Commedia Dell' Arte
Commedia Dell’ Arte is the bedrock of the comedic world. Originating in Italy, actors would come together in troops to perform this new and talented art form. Since Commedia Dell’ Arte groups traveled, they often would learn about the areas they were in and adapt their lazzi, or jokes, to fit with what is happening locally. Commedia Dell’ Arte performed often unwritten and improvised with a group of stock characters. Stock characters are characters who consist of basic stereotypical traits, finding themselves in the same comedic situations throughout the performance. All of these character’s were connected in way or another, therefore some traits were very similar and others different based on the character’s social and hereditary stance. Tons of these stock characters have been created, however around only a dozen were the main focus of this specific art. Four of these main stock characters are Arlecchino, Colombia, Dottore, and Isabella. Arlecchino is the servant to Pantalone who springs around the stage with charming ignorance yet moments of intelligence. In a scene, he is either always talking or completely silent. His character had the ability to be, at times, aware that he was performing in front of an audience and addressed this with asides. Plot wise,
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His costume design usually are a diamond pattern consisting of greens, yellows, reds, and browns, meant to represent the colors of leaves. He wears flat black shows and a beret or a felt hat with a narrow brim and feather. Arlecchino often would wear disguises and cross-dress. His lower face is covered in a black stocking, and his upper half is a full carnival mask with smaller eyes and a wart on the lower forehead. The mask was a deep tan to mimic the completions of those who lived in the mountains. His costume is tight-fitted in order for him to spring into action, ironically he has a clumsy mannerism about
This mask belongs to the minor character Mercutio; consequently, its main colors are orange, brown, and green because he is flamboyant, reliable, and young. To begin with, the color orange represents Mercutio’s most recognizable and dominant trait: flamboyance. It is exhibited most in his Queen Mab monologue, “Oh, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you./She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes/In shape no bigger than an agate stone/On the forefinger of an alderman/Drawn with a team of little atomies...And in this state she gallops night by night/Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love...This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,/That presses them and learns then first to bear,/Making them women of good carriage,”(Act I, Scene 4, lines 53-57, 70-71, 92-94).
Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman, and Donald McNeilly. Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print.
The Secret of Seinfeld’s Humor: The significance of the Insignificant, an article written by Jorge Gracia briefly outlines what the author believes to be the origin of the humour with which the popular television show Seinfeld achieved such broad based success. A show that embraced the ordinary of everyday life, while atypically avoiding the mainstay of violence and sex of most of today’s popular visual media and culture. Gracia (19??) begins his article by posing the question “how, can a show that deals with ordinary, everyday occurrences have such wide appeal”? This is a very general question that could be analysed in any number of ways. The author however, suggest one possible answer. That a show such as Seinfeld is effective because its humour is based upon the dramatic tradition of the comedy and tragedy.
Conflict with reality and appearance brings to surface the elements of the traditional commedia dell’arte in the form of mistaken identity, which enriches the farcical plot-lines that occur in the play. The very embodiment of mistaken identity establishes that what may be seem real could be quite the opposite, however the characters in the play are unable to distinguish this as their vision becomes distorted by their fall into the deception of appearance. It is this very comedic device that enables the conflict between Roscoe (Rachel) and Alan, or Charlie and Alan’s father to occur which is a significant part of the comedic nature of the play as the unproportional situation is what sparks laughter from the audience, and so it is the presence of mistaken identity alone that conveys the play into a light-hearted comedy. Furthermore, Peter O'Neill quotes that ‘using humour can provide a degree of safety for expressing difficult ideas or opinions which could be particularly effective…’. In the circumstances of the quotation Richard Bean effectively c...
Alfieri is the narrator of the story, setting the scene, and helping the audience understand the story better. He tells us more about the characters and also provides background information that we might not have known. In the play, Alfieri also provides characters with the insight they could need, which is also a characteristic of the chorus. He does this with Eddie, persuading him to stop quarrelling with Marco when they were jailed. Alfieri as a narrator also makes the audience become more involved while he p...
In linking the characters to vaudeville stars, the Chicago cast is, in effect, imitating the actual vaudeville acts they evoke. By 1900 (a time when vaudeville was just coming into its own), a new model of social science viewing imitation as key to the development of the self was gaining popularity while the older notion of intrinsic or fixed human character declined in plausibility among American psychologists (Glenn 62). Imitation came to be recognized as an outward play of personality rather than a telling ...
a vaudevillian and appropriately enough was born into the theatre. As a child, the art of
According to Aristotle, “Comedy can be any colloquy or performance generally intended to amuse or stimulate laughter”. In modern times, comedy can be found in different forms, such as television, movies, theatres and stand-up comedy.
...entio plays the foil to Petruchio. He falls in love at first sight and coveys a sweet, mild-mannered personality throughout the movie. Posing as a tutor, Gordon-Levitt shows the overeager desperation that makes Lucentio likable. The casting of the main characters would have received Shakespeare’s seal of approval. The actors managed to convey the original sense of the characters while slightly adapting them for a different century. Shakespeare, who commonly borrowed plots from other writers, would have appreciated his work getting a facelift. It brought his characters to a new audience and the casting suited this modernization.
The play evokes an exemplified expression of frustration and love which we bottle in. With today’s technology, social media makes it harder for us to communicate to each other; it was a tool that was meant for us to easily connect to each other, but that is not the case. We hide behind it and we start to lose our ability to communicate to each other face to face, failing to reveal our true emotions to each other. We fail to notice this dilemma because our cultural norm has changed and it is acceptable for us to hide behind text messages instead exchanging words with our mouth’s. It was a part of the play when Beatrice and Signior Benedict tried to hide their love from each other. In the end of Much Ado About Nothing, both parties tried to hide behind their excuses claiming that they only loved one another because one was madly in love with the other. Signior Benedict was flushed out when one of his friends revealed his sonnet for Beatrice that truly came from his heart. Beatrice was uncovered by Hero the same way since Beatrice also professed her love to Signior Benedict in a piece of paper. Both of them never planned to read it to each other. In a way Shakespeare understood human emotions and interactions. His works is a necessity of the years to come. It shifts us back into the lost ways in the art of
lighten the mood and accentuate the comedic theme of the story through his creation of
History proves that some of life’s most valuable lessons can be found through humor. Take “The Wizard of Oz,” four people on a journey to find love, courage, Intellect, and acceptance. And at the end of that yellow brick road one man telling them they had it all along. In the play “Twelfth Night,” the Feste the clown is the man at the end of that yellow brick road, showcases his comedic genius of other characters behavior toward life. Sometimes the characters do not seem to realize or understand his hidden message, the reader can instantly understand Feste's use of structure, through words like “dissemble” (4.2.4) which means to disguise, which in fact is present in every scene which he appears. From singing to Orsino, or arguing with Malvolio, to messing around with Viola, Feste always manages to slip that hidden message before he makes his exist. His enthusiasm is what helps him to actively fit in to each characters soundtrack of life. However, he is merely present to express that which cannot be fully expressed through the lines of other characters. Through his songs, witty jokes, Feste proudly and efficiently reveals truth throughout the play.
As his time in Babylon continues, his costume becomes more patterned and gold, with highly jeweled borders and jewelry. His robes continue to be ornate and red becomes his signature color, with influences that seem of more modern Middle-eastern. In the cold mountains of India, Alexander continues his red color scheme with a fur-lined robe with a richly feathered neck. He wears a paler chlamys around his neck, like a modern scarf. When in India, he appears to be wearing a sheer, kalasiris-type garment with a large, geometrically patterned
William Shakespeare's, Twelfth Night has many themes, but appearance vs. reality is the theme that illustrates a different picture from two perspectives, there are many characters behind their masks and disguises. Some are hiding love behind these disguises and some are trying to show their love through a different disguise. They both still being servants are using disguise differently. Malvolio, servant of Olivia, falls in love with the trap (the letter) thinking his lady likes him, and to show his love he uses a different appearance to express it. Viola, servant of Orsino, falls in love with him, but secretly, not wanting to express her love for him, because of her disguise as her barrier for that case. Viola/Ceasario is wearing a disguise and secretly loves Orsino. Malvolio, on the other hand, is also a servant but still changes his appearance to express love for the great lady Olivia. This essay will prove that disguises and appearances are symbolic of the characters named Viola and Malvolio and are differently used for both.
The author uses convincing dialogue to illustrate Sir Andrew, and Malvolio as witty characters. With the same great expertise, he transforms those characters and exposes their foolishness to the viewers. Sir Andrew is one of the many thoughtless brains in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. In the beginning of the play, he was recognized for speaking “three or four languages word for word without book” but later on, Shakespeare unleashes Sir Andrew’s gullible nature (I.iii.24). For instance, when Sir Toby was going back and forth between Cesario and Sir Andrew, delivering false threats, Sir Andrew became extremely frightened and said “pox on ‘t! I’ll not meddle with him” (III. Iv.252). Malvolio impresses the audience with his presentable and well-mannered etiquette. He is described as the naive goody two shoes. However, the audience was able to view his gullible side, when he received a prank love letter, and transformed himself into an air-headed fool dressed up in yellow stockings. Despite his sharp and smart looks in the beginning, he turned out to be a complete chump. Even thoug...