurrecting a supposedly dead form. The distinction between reconstruction and renovation will be a constant throughout this book. I have had the opportunity to conduct experiments along both lines with students who have made incalculable contributions to the growth of information in this work.
Commedia has also disseminated itself into other art forms and aspects of twentieth-century cultural consciousness. Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Cocteau, Picasso, Busoni, to name but a few, have all used it as a working base. Many of its techniques have re-emerged without scholarly prompting in the silent films of Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy et al., and in the talkies of the Marx Brothers.
In order for this to happen, the techniques of Italian, Jewish and Irish humor had first been melded in the pot of vaudeville. However, this present concern is with the platform stage rather than the silver screen. Studying it will involve initial examination of European origins rather than New World evolutions.
Until its unification in the nineteenth century, Italy was composed of an association of sovereign states, much like Europe today. As a pan-Italian form, the commedia dell’arte necessarily developed in a polyglot manner, drawing vocabulary from both northern city-states and southern regions. The characters in this theatrical tradition represented basic types from each state and spoke in dialects or languages largely incomprehensible to inhabitants of other regions. In effect, there were three divisions: the north provided the ‘four Masks’—Arlecchino and Brighella (Bergamese), Pantalone (Venetian), Il Dottore (Bolognese); the south—Pulcinella, Tartaglia, Coviello and Il Capitano (Neapolitan or Calabrese); and Tuscany provided the literary tongue befitting of Lovers and female servants. As Commedia players strolled from state to state, local characters would come into greater prominence in chosen scenarios at times carrying more weighty speech than other masks who became less sympathetic as they were often made fun of like stranieri. However, action remained the main language for all Masks—the Esperanto of stage.
During these years, Commedia emerged from Carnival and was primarily an occasional form of entertainment. Like fairground showmen, companies (especially the minor ones about which we know little) followed an annual celebratory calendar and a complementary touring schedule. The great” companies such as Gelosi, Confidenti, Accessi, Uniti, and Fideli were required to perform at events of both national and local significance. For example, Gelosi were called to Paris in 1572 to celebrate the wedding of Henri III’s daughter but were captured by Huguenot insurgents near Lyon. The ransom for their release was set at 1,000 recently captured prisoners – a price that the king readily paid rather than lose face at the nuptials.
Recently, there has been a trend to proclaim commedia dell’arte as a theatre of proletarian protest against oppression. This idea was first put forward by Konstantin Miklashevski in 1914. However, there is even less justification for considering commedia dell’arte as a movement arising at the end of the last century that sought to borrow its characters as symbols of the artist/poet in his struggle against philistinism. The same can be said for Pierrots, Harlequins, and Colombines of the 1920s who flitted so charmingly across a moonlit stage or an Art Deco mantelpiece.
Bibliography
Here are some recommended books and articles related to fools, jesters, drama, and Italian literature:
- Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook by Vicki K. Janik and Emmanuel S. Nelson; Greenwood Press, 1998; 552 pages.
- Drama: Its Costume & Decor by James Laver; Studio Publications, 1999; 276 pages.
- The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays by Bernard Sobel; Crown Publishers, 1998; 902 pages.
- Dictionary of Italian Literature by Julia Conaway Bondanella, Peter Bondanella, and Jody Robin Shiffman; Greenwood Press, 1996;716 pages.
In addition to these books, the following articles may be of interest:
- The Arlecchino and Three English Tinkers” by Nina Da Vinci Nichols in Comparative Drama, (2002).
- “Menaechmi and the Renaissance of Comedy” by Richard F. Hardin in Comparative Drama,, Vol.37 (2003).
If you’re interested in exploring Dante’s work as a dramatist further,Dante as Dramatist: The Myth of the Earthly Paradise and Tragic Vision in the Divine Comedy by Franco Masciandaro is a great resource. It was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 1991 with a total page count of239 pages.
