Commedia dell'Arte, name usually given to the popular Italian improvised comedy first recorded in 1545, which flourished from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. Other names for it are commedia a soggetto, because it was acted in accordance with a scenario or pre-arranged synopsis; all'improvviso, because the actors made up their speeches as they went along; dei zanni, from the comic servants who provided most of the humour; dei maschere, because most of the actors wore masks; and all'italiana, because it came from Italy. Dell'arte, the only phrase to survive in general use, means roughly ‘of the profession’, the actors being trained professionals. To distinguish it from this popular theatre, the written Italian drama of this time was known as the commedia erudita.

The chief companies of the commedia dell'arte in the 16th century were the Gelosi, with the Andreini family as their mainstay; the Desiosi, sometimes including Tristano Martinelli; the Confidenti; and the Uniti, under Drusiano Martinelli. The next generation carried on the tradition in the competing groups of the second Confidenti; the Accesi; and the Fedeli, under the younger Andreini known as Lelio.

Of the early patrons of the commedia dell'arte the Court of the Gonzaga at Mantua was the most important, followed in the latter part of the 16th century by the Courts of Modena and Parma. The companies soon took to the road, and in the 1570s Ganassa was already leading a company in Spain, followed there a decade later by the Martinelli brothers. One of these, Drusiano, is the first Italian comedian known to have appeared in England (in 1577–8), and a troupe performed at the English Court in 1602. The proximity of London to Paris, where a permanent Italian company was already settled when Molière arrived in 1658, meant that visits could easily be made. When the Comédie-Italienne, as the troupe was called after 1680, was banished from Paris in 1697, some of the players may have come to England, but seem to have had no direct influence on the English theatre.

In a commedia dell'arte company each member had his or her own character or ‘mask’ and played nothing else, though the player of a youthful part might later graduate to an elderly one. The chief masks were adapted to suit successive generations of players, but the basic characteristics of each remained unaltered. The young lovers, whose desire for marriage and its constant thwarting by their elders supplied in general the plot of the play, did not wear masks. In league against them were the old men, fathers or guardians, of whom the most important was the Venetian Pantalone (later the English Pantaloon), while the favourite mask for the second old man was the Bolognese lawyer, the Dottore, usually known as Graziano. An independent role, though he could be a rival for the hand of the young girl, was the braggart Capitano, a satire on alien soldiers and mercenaries currently occupying the country. Round these revolved the numerous servants who helped or hindered the lovers—the zanni. It was they who gave the commedia dell'arte its characteristic flavour and under various names have infiltrated the literature and theatre of the whole of Western Europe. They took over the functions of the slaves of classical comedy, discharging them with the physical skill of acrobats and the impudence of their immediate prototypes, the facchini or odd-job men who lounged about the piazza. Greed, shrewdness, and a love of mischief for its own sake were their outstanding characteristics, added to fertility of invention, an eye to the main chance, and a deep-rooted instinct for survival. Some of the lesser masks displayed a bovine stupidity which provided an amusing contrast to the quick wit of their companions, and all found infinite possibilities for surprise and twists of fortune in the burla, or practical joke, and the smaller piece of business known as a lazzo which formed the best part of their stock-in-trade. Not all the zanni survived, but among those that handed on their masks and are still remembered—often by other names—are Arlecchino (Harlequin), Pedrolino (Pierrot), and Pulcinella (Punch); the only female servant to have survived is Colombina (Columbine), originally an attendant on the leading lady. The French theatre adopted the masks of Mezzetino (Mezzetin), Pasquino (Pasquin), Scapino (Scapin), and Scaramuccia (Scaramouche), the last having originally something of the braggart soldier; and from a compound of other masks now forgotten, France created its own inimitable Crispin.

The average company consisted of 12 to 15 members under an acknowledged leader, though other outstanding performers carried considerable weight, particularly in choice of scenario and methods of staging, the latter varying according to the status of the company and the nature of the place where they were to play. The smaller travelling troupes carried portable equipment which included basic props, costumes, and canvas scenery, and a platform stage for erection in such playing areas—open spaces and public squares—as opportunity offered. When set up the stage would be at about head-height to standing spectators, the players performing before a painted canvas backcloth on which was usually depicted the traditional comic scene of a piazza or street with houses. For more prosperous companies, who could expect to rent a hall or theatre—as the Andreini did in Paris—a similar background could be provided by portable wings. Some companies at the highest level might be accommodated in their patron's private theatre when not on the road, and have at their disposal the most sophisticated scenic equipment. Although the essence of the Italian style was improvisation, a skeleton plot, with indications of possible tricks and cues for music and dance, helped to ensure that the basic story developed in a way which would lead to the desired denouement. Successful extemporizing depended on the players' innate theatrical sense, their ability to supply and readily pick up cues, and a constant awareness of audience response. Although actors always played the same part, the details of it could vary enormously; preparation for it, even after years of experience, entailed study, including the accumulation of relevant material from any accessible sources, particularly the zibaldoni or commonplace books which contained speeches suitable for all occasions; the acrobatic and other spectacular comic scenes demanded constant testing and rehearsing. A number of collections of such skeleton plots survive, of which Flaminio Scala's Teatro (1611) is perhaps the most unusual. Other scenarios exist in manuscript in many Italian libraries, in Paris, and in Leningrad. In the larger collections farce, with some comedy, forms the largest part; much is drawn at second or third hand from classical and neo-classical plays; and in the 17th century the taste for Spanish drama (see comedia) opened the way for a larger proportion of melodramatic and sentimental plots. Pastorals with a strong infusion of buffoonery were also evidently popular.

By the 18th century the vitality of the commedia dell'arte was beginning to flag. France had absorbed much of it into her own drama, the German-speaking countries had drawn on it for their own clowns, among them Hanswurst, and general decadence had set in. In an attempt to revive the splendour of the old days Goldoni substituted a written text for improvisation. His contemporary and rival Gozzi preferred to use the old masks and methods and with him the commedia dell'arte made a good end. Improvisation soon became a lost art and actors were no longer expected to be acrobats, dancers, and singers. Something of the tradition lingered on in puppet-shows, in mask names, and in the English harlequinade. Commedia dell'arte skills, even though no longer practised, remain a vital force in the modern theatre, which with Collective Creation is turning to a new form of improvisation.

COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE

COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE. Commedia dell'arte is a term applied to both the early Italian commercial theater in general and to a format institutionalized by sixteenth-century professional actors' improvisations on a three-act scenario. The scenarios were constructed from a repertoire of plot types and movable parts (theatergrams) drawn primarily from novellas and scripted "erudite" comedies, set in contemporary city squares and representing love stories complicated by mistakes, deceits, parental opposition, and family separations.

In addition to singing and dancing, the players could counterfeit regional dialects and double in several roles while specializing in one of them. A standard troupe would include two pairs of lovers speaking Tuscan; several masked characters, including the old Venetian merchant Pantalone, the Bolognese Doctor Gratiano, at least two zanies, such as Bergamask Arlecchino, Fritellino, or later Neapolitan Pulcinella, Scaramuccia, and their like; boastful captains with bellicose names, such as Rodomonte, Spavento, or Matamoros; and a couple of maidservants. Innkeepers, Germans, gypsies, Turks, magicians, peddlers, and other occasional roles were added according to plot.

The first documented actors' troupe-for-hire was formed in Padua in 1545; by 1560 companies included women, and in the early 1570s several were touring abroad. Among the constantly merging prominent troupes were the Gelosi, the Desiosi, the Fedeli, the Confidenti, and the Uniti, at different times featuring leading performers of the day, the Andreini and Martinelli families, Diana Ponti, Vittoria Piissimi, and Flaminio Scala.

The professional troupes and their improvising style influenced the development of Italian drama and established a symbiosis with literary drama: the actors also memorized and performed five-act erudite comedies, tragedies, and pastoral plays, from which they borrowed for scenarios on which to improvise. Sometimes they even wrote in this format, while many literary dramatists enlivened their own works by drawing upon the commedia dell'arte's stock types, theatricality, movement, stage business, and gags, both verbal and visual.

The most successful players gained high patronage in Italian and related European academic and court circles, often traveling to France, Spain, and England in the late sixteenth century. For nearly two hundred years thereafter the commedia dell'arte in various permutations was a vital theatrical force throughout Europe. Its presence in France from the 1570s on constituted a significant chapter in French theater history. Visits to the royal court in Paris were followed by the establishment of the Comédie-Italienne and, after its suppression in 1697, by a revival in 1716 by Luigi Riccoboni. The Italian companies influenced Molière (1622–1673) and eventually Marivaux (1688–1763), nurtured French versions of stock roles like Mezzetin, Scaramouche, or Scapin and Gallic additions, from Turlupin and Captain Fracasse to Pierrot and Pierrette, as well as leaving a memory in Watteau's painting.

Long sojourns in Madrid not only influenced Lope de Vega (1562–1635), but also made the commedia dell'arte a primary transmitter of Spanish drama to Italy through adaptations and translations of Calderón and other Golden Age dramatists. The connection with England has been harder to document, but scrutiny of Shakespeare's theatrical practice and associations reveals his savvy awareness of Italian theater technology in general and of the professional players in particular.

In the mid-seventeenth century, the first two creative generations of the commedia dell'arte—represented by Francesco, Isabella, and G. B. Andreini, P. M. Cecchini, and Niccolo Barbieri—were replaced by a less versatile, bureaucratized profession. The troupes, which employed an increasingly fixed repertoire of masks and farcical plots, became dependent on the market economy of theater-owners and impresarios. The popularity of the commedia dell'arte continued to grow, however, and its characters and style prospered everywhere, with especial brilliance in Naples and Venice, and were imitated by cultivated amateurs in private the-atricals.

In the course of the eighteenth century, the commedia dell'arte was widely perceived to have hardened into cliches and, despite the imaginative continuation of Carlo Gozzi, it declined as Carlo Goldoni's reforms moved the Italian theater toward realism.

By the nineteenth century the commedia dell'arte had become a vestigial element in opera and a subject for romanticizing scholarship.

See also Calderón de la Barca, PedroDrama: Italian ; Goldini, Carlo ; Humor ; Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) ; Opera ; Popular Culture ; Shakespeare, William ; Vega, Lope de .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clubb, Louise George. Italian Drama in Shakespeare's Time. New Haven, 1989.

Heck, Thomas F. Commedia dell'Arte: A Guide to the Primary and Secondary Literature. New York, 1988.

Henke, Robert. Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell'Arte. Cambridge, U.K., 2002.

Lea, Kathleen M. Italian Popular Comedy: A Study in the Commedia dell'Arte 1560–1620, with Special Reference to the English Stage. Oxford, 1934.

Molinari, Cesare, ed. La commedia dell'arte. Rome, 1999.

Louise George Clubb

commedia dell'arte , popular form of comedy employing improvised dialogue and masked characters that flourished in Italy from the 16th to the 18th cent.

Characters of the Commedia Dell'Arte

The characters or "masks," in spite of changes over the years, retained much of their original flavor. Most important were the zanni, or servant types; Arlecchino, or Harlequin, was the most famous. He was an acrobat and a wit, childlike and amorous. He wore a catlike mask and motley colored clothes and carried a bat or wooden sword, the ancestor of the slapstick. His crony, Brighella, was more roguish and sophisticated, a cowardly villain who would do anything for money. Figaro and Molière's Scapin are descendants of this type. Pedrolino was a white-faced, moon-struck dreamer; the French Pierrot is his descendant. Pagliaccio, the forerunner of today's clown, was closely akin to Pedrolino.

Pulcinella, as seen in the English Punch and Judy shows, was a dwarfish humpback with a crooked nose, the cruel bachelor who chased pretty girls. Pantalone or Pantaloon was a caricature of the Venetian merchant, rich and retired, mean and miserly, with a young wife or an adventurous daughter. Il Dottore (the doctor), his only friend, was a caricature of learning—pompous and fraudulent; he survives in the works of Molière. Il Capitano (the captain) was a caricature of the professional soldier—bold, swaggering, and cowardly. He was replaced by the more agile Scarramuccia or Scaramouche, who, dressed in black and carrying a pointed sword, was the Robin Hood of his day.

The handsome Inamorato (the lover) went by many names. He wore no mask and had to be eloquent in order to speak the love declamations. The Inamorata was his female counterpart; Isabella Andreini was the most famous. Her servant, usually called Columbine, was the beloved of Harlequin. Witty, bright, and given to intrigue, she developed into such characters as Harlequine and Pierrette. La Ruffiana was an old woman, either the mother or a village gossip, who thwarted the lovers. Cantarina and Ballerina often took part in the comedy, but for the most part their job was to sing, dance, or play music. None of the women wore masks.

Influence

The impact of commedia dell'arte on European drama can be seen in French pantomime and the English harlequinade. The ensemble companies generally performed in Italy, although a company called the comédie-italienne was established in Paris in 1661. The commedia dell'arte survived the early 18th cent. only by means of its vast influence on written dramatic forms.

Bibliography

See K. M. Lea, The Italian Popular Comedy (2 vol., 1934, repr. 1962); W. Smith, Commedia Dell'arte (rev. ed. 1964); P. L. Duchartre, The Italian Comedy (tr. 1928, repr. 1965); A. Nicoll, The World of Harlequin: A Critical Study of the Commedia dell'Arte (1987).

commedia dell'arte

A form of improvisational theater that originated in Renaissance Italy, and that entertained outdoor audiences with a familiar cast of colorful, dramatic and comic characters. Commedia dell'arte was performed by itinerate troupes of players, each of whom specialized in a particular character. The plots were familiar to actors as well as audiences and usually involved the misadventures of two lovers who were continually frustrated in their desire for marriage and respectability. The plays, known as canovacci, were frequently interrupted by music, dancing, magic acts, juggling, and acrobatics. The characters and plot devices endured in many later forms of art, from serious opera to pantomime and Punch and Judy puppet shows.

The characters and plot of commedia dell'art often revolve around the Innamorati or Lovers, whose romance sparks much of the plot. Arlecchino (Harlequin) is a crafty and untrustworthy servant, who is constantly scheming to take advantage of the other characters. A pair of noisy sticks that he carries around the set gave rise to the expression “slapstick,” meaning rough physical comedy. Brighella, a servant or innkeeper, is free with advice to the lovers of the play, and is also skilled at the arts of magic and fortunetelling. Il Capitano represents authority, a man with an impressive and courageous front who is in fact a cowardly incompetent. Il Dottore, the doctor, makes a show of his scientific knowledge, but like Il Capitano he always suffers a comeuppance at the end of the play. The rich miser, Pantalone, acts the aristocrat, and wears an impressive suit of clothes as well as a prominent money belt. He lords it over the other characters but is quite fearful of losing his money as well as his position. Zanni, a slow and stupid servant, is a buffoon who would rather sleep than work and who has few redeeming qualities.

The characters of commedia dell'arte had particular clothing, gestures, speech, and movement. Their masks evoked their inner characters as well, with Pantalone sporting the long hooked nose of a miser and Zunni the simple unadorned white robes of a servant. Some actors gained international renown for their skill at portraying stock characters and improvising dialogue, and the most prestigious commedia troupes were invited to royal and aristocratic courts for command performances. The plays were not high drama or serious theater, but rather popular entertainment that drew laughs with bawdy repartee and noisy pratfalls. During the Renaissance it spread to northern Europe, where the characters were adapted to local tastes. Commedia dell'arte troupes roamed until the tradition began to die out in the eighteenth century.

commedia dell'arte Style of Italian comedy, popular from the mid-16th to late-18th century, which spread throughout Europe. Professional players performed on street stages or at court functions. Plays were comic, often coarse, and crudely improvised on briefly outlined scenarios. Commedia produced several (now standard) masked characters: Harlequin (clown), Capitano (braggart soldier), Pantalone (deceived father or cuckolded husband), Colombina (maid) and Inamorato (lover).

commedia dell'arte, Italian popular character comedy, in which masked professional actors improvised on a traditional plot. It developed in the 16th cent., but some critics postulate an even earlier origin in the mime of the popular Latin Atellan fables. Its main characters came to be fixed into farcical types (e.g. Harlequin, Pulcinella, Pantaloon, Columbine).

commedia dell'arte an improvised kind of popular comedy in Italian theatres in the 16th–18th centuries, based on stock characters. Actors adapted their comic dialogue and action according to a few basic plots (commonly love intrigues) and to topical issues.

commedia dell'arte •latte, maté, pâté, pattée, satay •concertante • backstay • commedia dell'arte, écarté, Jubilate •fouetté, jeté, mantellette •Deo volente • mainstay • décolleté •cinéma-vérité • diamanté • bobstay •forte, panforte, prêt-à-porter •forestay • sauté • velouté