commedia dell'arte

Commedia dell'arte is a physical theatre that originated in Italy during the 16th century. it uses the emphasis of body characteristics and physical movements in order to create a comedic and often satirical play and environment.

commedia features stock characters such as Harlequin, Pantalone, and Colombina, each used to represent different classes. for example zani, a harlequin, is known as a slave and is the most unintelligent commedia character. Commedia plays are more often than not improvised with few scripts remaining to this day. an example of a remaining script is one servant two masters. Commedia is often used in order to ridicule the higher classes through physical portrayals.

commedia was traditionally performed by travelling troupes who would do street performances during medieval periods, common themes were: love, social class, and human folly, making it both entertaining and reflective of contemporary societal issues.

in class we spent multiple lessons performing different characters such as zani, el doctore, el capitano etc. we learned about their physical movements and characteristics, and performed scenes revolving around the characters in order to understand them. for example we acted out scenes between zani and pantelone, during these scenes we included lazzis, which we learned were often comedic moments such as sexual moments.

we also learnt that most characters ( excluding the lovers ) wore masks to portray to the audience who they were, as seen below: