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Commedia dell'arte, ( Italian, meaning "comedy of professional artists") was a form of improvisational theater which began in the 16th century and was popular until the 18th century, although it is still performed today. Traveling teams of players would set up an outdoor stage and provide amusement in the form of juggling, acrobatics, and, more typically, humorous plays based on a repertoire of established characters with a rough storyline, called Canovaccio.
Troupes occasionally would perform directly from the back of their traveling wagon, but this is more typical of Carro di Tespi , a sort of travelling theatre that dates back to antiquity.
The performances were improvised around a repertory of stock conventional situations, adultery, jealousy, old age, love, some of which can be traced in Roman comedies of PlautusTitus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. The years of his life are uncertain, but his plays were first produced between about 205 and 184 BCE. Twenty-one plays survive. Plautus' comedies, which are the earliest surviving intact and TerencePublius Terentius Afer better known as Terence was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time c. 170 160 BCE, and he died young in 159 BCE. He wrote 6 plays, all of which survive. In comparison, his predecesso. The dialogue and action could easily be made topical and adjusted to satirizeSatire is a literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject (individuals, organizations, states) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. In Celtic societies, it was thought a bard's satire could have phys local scandals, current events, or regional tastes, mixed with ancient jokes and punchlines. Characters were identified by costumeThe term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. It can also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to th, maskThis article is about masks fitted on the face as an article of clothing or equipment. See Mask (disambiguation) for other meanings. A mask is a piece of material or kit worn on the face. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practis, and even propsTheatrical properties or props are items used in stage plays and similar entertainments to further the action. They can consist of something as simple as the traditional slapstick to fantastic apparatuses designed to simluate flying, windstorms, fog, or f, such as the slapstickThis article is about comedic slapstick. For the percussion instrument, see whip (instrument). Slapstick is a type of comedy involving physical action. One classic piece of slapstick is the hapless slip on a banana peel. The style was explored extensively.
Thus, the commedia dell'arte, with its stock situations and stock characters and improvised dialogue, has shown the way to many other forms of drama, from pantomime and Punch and Judy - which features debased forms of the commedia characters (see below) - to the modern animated cartoon, situation comedy, and even professional wrestling. Richard Strauss used several of the characters in his opera Ariadne auf Naxos. The characters and tropes of the commedia have also been used in modern novels, from sword and sorcery to literary works, notably by Michael Moorcock in his Jerry Cornelius stories that culminate with the Guardian prize-winning The Condition of Muzak.
Male commedia dell'arte characters were depicted by actors wearing masks representing regions or towns. They must always have an erection to symbolize their horny nature. The female characters, however, were usually not masked, hence virgin like. In fact, the roles were often played by males in women's clothing and wigs, en travesti, as it is called.
In some cases, the characters were also traditionally considered as respectively representing some Italian regions or main towns. Often they are still now symbolic of the related town. Following is a list of the original Italian characters, with other English or French names, or descendant characters (in parentheses), and the towns/regions to which they are eventually associated:
Aspects of commedia dell'arte passed into the silent tradition of mime. The Bohemian actor Jean-Gaspard Deburau (1796 -1846) brought the new forms of mime to Paris in the 1830s. He standardized the French image of Pierrot.
See Carlo Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters
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