Commedia DellArte

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Commedia DellArte

• A Year 9 Scheme of Work

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Commedia DellArte

• Possibly the first professional theatre.
• Began in 16th Century Italy
• First recorded in 1550.
• Performers made their living from this, therefore
  they had to be good enough to get the public to
  pay money to see them.
• Enduringly influential. Its direct descendants
  include

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Commedias Offspring

• Pantomime
• Punch and Judy
• Circuses
• Victorian Melodrama
• Silent Movies
• Many modern television Comedies including

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Modern Commedia

• Fawlty Towers
• Blackadder
• Dads Army
• Only Fools and Horses
• Mr Bean
• The Office

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Ingredients of Commedia

• Highly skilled performers
• Good at improvisation
• Stock characters
• Use of individual skills juggling, singing,
  dance etc.
• Set storylines

• Carefully worked out comic routines known as
  lazzi
• Masks
• Brightly coloured, distinctive costumes
• Very funny

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This scheme follows one on Romeo and Juliet and
there are strong links between the two.
Shakespeares genius lay in his ability to be
influenced by good stuff. There is a very strong
influence of Commedia in many of Shakespeares
plays including Romeo and Juliet
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Commedia and Shakespeare

• Shakespeares plays, especially his comedies are
  strongly influenced. Romeo and Juliet is not a
  comedy but it has a lot of comedy in it. There is
  no clown in this play, but Mercutios role is a
  comic one (until he is killed!)
• In other plays clowns appear Touchstone in As
  You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night for example.
• Another influence is the way Shakespeare deals
  with the way older and younger generations get
  on or more accurately, dont get on!

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Commedia DellArte

• In this module you are going to be given the
  opportunity to learn about this important theatre
  movement and to create, perform and respond to
  drama using this genre and sub-genres silent
  Comedy, Punch and Judy and Victorian Melodrama.