Commedia dell'arte

The term commedia dell’arte may not be a familiar one for most listeners this evening. But it would be hard to overestimate the significance of this art form for all of theatrical history. Everyone here has encountered commedia dell’arte either directly or indirectly, for it has influenced everything from Shakespeare and The Marx Brothers to “Punch and Judy” puppetry and TV’s “Three’s Company.” In classical music, the opera Pagliacci and ballet Petrushka are representative.
Commedia dell’arte is an Italian term meaning “theater of the professional.” It refers to the emergence of set topics, characters, and professional actors between the 14th and 18th centuries in Europe. As an art form, it combines a limited number of stock scenarios and plot lines (for instance, the clever servant hoodwinking his master, the cuckolded husband, mistaken identities, a braggard buffoon, etc.) with improvisation and physical slapstick. Characters like Harlequin the trickster, the pretty and smart Columbina, or the greedy old curmudgeon Pantalone are all still with us today. Since it originally developed as roving theater—and one could not predict an audience’s educational level or native language—commedia dell’arte used exaggerated expression, pantomime, and masks to convey the essential plot. Performers were encouraged to “liven things up” with improvised dialogue, jokes, or acrobatics, and the best players became the immediate precursors to the professional actors who helped elevate Elizabethan theater.

(c) Jason Stell