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The Idea of Commedia in the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Michael Anderson
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Extract

The truth of Shaw's dictum that ‘those who can, do, and those who can't, teach’, is questioned by the history of commedia dell'arte in the twentieth century, in which research, practice and teaching are inextricably bound together. The significance of commedia's influence on the modern stage lies precisely in the fact that the nature of commedia cannot be defined objectively but is mediated through research and stage practice. We have to deal, therefore, not so much with commedia itself as with an ‘idea’ of commedia, a phrase I have borrowed from Kenneth Richards and Laura Richards.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , Summer 1998 , pp. 167 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1998

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References

Notes

1. The Commedia dell'Aite: A Documentary History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 302. This article is far from comprehensive and attempts to define only some aspects of the idea of commedia as it developed over a century of practice and experimentation. It takes no account of the influence of commedia in Italy, Germany or in Austria (for which see Wolgast, Karin, ‘Die Commedia dell'arte im Wiener Drama der Jahrhundertwende’, Orbis Litteramm 44 (1989), pp. 283–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For a more recent investigation into the creative processes of commedia see Fitzpatrick, Tim, The Relationship of Oral and Literate Performance Processes in the Commedia dell'Aite: Beyond the Improvisation/Memorisation Divide (Lewiston and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995)Google Scholar. The article in its present form owes much to the helpful suggestions of M. A. Katritzky;- any deficiencies that remain must be laid at my door.

2. Although the line between scripted and unscripted performance of comedy is proving increasingly difficult to draw, as both Cesare Molinari and Richard Andrews indicated at The Commedia dell'arte: Actors and Artists conference at the Wimbledon School of Art, May 1996.

3. Sand, Maurice (Maurice Dudevant), Masques et bouffons: Comédie Italienne, with a preface by Sand, George (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 2 Vols., 1860)Google Scholar. [English translation: The History of the Harlequinade (London: Martin Seeker, 1915); omits the preface and the Avant-propos, where Sand describes his experiments in improvisation, and includes only 16 of Sand's 50 plates.)

4. Sand, , p. 15.Google Scholar

5. Sand, , p. 17.Google Scholar

6. See, for instance, Rudlin, John's useful Commedia dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook (London: Routledge, 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. See Green, Martin and Swan, John, The Triumph of Pierrot: The Commedia dell'Arte and the Modern Imagination (New York: Macmillan, 1986).Google Scholar

8. See for instance the bibliography in Taviani, Ferdinando and Schino, Mirella, Il Segreto della Commedia dell'Arte: La memoria delle compagnie italiane del XVI, XVII e XVIII secolo (Florence: La Casa Usher, 1982).Google Scholar

9. The Commedia dell'Arte: A Study in Italian Popular Comedy (New York: Columbia University, 1912).

10. Quoted from Fisher, James, ‘Commedia Iconography in the Theatrical Art of Edward Gordon Craig’, in Cairns, Christopher, ed., The Commedia dell'Arte from the Renaissance to Dario Fo (Lewiston, Queenston & Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), p. 245.Google Scholar

11. ‘Arlecchino is immortal and Columbina can never die.’ Craig, Gordon, ‘Critics Criticised’, The Mask, Vol. 2, (10 1912), p. 182Google Scholar (James Fisher, p. 249).

12. ‘The Commedia dell'arte Ascending’, The Mask, Vol. 2 (October 1912), p. 104 (Fisher, James, p. 249]).Google Scholar

13. See note 7.

14. First published in Russian in 1914–17 (St. Petersburg), completion of the work being held up by the outbreak of the Great War; Miklashevski moved to Paris in 1925 and published a French translation (with some sections expanded and a greater selection of illustrative material), under the pseudonym Constant Mic, : La Commedia dell'Arte, ou le théâtre des comédiens italiens des XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Schiffrin, aux éditions de la Pléiade, 1927)Google Scholar. For an Italian translation from the Russian, with a study of the author and his relationship to the Russian theatre, see Miklashevski, Konstantin, La Commedia dell'arte o il teatro dei commedianti italiani nei secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII, con un saggio di Carlo Solivetti (Venice: Marsilio, 1981)Google Scholar. My quotations are from the French edition.

15. For recent studies which discuss the influence of corn-media dell'arte on Russian theatre see Green and Swan; Solivetti (contains a valuable survey); Braun, Edward, Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre (London: Methuen, 1995)Google Scholar; Clayton, J. Douglas, Pierrot in Petrograd: Commedia dell'arte/Balagan in Twentieth-Century Russian Theatre and Drama (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Leach, Robert, Vsevolod Meyerhold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)Google Scholar and Revolutionary Theatre (London and New York: Routledge, 1994); Picon-Vallin, Béatrice, Meyerhold, Les voies de la création théâtrale 17 (Paris: CNRS, 1990)Google Scholar; Kelly, Catriona, Petrushka: The Russian Carnival Puppet Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Meyerhold's interest in the practice of commedia is well documented in these sources; the experience of directing, and playing Pierrot, in Alexander Blok's Balaganchik (The Fairground Booth) was the most important single influence on the development of that interest. The German influence upon Russian experimentation in commedia is traced in Clayton, J. Douglas, ‘From Gozzi to Hoffmann: German Sources for commedia dell'arte in Russian Avant-Garde Theatre’, in Pietropaolo, Domenico, ed., The Science of Buffoonery: Theory and History of the Commedia dell'Arte, University of Toronto Italian Studies 3 (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1989), pp. 117–33.Google Scholar

16. Mic, , p. 14.Google Scholar

17. Mic, , p. 66–7.Google Scholar

18. Leach, , p. 75.Google Scholar

19. Mic, , p. 151.Google Scholar

20. See Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: An Introduction (London: Methuen, 1982), pp. 31–2.Google Scholar

21. Benedetti, , p. 10.Google Scholar

22. Leach, , pp. 47ff.Google Scholar

23. Taviani, Ferdinando, ‘Commedia dell'arte (Influenza della)’, in Attisani, Antonio, ed., Enciclopedia del teatro del '900 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1980), p. 399.Google Scholar

24. Copeau, Jacques, Registres III: Les Registres du Vieux-Colombier, Première Partie (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), pp. 360–1Google Scholar. Quoted in translation in Rudlin, John, Jacques Copeau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 92Google Scholar; Cf. also Rudlin, , 1994, p. 177.Google Scholar

25. From ‘Un essai de rénovation dramatique’ (1913), in Copeau, Jacques, Registres I: Appels (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), p. 28Google Scholar; see Rudlin, , 1986, p. 9.Google Scholar

26. Copeau, , Registres III, p. 325Google Scholar; Rudlin, , p. 96.Google Scholar

27. Copeau, ibid.

28. The relationship between commedia dell'arte and the work of Ruzante is now seen as far more tenuous and complex. On the rediscovery of Ruzante in France, see Ferguson, Ronnie, Angelo Beolco (Ruzante), The Veteran (Parlamen-to de Ruzante) and Weasel (Bilora), translated with an introduction, notes and bibliography (New York: Peter Lang, 1995).Google Scholar

29. Ibid., p. viii.

30. Registres III, p. 339. It was not until 1925 that the first full-length study of the dramatist since the Renaissance was published by Mortier, Alfred, Ruzzante (1502–1542): Un dramaturge populaire de la Renaissance italienne (Paris: J. Peyronnet et Cie, 1925)Google Scholar. A second volume containing the plays in French translation appeared in 1926.

31. Copeau, , p. 325Google Scholar; see Rudlin, , 1984, p. 99.Google Scholar

32. Copeau, , p. 323Google Scholar; see Rudlin, , p. 99.Google Scholar

33. Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre (New York & London: Theatre Arts Books/Heinemann, 1982), pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., p. 33.

35. See above, n. 19.

36. Wardle, Irving, The Theatres of George Devine (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978), pp. 199–200Google Scholar; see also fohnstone, Keith, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979).Google Scholar

37. Taviani, , 1980, p. 397.Google Scholar

38. Quoted (in her translation) from Lorch, Jennifer, ‘Pirandello, Commedia dell'arte and Improvisation’ in Cairns, ed., The Commedia dell'arte, p. 298Google Scholar; see also Taviani, , 1980, p. 399.Google Scholar

39. Benedetti, , p. 35.Google Scholar

40. See, for instance, Gordon, Mel, The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia (New York: Applause, 1987) pp. 206ffGoogle Scholar; Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: A Biography (London: Methuen, 1988).Google Scholar

41. See note 36.