Research Investigation: commedia dell’arte masks Essay

agree to italian landing field historians, such as Roberto Tessari, Ferdinando Taviani, and Luciano Pinto, Commedia dellarte, which literally translated as improvised comedy, developed as a response to the political and economic crisis of the 16th century in Italy and, as a consequence, became the beginning(a) entirely professional form of theatre 1.It is believed that the use of mask in commedia dellatre originated in 1570 with Andrea Calmo, the pseudo and author who was inspired by the venetian carnivals of the time. She pee-peed Pantaloon who is the one of the most famous char behaveers of commedia dellarte today. She went on to create the spanish captain Il Capitano. Although her characters were initially unmasked, Andrea wished that the spirit of the Italian carnival ( which celebrates the epiphany 2 ) would be represented in her plays and in that locationfore she introduced the masks and thus created the commedia dellarte that we know today. 3The carnival of venice. 1Reco rds of commedia dellarte performances date back as aboriginal as 1551, where they were acted by professionals outside on temporary stages with costumes and masks. But as it was so prevalent with the nobles, legion(predicate) performances were also done indoors at court for the amusement of nobles. 4After it became famous with the nobles the troupes began to move to france where many play writes such as Moliere were inspired to move their written lay downs towards comedy.5Commedia dellarte started to become popular outside Italy in the beginning of the seventeenth century. As the tipo fisso ( opinionated stereotypes) soon became satiric references to the Italian parliament and to the distinctive Italian person it became one of the most popular comic theatre genres in the 17th and eighteenth century. 6There argon several reasons for the use of masks in commedia dellatre. Primarily, as this type of theatre has fixed characters but is essentially improvised, the masks are used so th at the audience was able to identify the characters. As commedia dellarte was performed by mated travelling companies, this meant that they would have different costumes, yet the masks would retain all the information necessary to recognise a specific character. 7Also as these performances were mainly on the streets or by the road, thither would not really be a stage nor seating for the audience this made it difficult for everyone to interpret everything from the same angle or height. With the masks, all the audience could observe the emotions or actions that were being portrayed.8Commedia dellarte masks were traditionally made of leather and only covered half of the movers face. They were like this so that the actor was able to project his voice and made certain noises that he could not do with a well-situated mask. The masks were made to fit the face of a given actor because he or she would generally act out the same character for his/her entire career. Commedia dellarte ma sks tend to have large, broad feature which are distinct to each character. For example on the character Zanni, the beak is very large. It is said that the larger the nose is, the stupider the Zanni represented tends to be.Zanni 2 Zanni 3As I have said before, commedia dellarte characters were based on tipo fisso (a certain stereotype). whatever of them have changed there name or personality over time for example Zanni, who is characterised as nobble of wit and always without money. Zanni has several masks that represent him which have changed over time with the fashion.Which all mean different things for example the Brighella mask which represents that piteous and starving and hopeless side of Zanni and the Pucinella mask which represents the side which is also poor but although he is stupid he is able to outwit many. Many of the characters had a stereo veritable(prenominal) opposite for example the stereotypical opposite of Zanni is represented with the well known character Pa ntalone (Pantaloon) who is typically arrogant and rich and who is always dealing with people who are trying to take his money away from him.Pantalone 4Although most of the commedia dellarte characters wore masks, there were few that were never masked. For example Isabella. Who was most famously acted by the famous actress Isabella Andreini. Also the slamrs who were broadly speaking the daughters and sons of the old and rich such as Pantalone or The Captain did not wear masks. This is because they were just there to bring the satiric comedy of romance and love to the performance. They were there to make the performance more light. And thusly did not have a specific characteristic apart from being completely in love with their character. 10Commedia dellarte masks were useful in the sense that although the the costumes and stage changed in fashion over time, The masks stayed basically the same. In this way the audience could appreciate and recognise the character and still enjoy new ways of the typical story being presented.In many give instructions such as Jaques Lecoqs international school of theatre in paris, commedia dellarte masks are used as a learning instrument for aspiring actors. Jaques Lecoq, was natural in 1921 started off as a sports teacher and then moved on to acting with his partner, Gabreielle Cousin. He moved to Italy for eight years in 1948 where he discovered Commedia dellarte. Together with the sculptor, Amleto Sartori, they developed the impersonal mask. When Lecoq moved back to Paris he devoted the remainder of his life to teaching at his school.Jaques Lecoq 5His school offers several courses that work on understanding and working with the body through the use of masks. His philosophy was that in order to become a good actor, you needed to use the Neutral masks to discover your body, movement, balance and space. He also believed that the typical half masks of commedia dellarte, played an important role in improvisation and to work on c haracter types therefore he integrated both into his courses 11.Words 1000 (not including bibliography, notes under images nor titles )Bibliography1 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dellarte2 http//www.religionfacts.com/christianity/holidays/mardi_gras.htm3 http//italian.about.com/ subroutine library/weekly/aa110800a.htm4 -http//www.tutu-inc.com/thesis/THESIS.htm5 -http//www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk/talkarchive.htm6 -http//www.tutu-inc.com/thesis/THESIS.htm7 http//www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/androclesandthelion/commediaMask8 http//wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_masks_used_for9 http//italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa110800a.htm10 -http//www.delpiano.com/carnival/html11 http//www.ecole-jacqueslecoq.comBibliography of Images1 http//travel.smart-guide.net/venice-carnival2 http//tombanwell.blogspot.com/2010/09/zanni-leather-mask.html3 http//www.theater-masks.com/commedia-masks/commedia-mask-zanni-14 http//www.clg-mignet.ac-aix-marseille.fr/mignet/spip.php? article4405 http//www.maghress.com/fr/marochebdo/31832