Actor, Maschera, and Role: An Approach to Irony in Performance

The Museo Correr Codex 1040 is a collection of fifty-one three act scenari for the commedia dell'arte. As such, it is an important source for anyone concerned with the history and development of that form of popular entertainment. It assumes greater significance than simply being another collection of texts because two of the most crucial features of the Venetianstyle commedia dell'arte appear fully formed in these scenari, namely the devices of maschera and lazzi (cf. Royce 1986).

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The Venetian Commedia: Actors and Masques in the Development of the Commedia dell'Arte

Royce

1986

Theat Surv

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The commedia dell'arte, which spanned three centuries from the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth and nationalities as diverse as Italian, French, Austrian, Polish, and English, went through a number of metamorphoses before it attained the form we now associate with it. Very briefly, that form is based on stock characters (Arlecchino, Pantalone, Il Dottore, Pedrolino or Pierrot, etc.), improvisation around standard plots, and the use of masks. In Italy, this kind of commedia was established by the end of the sixteenth century. In this paper, I would like to explore the developments that led to this form, concentrating especially on the convention of maschere (stock characters) as it appeared early in sixteenth century Venice and the Veneto. I concentrate on Venice because it is there that these maschere first developed and were then elaborated into the kind of characterization that becomes the defining feature of the commedia dell'arte.

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Actor, Maschera, and Role: An Approach to Irony in Performance

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References 20 publications

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The Venetian Commedia: Actors and Masques in the Development of the Commedia dell'Arte

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