The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte

Peter Jordan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136488238
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte is a striking new enquiry into the late-Renaissance stirrings of professional secular comedy in Venice, and their connection to the development of what came to be known as the Commedia dell'Arte. The book contends that through a symbiotic collaboration between patrician amateurs and plebeian professionals, innovative forms of comedy developed in the Venice region, fusing 'high' and 'low' culture in a provocative mix that had a truly mass appeal.

Rich with anecdotes, diary entries and literary – often ribald – comic passages, Peter Jordan's central argument has important implications for the study of Venetian art, popular theatre and European cultural history.

1 The ‘comedy of the profession’

The Commedia dell'Arte could be regarded as the ur-genre of modern comedy, and perhaps even professional theatre itself. The genre, including the many stock characters it spawned, enjoyed enormous popularity at all levels of society for around two hundred years, from the second half of the sixteenth century to the middle of the eighteenth.

In its earliest manifestation, the Commedia dell'Arte was referred to variously as commedia all'improvviso [improvised comedy], commedia delle maschere [comedy of the masks], commedia degli zanni [comedy of the Zannis], commedia mercenaria [mercenary comedy], or comédie italienne, as it was known in France. All of these titles refer to essential elements of the genre. The use of leather masks and improvised dialogue held together by a plot outline, known as a scenario or canovaccio [canvas] is well known. These canovacci were populated by numerous ‘Zanni’ servant characters and all the actors were certainly in the business of earning money. Moreover, whilst it was Italian in origin, the Commedia dell'Arte went on to influence the development of theatre throughout Europe, from Shakespeare to Molière, to Marivaux, to Goldoni, to Gozzi, to Beaumarchais and beyond. As the earliest example of professional secular theatre in Europe, it remains of abiding interest to scholars, students and practitioners alike, many of whom have sought to tap into the mercurial creativity for which it was justly famous.

Ironically, it appears that the name ‘Commedia dell'Arte’ was first coined by its nemesis, Carlo Goldoni (1707–93) in 1750 in his play, Il Teatro Comico [The Comical Theatre], in which he set out his case for reforming the Italian theatre and dispensing with what he regarded as tired, predictable and vulgar ‘commedie dell'arte’.¹ Il Teatro Comico presents a prospective playwright, or poeta, who visits a company in the middle of rehearsals for their latest production. He gets more than he bargained for in a lecture from the leading actor, thinly disguised as Goldoni himself, contrasting the ills of the old ‘comici dell'arte’ and their cheap tricks and exaggerations, with the new form that espoused elegance, decorum and ‘naturalezza’ [naturalness]. So its defining moment was also the moment of its demise and the term we now use to describe possibly the most revolutionary development in the history of European theatre originated as a pejorative label. Nevertheless, the name resonated and stuck. Shorn of Goldoni's infusion of contempt, it is quite accurate and to the point. In the wider meaning of the Italian word commedia as ‘theatre’, the name can be translated as ‘theatre of the profession’.

Whilst it encompassed a number of genres, including tragedy, tragi-comedy, pastoral, and even ‘royal’ and ‘heroic’ opera, its most frequent and popular form was comedy. This is amply borne out by the extant scenarios. As is commonly known, these comedies contained stock character types, which mostly fell into three distinct categories: masters, servants and lovers. The simple and often highly derivative comic plot tended to revolve around various love intrigues with attendant complications and subsequent happy resolutions. The protagonists of these amorous escapades, the lovers, remained unmasked, but were probably heavily made-up nonetheless.

Ancient and modern characteristics

Attempts have been made to root the origins of the Commedia dell'Arte in the theatre of ancient Greece and Rome. Perhaps the broad physical humour of the Greek satyr plays, which typically provided a ribald comic counterpoint to the myths on which the Greek tragedies were often based, inspired the scatological antics that formed the basis of many of the lazzi [comic business] that can be seen in sixteenth-century engravings, such as those of the Recueil Fossard, now housed in the National Museum in Stockholm.² The prominently phallic codpiece of the most emblematic master character, the Venetian, Pantalone [literally, ‘trouser’], seems to echo the use of similar comic devices evident in the iconography of classical Greek theatre. Indeed, the fact that the Commedia emerged towards the end of a period during which classical texts were rediscovered and enthusiastically revived by humanist scholars also hints at a connection.

As has been frequently noted, there are some undeniable similarities to the improvised Atellan farces performed by travelling mimes throughout the Campania in southern Italy.³ These plays included stereotypical masked characters, such as: the old dotard, Pappus, who has been seen as a forerunner of the Commedia dell'Arte's ageing Venetian merchant, Pantalone; the gluttonous Maccus, whose mask is similar to that of the Neapolitan Pulcinella or the Dottore, the pseudo-academic pedant from Bologna; Bucco, a braggart resembling the bombastic Capitano; and Sannio. The similarity of the latter's name to the generic servant character of the Commedia dell'Arte has led to speculation that he was the prototype of the generic servant Zanni.

One can also find a connection to the domestic situations and stock character types of the Greek ‘New Comedy’ typified by the works of Menander, or the comic plots of the Roman authors Plautus and Terence. Several scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte make explicit that they are based on classical texts, either directly (as in Aulularia) or indirectly (as in La Trappolarla, a play by the sixteenth-century playwright Giovanni Battista della Porta and based on Plautus' Pseudolus). The central character of another Plautine comedy, Miles Gloriosus, looks uncannily similar to the braggart Capitano, made famous by Francesco Andreini with Capitan Spavento, and by Tiberio Fiorilli with Scaramuccia, or Scaramouche.

Even the practice of performing on simple wooden stages that were easily dismantled and transported elsewhere links the actors of the Commedia dell'Arte to the practices of the touring Atellans, who also performed on makeshift portable platforms, erected to provide theatrical sideshows during the Ludi, or public games.

However, there are as many differences as there are similarities to the dramas of ancient Greece and Rome. For example, the classical theatre used rigid full-face masks, as opposed to the flexible leather half-masks of the comici dell'arte. One of the leading scholars of the Commedia dell'Arte, Ferdinando Taviani, also points out that the masks of the ancient Greeks belong to the modern mythic image of masked theatre that includes the Japanese Noh theatre and Balinese dance theatre. The masks of the Commedia dell'Arte, on the other hand, did not seek this mythic, quasi-spiritual, elevation. They were self-consciously base and secular, of the people.⁴

Furthermore, the plays of Menander, Plautus and Terence were scripted, not improvised, and their female characters are passive presences, played by males. These are quite unlike the spirited and avowedly feminine protagonists of the Commedia dell'Arte, with minds of their own and imbued with Petrarchan notions of courtly and romantic love.⁵ Taviani argues persuasively that this development led to a gear change in the genre, which had initially been little more than a series of master-versus-servant slapstick routines and general buffoonery.⁶ In particular, he singles out sixteen-year-old Isabella Canali, who married Francesco Andreini, fourteen years her senior, in 1578. Together, they were the leading lights of the Gelosi [jealous ones] company. Her talent for improvising verse became the stuff of legend.

Such women did much to dispel the common perception that actresses were little more than prostitutes publicly hawking their wares. The characters they played followed the dictates of their hearts and sought to legitimize their liaisons through marriage. The earlier status-based clowning was thus subsumed into more complex linear narratives in which the masters became obstructive parents, often highlighting the inherent nobility and honourable intentions of their offspring through their own small-mindedness and often openly lecherous depravity.

The perceived similarities between the Commedia dell'Arte and the classical theatre are perhaps more attributable to the simple fact that comic plays often draw on the tensions of everyday life and are therefore universal in their essential details. The realities of making one's way in the world, negotiating one's position in the social hierarchy, attempting to fulfil desires and to strive for contentment have not changed much over the millennia.

The so-called erudite comedy, an early precursor, was an entirely amateur form produced by literary academies composed largely of well-educated men from the upper reaches of society. These dilettante groups would restage and occasionally rewrite classical plays for their own amusement. Whilst the professionals may also have drawn inspiration from the ‘erudite’ plays of antiquity, the unavoidable fact of needing to earn a living led to a new, revolutionary imperative: the need to satisfy popular demand. That demand ranged from high-flown poetry all the way down to bawdy visual gags involving enormous enema syringes and the like. It is this heady blend of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture that typifies the comedy of the professionals.

Ultimately, the main stumbling block to the Commedia dell'Arte being directly descended from the ancient classical theatre is the fact that over a thousand years elapsed from the decline of the latter to the rise of the former. Any connection could only have been self-conscious and deliberate, certainly not an organic extension of an ancient form. The indications are that the Commedia dell'Arte came into being through people, who for one reason or another, had resolved to make the performance of theatre their livelihood. That they sometimes drew on classical texts for inspiration is undeniable, but any feasible connection ends there. It is only through painstaking, concerted, and forensic research by modern scholars that we have any idea of classical theatre practice. Such detailed knowledge was of course unavailable to the actors of the Commedia dell'Arte.

The use of masks was a phenomenon with a long heritage, reaching back to the earliest societies. The Italian actor and playwright Dario Fo claims to have identified a man wearing a mask in cave paintings tens of thousands of years old. Certainly, shamanistic transformation with the aid of masks has been a fundamental part of the rituals of simple societies for centuries, if not millennia. On the other hand, the Commedia dell'Arte's use of improvisation seems to reach forward to modernity. Its spontaneity and reliance on the inspiration of the individual working within the collective contrasts with ritual stylization.

With the revival of interest in the Commedia dell'Arte in the post-war era, the use of improvisation as a means of generating a greater sense of immediacy and ‘realism’ has increased enormously. It is a commonplace tool in character development, even for rehearsals of a scripted play, enriching and contextualizing a given role and its rela-tionships with others. Significantly, improvisation has also spread to the mechanical media. Whilst the script may ultimately be edited and finalized, improvisation is a crucial part of the process of reproducing the natural flow of dialogue with all its pauses, non sequiturs, misun-derstandings, mispronunciations and half-finished sentences.

As scripted theatre developed over the centuries, such interjections and blocks to the flow of text have largely been weeded out, apart from the occasional Shakespearian ‘foh’, ‘pish’, or ‘zounds’. Clarity and precision of language became the gold standard for drama of all kinds, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scripts were judged as much, if not more, on their literary qualities as they were on dramatic qualities. In this environment, comic dialogues characterized by sophisticated wit and wordplay – although these properties certainly have their place – run the risk of being too prepared and unnatural. The spontaneity popularized by the Commedia dell'Arte became both a thing of the past and a thing of the future.

Professional priorities

From a financial point of view, the wider the range of peop...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The ‘comedy of the profession’
• 2 Laughter, humour and comedy
• 3 Magnifico and Zanni
• 4 Why Venice?
• 5 The Companies of the Hose
• 6 Rich boys and poor clowns
• 7 Pantalone case study, part one: the Character
• 8 Pantalone case study, part two: the Capriccii
• 9 The first professionals – the Gelosi
• 10 A lingering legacy
• 11 Conclusion
• Appendix I: Il Pozzo del Pasquati: An original Italian scenario and accompanying English translation
• Appendix II: The Capriccii and variants: A comparative table of titles and publication details in the five texts
• Index