Theatre History Studies

Performing Commedia dell'Arte opens with a quotation from Italian Renaissance historian Massimo Ciavolella: "'We can say that commedia dell'arte has provided the basis for modern theatre in the Western world'" (1). Taking that premise in hand, Schmitt has written a concise volume focusing on techniques of performance from commedia's "golden age" (1570–1630). The unique slant of this book is its attempt to capture the techniques of an evanescent historical performance practice. Lineages of commedia trace back through commedia erudita to ancient Roman and Greek performance. Commedia characters (such as that rascal Pantalone) may have both ancient and contemporary counterparts whose plots, motivations, and statuses are similar. However, Schmitt challenges the notion that we might trace a continuous history of this performance tradition.

What is it about the practice of commedia that made it both so popular and enduring? This is a tricky question to address given commedia's archive. Com-media actors themselves wrote very little. What can we unearth about their performance techniques? Schmitt focuses on written scenarios (scaffoldings for improvisation) and other writings that could have influenced actors. The best-known collection of commedia scenarios was published by Flaminio Scala in 1611. Schmitt examines the Scala collection but, importantly, also considers two underexamined archives from the time period: the Locatelli and Corsini collections. Schmitt also considers irregular modes of commedia—tragicomedies and pastorals—that deviated from standard commedia fare. Approaching under-examined texts that have been less easily codified as commedia allows us to rethink how commedia was performed and functioned.

The book is divided into three chapters: improvisation, acting style, and masks. Schmitt notes that in improvisation, the possibility of failure creates an exciting link between the performer and the audience (6). She discusses the role [End Page 198] of imitation and memory within the context of European Renaissance culture, arguing for the centrality of imitation and memory to improvisation. What we might now consider to be "copying" would have been respected as an inventive art. She also argues that "verbal improvisation was through and through influenced by the written word" (10). For example, the famous commedia actress and writer Isabella Andreini used literature, such as Petrarch, intermixed and sampled, to improvise. How we memorize makes a difference. Schmitt cites Cicero; to memorize, explaining the gist is more efficient than verbatim repetition (14). Or as Petrarch argued, imitation should resemble, not reproduce (11). In Renaissance thought, imitation was creative and allowed for improvisation.

Chapter 2, "Acting Styles," discusses dialect, voice, and gesture. Schmitt traces the link between oratory instruction (focusing on Quintilian) and acting practices. Following Emily Wilbourne, she describes the aural aspects of com-media and their influence on opera. Characters have a vocal "signature" in dialogue, a musical, rhythmic pattern that differs and alters as they interact with other characters (32). While Schmitt addresses scholarship that uses visual representations to provide evidence of the gestural vocabulary of commedia, she notes, "Visual images, however, do not show the movement of gestures, and many frequently used gestures, like nodding the head to indicate assent, are totally dependent upon movement" (35). Admitting to their limitations, she turns to written works, including Shakespeare, the Scala collection, and books describing gesture from the time period.

Chapter 3 examines the uses of masks and what improvisational practices they made possible for commedia performers. Practically, masks made characters easily seen and recognized, and they permitted behaviors that were otherwise unsanctioned. Masks, Schmitt argues, also provided audiences a critical distance that afforded them perspective on their lives (62). She includes masks used in tragicomedies and pastorals, such as devils, satyrs, animals, and so on. Such figures reveal anxieties about power structures (such as religion). They also reveal ideas about the self. Transformations using masks (e.g., Pantalone is changed into an ass, then a magical fountain restores him to his human form) reveal Renaissance beliefs about the stability of identity and the unity of self (82–84).

A brief coda examines contemporary theatre groups who have been...