Comedia_Dell_Arte

Comedia Dell Arte One of the most popular forms of drama from the Italian Renaissance is Commedia Dell’arte. This drama is said to be an outgrowth of the Italian farce. (Herrick, 211) This all began around the fifteenth century, but did not become popular until the end of the sixteenth and all of the seventeenth century. Commedia dell’arte means an improvised or unwritten drama. There was never a script or set lines. However, the actors were given detailed plot outlines, also called scenarios, of what they would perform. In the outline the characters would be named, and given relationships, and the situations would be outlined as well. This information was then dived into scene, acts, prologues and epilogues. (Bellinger) With that information the actors would put everything together and began to improvise. The dialogue had to flow smoothly along with the storyline of the play. This caused the actors to be very discipline and be professional in everything that they do. The finest of them marked their parts with uniqueness, newness and vividness, and gave value to pieces that were usually worthless. Most of the actions were improvise except for certain gestures that the character is known for doing these were called mask, pantalone, wear, very, one, however, character, black, young, commedia, nose, money, harlequin, over, lovers, love, each, costume, characters, actors, popular, doctor, captain, being, wife, servant, out, known, italian, century, around, zanni, tend, robe, renaissance, part