Commedia dell'Arte & Vulgar Comedy -Commedia dell'Arte & Vulgar Comedy

Posted on 2021-12-06 by Micke Klingvall

Pantalone and Dottore makes a deal

Here is a scene From ”Where is the Book” opened in 2014 in Stockholm, then toured Finland and the north of Sweden.

It was decided that Pantalones son Flavio should marry Doralice, but then Pantalone laid his own eyes on her…

Pant: Well, you and me, we like each other and so…

Dott: Admittedly …

Pant: Then we can talk openly. It is about the wedding.

Dott: What about it?

Pant: I thought… Just a tiny, little change…

Dott: What?

Pant: I mean: why is it precisely Flavio that shall marry?

Dott: Who else?

Pant: Let me explain this way. We have know each other for quite some time now?

Dott: Yes…

Pant: So, when we marry…

Dott: We?????!!!!!

Pant: Well the actual wedding night…

Dott: Stopp! Stopp!! Stopp!!! Take it easy! Cool the screws! Rest the cymbals! I just say: Forget it! It will not happen!

Pant: Why not?

Dott: Well … I am flattered, but … There is nothing wrong with you… It is me… You are not my type.

Pant: That doesn’t matter?

Dott: It does – for me anyway.

Pant: Listen up: when I marry Doralice …

Dott: Doralice?

Pant: Off Course.

Dott: Aha! Then I understand! Well, I guess it doesn’t matter whoever marries her as long as she gets out of the house …
But, tell me: Have you thought about the… age difference?

Pant: No, why?

Dott: It is rather large, so to speak.

Pant: Ah, she will grow away from that. …and in the meantime I can find a new.

Dott: Well, in that case. Then you will marry instead. As long as there will be a great wedding party.

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-11-29 by Micke Klingvall

Lelio ask Arlecchino to help him find a doctor

From “Pulcinella – the Miracle Doctor” opened 2001 in Stockholm then toured the north of Norway, Finlad and Sweden

Pulcinella has mistakenly been convinced to play doctor in order to cure Flaminia who has became mute. Now Lelio meets Arlecchino, and ask him for help to cure Flaminia.

Lel: Arlecchino, you must help Flaminia! She has become mute !

Arl: Mute?

Lel: Yes!

Arl: Aha! I’ll fix!

Reaching out his hand – gets money

Lel: So how will you do it?

Arl: First she will have to tell me…

Lel: She is mute!

Arl: Mute?

Lel: Yes!

Arl: Aha! I’ll fix!

Reaching out his hand – gets money

Lel: Yes, but how will you do it?

Arl: I’ll speak with her and then…

Lel: She is mute!!!

Arl: Mute?

Lel: Yes!

Arl: Aha! I’ll fix!

Reaching out his hand – gets money

Lel: Yes, yes, but now tell me how you will cure her?

Arl: I’ll read from the doctor’s handbook…

Lel: You can’t read!

Arl: Can’t I?

Lel: No.

Arl: Well, then Flaminia has to read for me…

Lel: She is mute!!!

Arl: Mute?

Lel: Yes!

Arl: Aha! I’ll fix!

Reaching out his hand

Lel: IDIOT!!!

Lelio beats Arlecchin and, grabs him by the neck.

Lel: She can not speak. She needs a doctor!

Arl: Aha! Pulcinella has become doctor, but we had to beat him first. Like this…

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-11-22 by Micke Klingvall

Brighella gets paid

This example comes from ”Where´s the Book?” from 2014.
Dottore is looking for his book that he needs to remember how to marry his daughter with Pantalone. When Brighella comes by he asks for help…

Dott: …and not here either. Brighella enters and Dottore sees him. But what is this? An antagonist?
Bunce away Brighella with his stomach. Oh, but see… It is Brighella. Why are you lying here, littering the stage, you green sop?
Well, I got an idea! Come here you snoopy half lizard! I have a bright proposition to you my highly esteemed friend.
Turns. You shall nose out my book, my ”Presiding Official at Marriage for Dummies”, that just has been removed from my instantaneous physical approximation. Understood?
Turns. It is big, black and of colossal importance Comprehend? Turns. It is needed when one marries away people. Get it!
Turns This publication shell be returned to my most eminent person.

Bri: I shall find your book, that is?

Dott: Right.

Bri: …and what do I get for it?

Dott: Fame and honor.

Bri: I think I would like something else…

Dott: My eternal gratitude

Bri: How about something more material…

Dott: An ice-cream?

Bri: …something from this? Points at his purse

Dott: Aha! You want a bit. Here you are.

Bri: That was kind of you Dottore. Steels the bit.

Dott: Oh yes, just look at it … What? The bit is stolen! Help! Jumps up in Brighella’s arms. Here are desperados!

Bri: Well, take it easy, Dottore… Puts him down Trust me. I have taken a correspondence course in detectivery . I can find the bandit and the bit.

Dott: Will you do that for me?

Bri: For a small sum…

Dott: Here, have a bit.

Bri: Thank you, but what did the bit look like?

Dott: Like this one.

Bri: I’ll take care of it so I can identify the first one when I see it.

Dott: Clever.

Bri: And then I need one for proof…

Dott: Take this one.

Bri: And what will you give me for the labor?

Dott: Fame and ho…

Bri: No, no, no… but, maybe a small commission …

Dott: Here you are.

Bri: …an economic compensation…

Dott: Off Course.

Bri: …a fee…

Dott: Please enjoy.

Bri: … poundage …

Dott: Now it is finished.

Bri: Too bad. I have to go now. See you later!

Dott: Wait! Stop! You can have more when you found the book. I have more in the bank.

Bri: Well in that case…. Out

Dott: Well, I guess I will have o plan the wedding menu. Let’s see goose liver pâté, shellfish plateau, maybe truffle… Out

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-11-17 by Micke Klingvall

Arlecchino and Zanni gets a job

From”The Miracle Doctor” opened in 2101 in Stockholm, then toured northern Norway and Sweden.

Arl: In Oh, I am so hungry I could eat a horse.

Zan: In Oh, I am so hungry I could eat a donkey.

Arl: Oh, I am so hungry I could eat you.

Zan: Oh, I am so hungry I could… What do I taste?

Zanni bites his arm.

Ao!!

Bri: In Are you hungry?

Arl / Zan: Yes!

Bri: Do you want food?

Arl / Zan: Yes!

Bri: Do you need money?

Arl / Zan: Yes!

Bri: Do you want to earn some money?

Arl / Zan: Yes!

Bri: Then you will get a job…

Arl / Zan: No!

Bri: If you don’t work you won’t get any money and then you won’t get any food. Don’t you want food?

Arl / Zan: Yes!

Bri: Then you must work!

Arl / Zan: OK – We want to work.

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-11-08 by Micke Klingvall

The Lovers Tries to Meet

Here is a dialoge from ”Where´s the Book?” made in 2014.
Flavio and Doralice are coming on the stage and trying to meet each other. I guess you can see this as much as an example of a short scene as of a lazzo.

Fla: Oh Doralice. Come here.

Dor: But I am here. I’ll go over there instead.

Fla: Then I go there too. They change places

Dor: But why did you go there? Now you are over there.

Fla: No, I am here.

Dor: You are there and I am here.

Fla: Where?

Dor: Here!

Fla: Where I am?

Dor: No, you are over there.

Fla: But that is where you are.

Dor: Now I will go over there where you are. Goes Look! You are here and I am there.

Fla: Yes! Then I’ll go there to. Goes looking for her Doralice!

Dor: Now you are there.

Fla: Aha!

Dor: Then I will go over there.

Fla: Then I will go over here.

They go

Dor: But now you are there.

Fla: No, I am here.

Dor: But you went there.

Fla: No I went here. You went there.

Dor: But I am here.

Fla: That doesn’t work.

Dor: And why not?

Fla: Occupied!

Dor: No, look here… Hon goes to him

Fla: I am comming! He goes to here Made it!

Dor: But now you are here.

Fla: No, for I am there.

Dor: I’ll go now!

Fla: So do I!

They go, but bump into each other and start singing

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-11-02 by Micke Klingvall

Pantalone demands to sit down

Here is an example from ”Sex/six failures and a chair” played by my students in 2014.

Pant: In But look… Hi once again! Are you still sitting here staring? Don’t you have any homes? And isn’t this that lazy bastard again? I feel as though I have been through this before… Zanni. ZANNI!!!

Zanni jumps up in In Pantalone’s arms.

Zan: Hi Pantalone!

Pant: Get away from me, you toerag!

Pantalone throws Zanni down

What have I said about sleeping on the job?

Zan: That it’s nice.

Pant: No!

Zan: That it’s healthy.

Pant: No!!

Zan: That it’s delectation.

Pant: Nooo!!! I said that if I see you once more sitting around, lazing when you should be straining and striving, I will flog you until you don’t know your own name.

Zan: Yes! That’s it! And then you will tear me into pieces and bang my head in and…

Pant: No! That was if I caught you stealing food.

Zan: Aha! Then you would spank me black and blue and then tickle me to death…

Pant: No! That was if you were feign work.

Zan: It is very difficult to remember what punishment goes to which …

Pant: That doesn’t matter! You shall work and suffer!

Zan: OK! But what shall I do?

Pant: As I told you in the first scene: You are supposed to give me that new, super expensive chair over there, so that I can sit on it.

Zan: Aha!

Pant: So I will sit down.…

Pantalone falls

Zan: Here you are..

Pant: But your little long nosed rascal, now I am sitting on the floor!

Zan: Then I will sit on the chair.

Pant: You don’t!!! You are going to help me up.

Zan: OK.

Zanni helps Pantalone up on his feet

Pant: So, now you give me the chair …

Zan: Yes.

Pant: …and I sit down.

Pantalone falls

Zan: Here you are….

Pant: But you mush brained dickybird! Now I am sitting on the floor again!!!!

Zan: Are you meditating?

Pant: You ludicrous birdbrain!…

Zan: Can you feel inner peace?

Pant: When I get up you will feel my outer anger!!!
Help me up now!!!!

Zan: OK.

Zanni helps Pantalone up on his feet

Pant: Now I will crush your little phony bike! I will jump on your balcony! I will trash your begonias… And so on

Pantalone hits Zanni who ducks, then he chase Zanni round until Zanni gests down in order to hide. Pantalone stumbles on him and does a somersault (or os flip or roll or something) and land sitting on the chair.

Pant: So where were we?

Filed in Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-10-25 by Micke Klingvall

Pulcinella explain to Coviello

Here is an example dialog between Pulcinella and Coviello from ”Squabble” I show I made in 2020 for Cultimedia.

Pul: In In Come on now you sluggish sack of flour!

Cov: In Here am I… quick as a flash!

Pul: Wouldn’t think so…

Cov: Not?

Pul: No! Well, do you know why we are here?

Cov: Ohh yes!

Pul: So why?

Cov: Eeehhhh…..

Pul: Idiot!

Cov: Coviello, how do you do.

Pul: You are an idiot!

Cov: And you are Coviello?

Pul: No! You are Coviello, dumbass!

Cov: Aha! Hello, Dumbass.

Pul: What in all fu… You are a dumbass!!!

Cov: Who are Coviello then?

Pul: It is you!!!

Cov: Help! I have become schizophrenic.

Pul: I give up. You can be whoever you want to. Listen now….

Coviello acts as if he is someone else, someone famous or someone local

What are you doing?
Cov: I am _____________and I am doing _____________.

Pul: You are not and you are not doing that!!! You are Coviello and now you listen.

Cov: Do I? To what?

Pul: To me!

Cov: Aha.

Pul: We have come here to look for work. Do you understand?

Cov: Yes.

Pul: Good! And now we will go look for an employer. Do you understand that?

Cov: Yes.

Pul: Good! There we will explain how strong and loyal you are. Have you understood that to?

Cov: Yes.

Pul: Good! Then you will work hard the whole week. Is that clear?

Cov: Yes.

Pul: Good. Then you just have to come here to me with the money you made. Heve you got that to

Cov: No.

Pul: But is so hard to understand? We are here to look for work. We shall look up an employer and tell him how strong you are, then you will work until you get a salary that you will give to me!

Cov: Aha!

Pul: Do you understand?

Cov: No-o!

Pul: But you dubble idiot to a phlegmatic birdbrain… You! You! You…

Cov: Are you angry?

Pul: Not at all, just a little, little teeny weeny bit irritated!!!!

Ad lib the rest of the scene until Coviello finally gets it.

Note that the Coviello is here more of a Stupino as invented by Gina Bastoni at Dell’Arte International in Blue Lake, California. It is just that I don’t want to rename him for some reason.

Filed in Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-10-18 by Micke Klingvall

Dottore and Signora marrying away their daughter

Here is an example from ”Where´s the Book?” from 2014.

Sign: In, singing.

Dott: Signora, my most adorable honey-pie! Welcome up on the stage, my little crumb of cake.

Sign: Hi to you, slouch.

Dott: I have talked to Pantalone today.

Sign: About my grace?

Dott: No.

Sign: About my beauty?

Dott: No.

Sign: About my loveliness?

Dott: No.

Sign: Talking rubbish then. So? What did you talk about?

Dott: We were disguising our little sweet daughter Doralice.

Sign: The teenage varmint?

Dott: Yes… and about Pantalone’s son…

Sign: Well, who is that?

Dott: His name is Flavio and he is a young handsome man.

Sign: One of those little striplings with an adorable style and charm?

Dott: Something like that, yes.

Sign: And a little cute butt maybe?

Dott: Maybe that…

Sign: A stud in in heat with a distension…

Dott: Well, well, well, We were talking about marriage.

Sign: Big sigh

Dott: But what is the matter with you, my little fair sugarplum?

Sign: It doesn’t work. There will be no marriage.

Dott: Why not?

Sign: I am a virtuous woman.

Dott: Great laughter

Sign: I am already married with you, you bookworm

Dott: But it is Doralice how will marry.

Sign: How come that little brat always taking the best bites…

Dott: But just think about the wedding feast, the entertainments, the buffet, the wines, the deserts…

Sign: Well, at least we will get rid of that gross teenage slut out of the house.

Dott: I thought a ceremony were I, in the capacity of the effeminate consort’s masculine parent, solemnize the plaintiffs’ claims…

Sign: Idiot! You shall marry them together.

Dott: Well, then I just have to pass our condolences and take a last farewell…

Sign: Imbecile! They are marrying!

Dott: Is it that important?

Sign: Yes, it is! You will have to read from your book.

Dott: The marriageofficial handbook – off course!

Sign: If you don’t get that puberty bitch out of the house immediately you will be sorry you ever was born! Exit

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, Example texts | Comment Now

Posted on 2021-10-13 by Micke Klingvall

Goldoni and the end of an era (Part 4)

It is from this Von-oben-perspective, which we discussed in PART 3 that the bourgeois once again met with the old culture of laughter and vulgar comedy, sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was naturally still alive and had been so, livening its own life the whole time on the streets with organ grinders, conjurers and buskers; in Punch and Judy, Kasper and Burratino; In vaudevilles, burlesques and music halls, among clowns, minstrels and buffoons far from the saloons of the bourgeois.

Since the upper and middle classes no longer had any intercourse with the lower classes they did not have any connection with their culture of laughter. Instead they started seeing it as something exotic and piquant. It became once again attractive as the middle classes no longer understand it to the full. Not in any way being a part of that culture they see it from outside. Vulgar comedy and popular laughter are therefore no longer considered as dangerous.

At the same time the bourgeois takes the right to judge and criticize vulgar comedy from its own perspective and its own values. They insists that the laughter should be more like their own humor, that it should contain severity (the same severity that hypocritical laughter and vulgar comedy has mocked for so long), that the satire should contain forgiving, glozing parts and so on.

Don’t miss: Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte, 2 Vulgar Comedy | 1 Comment

Posted on 2021-09-27 by Micke Klingvall

Goldoni and the end of an era (Part 2)

When Goldoni did replace the Commedia dell’Arte actor’s improvisations and whims with a ready written text he did not just kill the life in the words that came in the encounter with the audience, ha also changes Commedia dell’Arte into a literary and psychological genre. In that way he could also control the results of his production. What he created was the author’s stories, dialogs and ideas, not the actors.
As it was no longer the mask’s or the actor’s performance and escapades that was driving the plot, but the author’s ready written stories, focus slides from the actor’s to the author’s theatre, in step with that the audiences started to demand more plot in the performance.

Count Carlo Goldoni wanted to use this theatre of the author to delete subjects and traditions from Commedia dell’Arte that he saw as obsolete or “low”, as parts of farce or slapstick comedy. He also criticized Commedia dell’Arte for being crude and for its burlesque acting style. He wanted to polish the facade to suit a new bourgeois audience. The plots were also moved from the streets and squares into the homes and the private sphere. The result was that he no longer wrote Commedia dell’Arte but bourgeois comedy.

The burgeoning Enlightenment, and its sober intellect and rational thinking, there was no longer any room for Commedia dell’Arte, with its burlesque and its fantasies. No only Goldoni, but persons as Luigi Riccoboni and Marivaux tries to save Commedia dell’Arte by turning it in to a literary genre with an explicit dramatic structure. At the same time they wanted to delete the crude, trivial and playful acting.

Goldoni had his antagonist in another count, the hunker Carlo Gozzi. He did not want to see any changes or development to Commedia dell’Arte what so ever. He re-reformed the Commedia dell’Arte. He reintroduced the masks and the looser structure in the performance, which beefed up the actors a space in the shows. De comedies he wrote were more prodigious, with much inspiration from fairytales.
He became very successful during a short period in the eighteenth century. Evil tongues even say that his fame was because Goldoni moved to Paris. Gozzi’s plays started a trend in the theatre life of Venice at the time.
As time went by and society changed Goldoni won the battle with his new form of comedy. The scripts and scenarios of Gozzi do mostly live on as libretto to operas such as Turandot by Puccini or The Love for Three Oranges by Prokofiev.

Don’t miss: Part 1, Part 3 or Part 4

Filed in 1 Commedia dell'Arte | 2 Comments

Commedia dell'Arte & Vulgar Comedy

Pantalone and Dottore makes a deal

Lelio ask Arlecchino to help him find a doctor

Brighella gets paid

Arlecchino and Zanni gets a job

The Lovers Tries to Meet

Pantalone demands to sit down

Pulcinella explain to Coviello

Dottore and Signora marrying away their daughter

Goldoni and the end of an era (Part 4)

Goldoni and the end of an era (Part 2)

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