Part I
Commedia dell'Arte improvisation is evident in our entire entertainment industry. Stock characters, history, scenario, movement, prop work, object manipulation, voice work, singing, music, poetry and more are still used. It is richly evident in the performances of "Winters Tale" and "The Merchant of Venice," performed in the 2010 Public Theater's Shakespeare in the park at the Delacorte Theatre in New York City. " The Merchant of Venice" moved on to Broadway.
We know Commedia dell'Arte was improvised from scenarii because of the church censors of the 1500s and 1600s. One church censor's letter complains about how "it is impossible to censor them," since every show is different. After the censor would tell them not to do something, the players would come up with something even more outrageous, that the censor would never dream of, as a way around the problem the censor had.
Althought every Commedia dell'Arte performance was based on a scenario, every show was freshly improvised. Straight actors of the 1600s would perform scripted plays. In letters of the time the Commedia dell'Arte players' complain about, "the unbelievability of going on stage and saying the same words every show!" It was unthinkable for the Commedia dell'Arte player to go on stage and not risk jumping into the void! Some teachers and writers today now claim Commedia dell'Arte was not that improvised, that everything was pretty much set. Historical evidence contradicts this.
How does this art form from the mid to late 1500s help and inform us almost five hundred years later?
A basic element of the Commedia dell'Arte is working with a scenario. The Commedia dell'Arte player improvises from action point to action point. Finding a good translation of an Italina scenario in English for today's actor is not easy. Understanding a working scenario that the Commedia dell'Arte player worked with is essential.
Example: Take a play; remove all the dialogue, replace it with condensed basic motivated action and what each character is responsible for performing on stage. Replace and condense line further with specific action points. specify what each character needs to accomplish to inform and move the story forward. Add lazzi moments that are required or hinted at. Lazzi is a bit of rehearsed stage business, which can be physical, musical, verbal, acrobatic or otherwise. My understanding it that it is always well rehearsed, choreographed, memorized and set.
Who appears in each scene is usually clearly listed in the left hand margins of the scenario. Players easily see when they need to come on stage and what their task are. If you have a 90 page play, the scenario would be about 5 to 7 pages. This tells us just how condensed scenarrii are, along with how free the Commedia dell'Arte players have to be to create within the scenario. Actors can bring this same freedom into their work today.
Part II coming soon
Stanley Allan Sherman has been teaching classical Commedia dell'Arte as close to how we believe it was performed in the 1500s and early 1600s. He produces and teaches long and short workshops like the one coming up in NYC December 27 - 31. Besides performing, directing and teaching he is known as a mask maker, creating masks in NYC for productions performers and theater education around the world.