Commedia dell'Arte & Vulgar Comedy

Posted on 2020-03-21 by Micke Klingvall

The church censoring Commedia dell’Arte (2 of 2)

The defense of Commedia dell’Arte was foremost the idea that it was an edifying source of moral learning both social and on a personal level, instead of attracting to sin. It exposed the folly, the gluttony, the excesses, the hypocrites and the misers to public mockery. A devout person could not possible be attracted to that…
Commedia dell’Arte could not reasonably be morally objectionable since the elite saw it and laughed. Besides at least three of the dukes of Mantua acted in Commedia dell’Arte plays together with the players. Since they did not lose their good reputation by playing theatre, how could the professional actors do so who had the knowledge.

The men from the church were also afraid that the Commedia dell’Arte groups would ridicule the church itself in the same way that jester and minstrels had been able to do earlier. Here is a letter to the censors that were supposed to examine all scenari that the Uniti were given permission to play all over Milan in 1596:

“These players, each and every one of them in their plays, must in no way be permitted to use vestments pertaining to the priesthood nor any other religious, nor use garments of any kind, nor anything similar to them.
They must not speak in any way of Holy Writ, nor of subject matter contained therein – that is, of anything pertaining to religion and the ecclesiastical state – nor use particular language of the Holy Sacraments of the Church, nor employ words or topics of ambiguous interpretation concerning matters bearing on the Holy Catholic faith, not treat things which might breed superstition in the minds of simple auditors, nor invoke spells or any like evil. […] they must not perform any play the soggetto of which has not been seen and approved by at least one of you two delegates.

One thing that is easy to foresee in our secular society is the fact that, even if the church was a great power-broker and probably not very loved, most people were deeply religious. To many people religion were the only hope of a better life (if not in this world so in the afterlife). As a parallel we can look at the Iran, Israel or the American mid-west of today, where mockery of the Coran, the Tora or the Bible very well can lead to huge protests and even violence.

Anyhow, the church did not have the power to alone forbid the Commedia dell’Arte, whether it was played in the streets, in a stanze or in one of the palaces. It was the state or the duke himself who had that power. The defended the theatre, not only to glorify themselves, but also in the struggle between the church and the worldly power. We can see how the greatest noble families, like the Gonzagas, the Medici, the Farnese, also were the greatest theatre lovers.
They also needed the approval of the people in order to avoid revolts. ”Bread and circuses” has always been a classic way to keep the people in place.
At the same time it is hard to believe that it was only the lower classes that saw and enjoyed Commedia dell’Arte when played in the streets. Many of the young princes and the clerks had taken parts in Commedia dell’Arte shows. So why should they not be interested?

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Posted on 2020-03-21 by Micke Klingvall

The less well-to-do Commedia dell’Arte groups

Even if the more famous Commedia dell’Arte groups had an easier life the life of the actors were not always worth very much in the eyes of the rulers. Here is a letter from Rome, reporting about when the Gelosi visited the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga, in the 28:th of July 1582:

“Although I have not heard this from Mantua, nonetheless it is said here that the Duke desired to see a comedy by the Gelosi that was altogether ridiculous and farcical. So the players obeyed him by staging a very absurd and ingenious one in which all the performers were hunchbacks. His Highness laughed enormously at it, and was altogether delighted with it. When the entertainment was over he summoned the leading players and asked which one of the devised it. Zanni said I did, I did; the Magnifico claimed he had; and the Gratiano too sought the palm; each assumed he would get a rich reward. But the Duke had the three arrested, and they were condemned to be hanged. All the gentlewomen of Mantua banded together and begged for the players to be pardoned, but without success. The most they obtained was permission to make the ropes in their own fashion. These ropes were made of such rotten cord that all the players fell to the ground, and the city cried out pardon, pardon. But although the poor wretches were taken to prison half naked, and were shaven and bloody, nonetheless the Duke was still determined they should be hanged once more. And this story I have from a good source, although not from those regions.”

From the even less fortunate Commedia dell’Arte groups, that was submitted to play on the street or in rented stanze for common people, we have naturally less written information. Although they were popular amongst the people, what we have written about them is attacks and hostile criticism, most often from the church. What we have is pictorial material, images from the market or the Carnival etcetera.

But also the famous players would mock the less fortunate groups and players, like here when Tommaso Garzoni castigates the popular Commedia dell’Arte in his La piazza Universale from 1585. We should also note that he writes for an elite of learned men who happily derided the popular and less well-to-do groups, in order to divide Commedia dell’Arte in two groups: the “fine” comedy played in courts and for academies and the popular Commedia dell’Arte played in the streets for common people.

“But those profane players who pervert the ancient art, introducing into play only untruths and scurrilities, cannot be allowed to escape blame for bringing shame on themselves and the art of acting with the dirty rubbish that flows from their mouths with every word. To the extent that the art of comedy has benefited from the afore-mentioned [Isabella Andreini, Vittoria Piissimi etc.] to an even greater extent has been besmirched by these people who, along with Aretino and Franco, have perverted the language in order to argue in a way as dirty and offensive as they are themselves. In their actions they have less civility then asses, in their gestures they are unmitigated ruffians, in their language they display the effrontery of common prostitutes, in their inventions they are wholly villainous and in everything they do you can smell the scoundrel; and where they occasionally they could handle the subject in an appropriate manner, they seem think it better to it better to express things in a distorted way, or to twist everything to their own style. […]

Naturally the less well-to-do groups did not have the same possibilities to work with nuances when playing on the streets and markets. In the marketplace it was also often more than one stage at the time competing for the audience’s attention. Their style became, by necessity, less sophisticated and less verbal faceted. Instead they had to use other skills (See Acting style in Commedia dell’Arte).
When Zan Bragetta played in Avignon 1598, they first played in a hired stanze where they played pastorals, which, by the way, seem to have been just as comical and physical brilliant as the comedies. But after a while they moved out on the streets and there the performances become more of Charlatano shows.

We should not in any way think of the poorer groups as inferior or less talented then their more successful colleagues, even though we want to believe that it is the best artists that become the most successful. It is rather that they played a more popular, more burlesque, rougher and more physical Commedia dell’Arte, which attracted common people instead of more learned and powerful audiences. They played and developed a style of Commedia dell’Arte that has its origins in the Carnival and from the marketplace, while the more famous groups draw closer to Commedia Erudita and literary theatre instead.
These poorer groups could occasionally have played at provincial courts and for the local bourgeois, but they for the most part depended on the common people. They had to face suspicious and hostile officials, who looked on Commedia dell’Arte as a threat to order and moral, when they applied for permission to play on the squares and rented stanze.
Those paltry Commedia dell’Arte groups, who almost always were contemned, could also be called dispraised names like: saltimbanchi, charlatani, cerratani eller trufaldini. They were, as gypsies were, seen as rough, layabout thieves, and the women were seen just above whores.
With their constant travelling, suspect subsistence, and hand-to-mouth-economy there were no place for them in the conventional society. They had to form their own communities, where they travelled, worked and lived together often in their whole life and even in generations. They were sometimes accepted by local authorities in smaller communities, especially in bigger countries like France where the king did not have the same survey.

Not just the acting craft, but also the mask they played was inherited (Even though the children to the rich and famous actors had their university education payed for by their lords). It seems that they were relatively happy with their lives as actors anyway, or as Domenico Bruni wrote in his Le Fatche Comiche, 1623:

“As my companion Farfanicchio used to say, if you got a profession you’ve got a position in the world. But patience! I’m stuck with it, and in this trade if you are in it long enough to wear out a pair of boots, then you are in it for good.”

Even though the not so well-to-do Commedia dell’Arte groups were not accepted by the authorities they were loved by the people.
It didn’t work very well for the rougher, folksier groups to play in a more refined way. In the same way the more verbal sophisticated groups did not make much success in Europe, except when playing in the courts and for the learned. Commedia dell’Arte became more farcicaland burlesque abroad, or when Luigi Riccoboni writes in his Historie du Téâtre Italien from 1728 about how the Italian groups came to France in 1716 with their more sophisticated Commedia dell’Arte to a French audience who didn’t understand the language and wanted farce and slap-stick.

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Posted on 2020-03-21 by Micke Klingvall

Commedia dell’Arte abroad

Commedia dell’Arte was definitely not just an Italian matter. It spread very soon all round Europe, above all in France, where Commedia dell’Arte was almost as at home as in Italy. When Gelosi and Zan Ganassa came to Paris in 1571 were they hardly the first to play there, even though we don’t have anything that proves it, other than that Henry III ought to have seen Commedia dell’Arte before inviting groups to play at the court. Orlando di Lasso’s group played in the Trausnitz castle in Bavaria 1568. In 1577 or 1578 Drusiano Martinelli and his wife Angelica played in England. Commedia dell’Arte groups toured in the German states in the 1570:ies. Zan Ganassa was in Spain as soon as 1574 and in 1581 another group, led by Massimiliano Milanino, came there. Commedia dell’Arte came much later to the northern countries. To Poland came among others Gennaro Sacco 1698, Angelo Costantini 1699, Tomasso Ristori 1718 and 1725 to 1730. He also played S:t Petersburg in 1733. Other cities where we know Commedia dell’Arte groups have played are Vienna, Innsbruck, Graz, Linz in Austria, Prague, Lisbon and all over the Netherlands.
As usual it is almost only the great and famous groups we know much about, since there is not a lot of information about the others. We have to go on indications from references and visual material.

The Italian Commedia dell’Arte groups got their own theatre – Comédie Italienne – in Paris 1661, where they later developed their own style of Commedia dell’Arte. Music and dance got more room, something that later came to move even closer to ballet and it developed and heightened even more the sentimental and physical entertainment in Commedia dell’Arte. The masks got a greater significance. They become stronger articulated, many of them got new more developed costumes and characters. It is also in France that Pulcinella got his hump. A lot of the teamwork within the groups got lost in France. Instead it started to contain more of solo performance and equilibrist theatre. A more or less sophisticated satire became a part of Commedia dell’Arte. It was also in France that grammelot was born, when the Commedia dell’Arte groups first was thrown out of the French theatres in 1697 and later forbidden to speak from the stage in general (except for Punch and Judy or Burratini shows).
Another reason to use grammelot was to avoid censorship. Among the authorities and the academic world the use of words was (and is) what was valued. It does so to the extent that they have a hard time understanding how to communicate in other ways. And since nothing forbidden has been said – with words – no one could be punished.
As a modern curiosity: when Odinteatret from Denmark went on tour in Peru in 1978 they were not allowed to play in the street not even to group together. Instead they went walking around the city two by two in costume and mask (including 2 meter long stilts) and got followed by lots of people. Finally they were allowed to play – once. But when the censors were about to read the script there was not one word. It can be seen in their video: On the Two Banks of the River.

To a great extent we can thank the reformation and later the counterreformation for the spread of Commedia dell’Arte. As seen in The church censoring Commedia dell’Arte, the church lazzi throw out or created difficulties for the Italian actors. It may be that Commedia dell’Arte had been a strictly Italian matter if it wasn’t for the counterreformation, and in that case we would probably not have heard about it today.
Since it was hard to make oneself understood in Italian, Commedia dell’Arte became more physical and contained more improvisation, acrobatics and physical lazzi. The written plays (mostly emerged from Commedia Erudita) that was played home in Italy were more or less impossible to play, except from in courts and academies. It was probably abroad that Commedia dell’Arte developed and got its reputation as the strong physical form of theatre that it was and is today.

The Commedia dell’Arte groups travelled between different countries and gathered impulses, like Rabelais, the French farces, what was left of Arabic culture in Spain and so on. When they got back to Italy they brought what they learned. The most popular cities for Commedia dell’Arte and the cities where Commedia dell’Arte was most influenced by other traditions was also in the north of Italy, like Venice, Padua, Mantua, Genua and Florence.
In Napoli and the south of Italy Commedia dell’Arte – with its Pulcinella tradition – first came to develop in their own way before it spread further, sometime at the end of the sixteenth century. Many scholars think we can find its roots in the Greek Mime, which also included voice, dance and acrobatics. The Commedia dell’Arte of the south was in a way crazier, looser in its structure and was more focused on music. It was later strongly influenced by the Spanish comedy. It was also there Opera Buffa sprung out.
Through this crossbreed Commedia dell’Arte could keep developing, which might have been one of the reasons its heyday could last as long.

It was far and dangerous to travel. We know how Gelosi got kidnapped by Huguenots in 1577, but got ransomed by Henry III and how Fedeli lost an actor when traveling in France. I wasn’t just the danger of being robed. When traveling between countries and states one could never know how the authorities were going to respond where one came. War and disorder were frequent in the renaissance of Europe. But the most common danger was disease. Plague, cholera and other epidemics were widespread, and a sick actor could mean an economic catastrophe.
There were no small retinues that were out traveling, at least when it comes to the famous, rich groups. The actors traveled with their families that were usually very big. When Pier Maria Cecchini was looking for a job in the court in Mantua he tell of his family with wife, 10 children, his mother and servants. The great Commedia dell’Arte group probably looked like circus caravans when they came traveling.
On the other hand the travels could be lucrative, not only on arrival, but it also gave the possibility to play on the way. That was usually a necessity as the travels took a long time. We can also see many images of Commedia dell’Arte being played in smaller villages on the countryside, where it was just as popular.

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Posted on 2017-05-22 by Micke Klingvall

3 reasons mask doesn’t use psychology

The characters of the masks are made of their physical limitations, posture, gestures and so on. It is only the outer of the masks that make up their character. There is no psychology possible, since it does not go through the mask. In that respect mask theatre is foremost a visual art form.
That doesn’t mean that we in the audience don’t feel with the masks. Our understanding of the masks is instinctive and collective. We see the postures and gestures of the masks and we immediately understand their characters, desires and emotions just by intuition. And since the faces of the characters don’t interfere with the action, we understand directly what is happening. (See HERE) And therefore react emotionally without first intellectualizing.
For example: when I teach the different Commedia dell’Arte masks I just have to ask the actor to find the body posture for a specific mask, without telling him what mask it is. Then I ask him what the nature of the mask he is portraying is. He usually explains it very exact. Usually I divide a class I half, where half the class I watching. And when I then ask the audience, they to explain the character of the mask, quite exactly.

The mask is always one-dimensional. There is no room for inner conflicting desires (unless that is the main function) within the mask. The character of the mask would dissolve if it would take on more traits. As said HERE, the masks are always types and not genuine human beings. Therefore it is no reason to try to understand how a mask was raised or why the masks the way they are. That doesn’t make them less human though.
It is said that the clown contains a whole world, while the masks only represents one aspect of the world. It is the masks together that make up a complete world. Instead of inner conflicts it is the frictions are between the diverse masks or between masks and characters in a play that drives it forward.

The mask is static. The masks/characters are the same as their masks. They cannot develop or learn. In the moment they change they die. Just as the face masks are fixed their characters must be fixed. The masks itself have their physical character traits and the character of the masks will always relate to the static fact that that is what they are. (Very complicated sentence.) The moment Pantalone understands that he is wrong and starts to share his wealth, Batman getting old and wonky or when Santa Claus starts taking back his gifts they are no longer their characters.
This is also why they cannot be used in modern plays where the main characters usually go through changes. And as they learn they are not the same as they were when they started, but the mask still stays the same.
The masks are also static when it comes to external matters as occupation, wealth, age, super powers and so on. They are types derived from animals.

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Posted on 2017-04-24 by Micke Klingvall

Western bias of the mask

In the west we tend to think about the mask as something to hide behind, as if it were a tool to hide emotions, intentions or reactions. Nothing can be more wrong. The masks always tell the truth – it is the face we use when we lie. It is the face we can, or at least think we can, control. In other words what we express with our faces is what we want to express.
And the biggest and most widely spread lie is politeness. Since most of us live in cities or towns we are a part of a community that we have to adapt to and then politeness becomes crucial to live smoothly and avoid conflicts.
But the body (especially the torso) always reveals the real intentions or reactions. Not only that the body/torso is always much articulate than the face, and it becomes even more obvious when the face is not there to distract. We have all seen people trying to express something with their faces while their bodies reveal their real intentions. For those of you who have not I can strongly recommend political debates.
One problem is that we tend to look at the face and believe that it is there the expression comes from, while it is the body/torso that gives the expression to the mask. I have written about that HERE where I also used a few examples. Another problem is when actors think they can hide behind the mask instead of working to “act through the mask”.

Still the misconception is there. It is as if there is a focus of the fear for what we can’t see behind the mask instead of focusing on what the mask actually want to show. The mistrust becomes dominant. The mask becomes a symbol for falsehood and guile. Many are the proverbs coming from that, like: “who is behind the mask”, “he is just showing a mask” or “to tear the mask of someone’s face”.

In fact the same misconception goes for all the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It has to do with the idea that when there is only one god there can only be one truth, just as those religions never can accept any other gods than their own.
The polytheistic religions, on the other hand, are much more open to different and different levels of truths. This helps them to see the masks as tools for metamorphoses. When the actor puts on the mask of a character or a god he also becomes the mask he acts in, since both the audience and the actors are open for much more than just one truth.

An old law from Venice from the thirteenth century, but with roots much older than that, said that it was forbidden to wear masks other than during the carnival. But that was not valid for the bauta. That mask was only used to hide the one that wore it, used by noblemen when they went to brothels, casinos or coffeehouses. The reason other masks then the bauta were banned was that while wearing the masks the wearer could not be held responsible for their actions since they were not themselves.

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Posted on 2017-04-10 by Micke Klingvall

What is a mask?

A mask can be anything from a small clown nose to giant heads to be worn on big gantries. It can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between masks and puppets, make-up, costume, even props.
I would define a mask, as opposed to a puppet, as a tool where an actor uses his own head arms and legs (even if extended) instead of having they operated from outside. For example one can very well use stilts inside a mask, but as soon as someone else operates ones legs we are talking puppets.
When it comes to make-up I think it is harder to define the difference. I definitely consider a traditional clown make-up as a mask, but I usually don’t think so when it comes to false beards or wigs. The mask has to considerably change the quality of the character. The idea same goes for costume. If an actor would play the same role in another costume it is not a mask, but if the character is depending on the costume it is definitely a mask.
Costume and props may not usually be considered a mask in itself, but they can extend the mask. In that way they are part of the mask and often necessary for the mask to be full. A Commedia dell’Arte masks has his own unique costume or Chaplin has his cane a part of his mask. Without it they would be different.
We must also bear in mind that rules and definitions are not absolute.

The usual mask is obviously the full face mask and the half mask. There we can find anything from the bauta mask that is only used to hide the bearer’s identity or the neutral (or zero mask) mask that are used to take away the characteristics of its bearer in order to focus on his or her body, to Commedia dell’Arte masks and other character masks that are specialized in portraying a specific character with its own characteristics. Many of the masks are also portraying something in between, such as masks of emotions (anger, grief, fear and so on), ages, types, professions or even persons.
In Commedia dell’Arte for example we use the word mask for all characters on stage, even the masks/roles that don’t wear a mask in their faces. They also have to act according to the rules of the mask in order to play in the same world.

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Posted on 2017-04-03 by Micke Klingvall

Vulgar Comedy and the Church (Part 5 – Opposition to theatre and comedy)

In the sixteenth century we also see how puritanism gain power and how and the Counter Reformation takes place. They wanted to purify the popular culture. They tried to stop the carnival and official festivities, since they though that the people fed on incontinence and wasted time and money. They closed the theaters since a sinful actor could not portray the life of a saint. They wanted to separate all what is sacred and what is secular.
We should remember that most people in this time were deeply religious, therefore it was only the church, its ceremonies, order and hierarchies that were mocked, never the actual religion. Still it was a time when the church was scorned at the gravest way. Even the lower priesthood and the clergy mocked the church. It was unofficially allowed to mock the church as a part of the double way to see the world (See Bakhtin).

In the medieval ages and the renaissance the village priest had almost the same social and cultural status as the other villagers, but the puritans could not let him wear a mask, dance in the church or make jokes in the pulpit (See Part 2).
In Europe of the Counter Reformation, by the end of the sixteenth century, came also the banning of theatres. In a church meeting in Milan 1566 all religious plays where banned, in Reims in 1583 all plays on celebration days were forbidden, Pope Innocent XII had the Teatro di Tordinona destroyed in 1697 and even the government in the Spanish Netherlands sent an edict against religious plays in 1601.
In Italy all Commedia dell’Arte companies were thrown out about 1572. This led to the spreading of Commedia dell’Arte companies around Europe, where many of them grew to be great and famous and where they got so much inspiration. We can therefor thank the Counter Reformation for the greatness of Commedia dell’Arte today. Who knows maybe that is why we know about Commedia dell’Arte today.

At the same time we must have in mind that, in a much slower process, the authority of the church is decreasing during the renaissance. The mundane power, money, humanism, and the new world begin to rise in influence on behalf of the church.

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Posted on 2017-03-27 by Micke Klingvall

Vulgar Comedy and the Church (Part 3 – the Corpus Christi and the forming of comedy companies)

One example of how the theatre was used by the church was in the nativity scene. The first one was shown in 1223 by Francisco of Assisi. From the first puppets where used but soon the roles were played by priests and altar-boys. The villagers danced around the altar and lulled the Infant Jesus. Later the roles expanded with among others angles and shepherds, where the shepherds become the comical characters.
The Christmas celebrations lasted for weeks including Saint Stephan’s day to remember the martyrs, Epiphany with the three wise men, Massacre of the Innocents, the Feast of Fools, the circumcision, the Feast of the Ass and the escape to Egypt and more. All of these scenes from the bible was dramatized and acted out. Soon more or less the whole bible was acted in the churches and when the stories of the bible were not enough there were new motives in the legends of the martyrs.

In the thirteenth century the theatre begin to leave the church interior since it was too dark and not big enough anymore. The audiences grow and the new stagecraft that was used took too much space. The Mystery Adam, from 1150, is the oldest performance we know to be played outside the church. It was also the first play to not use Latin and the first play to use talking word and not just be sung.
The theatre of the church seeked for new spaces, they started to play out on the church stairs, the plazas, and the graveyards. The graveyards were great places since the priests, the nobility and the posh people were buried within the church. It was only the simple graves out in the graveyard, so it was not considered a profanation to play there. The graveyards were also cool places under the trees and since they were fenced it was easy to see how came and went.

When the theatre moved out of the church room and out among the people an independence process, a profanation and a vulgarization of the theatre begun. Also the acting style changed, the gestures became bigger, silences disappear, the language became rougher to adapt to the language of the street. Also the cruder stagecraft began to adapt. For example when Judas hang himself a big black bird is let loose and a large chunk of intestines is pouring out of his abdomen.

It became the mystery plays and the passion plays, but the biggest of the plays that came out of the church was the Corpus Christi created as a festival by Pope Urban IV 1264 in honor of the union of the human and divine in the person of Christ. They encompassed the whole biblical history and could take several days to play. Perhaps the most known is the Ludus Christi that was played in Cividale in Italy at Pentecost 1298 and took three days to play.
From the beginning it was the priests that played the major parts, but since it demanded more and more people on stage the students and commoners got involved. But also professional jesters, jugglers, dancers and minstrels were employed. They brought in a more secular view on theatre. The plays became more a matter of the people than the church. In the beginning the priests acted in Latin while the rest of the actors talked their mother tongue, but as soon as the fourteenth century the Latin was gone in France.
Another example is the French basochiens. It was from the beginning assemblies of law students and civil servants that by the time become regular event manegers and comedy groups. As soon as the fifteenth century they had an important role in most official festivities in Paris. They were even working in private events. Among all the occurrences they were part of like parades, games and jollifications, their special event was a mock court, where burlesque summons and prosecution. And here we also have one of the most famous farses: Farce de Maître Pathelin.

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Posted on 2017-03-20 by Micke Klingvall

Vulgar Comedy and the Church (Part 4 – the Diavolas)

The Corpus Christi was celebrated with carnival festivities, comical rites and dramatic performances. It was not just the performance it was just as much the feast itself. In the long run people got tired of long serious plays. They wanted also to laugh not just be educated. Laughter was also the only thing the common man could trust in a time where seriousness always was a tool for the authority, when hypocrisy, torture, dictates, power and prohibition were the language the authorities talked to the common people. (See Bakhtin)
People could show their disapproval by throwing chestnuts and other things at the actors, often there was big fights. In order to please a crowd who demanded laughter and comedy comical and burlesque elements was incorporated in the plays. In France it often developed into just raw blasphemy.

This is where the diavolas, or devil plays, comes in, and gotten more and more room within the plays. The diavolas was the comical parts of the mystery plays where the devils played the leads. They were anxious, ambiguous and incomplete as life itself, in contrast to Jesus and the angels who are stands for balance and perfection, even to the humans who are created as the image of God.
Jesus and the angels may be as good and pious they want, but they can never be comical as long as their existence is depending on their seriousness, and that they are taken serious by the people.

Comedy and Laughter is built on unbalance, both literary and metaphorical, and the struggle to get back to balance. It is elusive and represents deflection. When Chaplin is struggling for five minutes to reclaim his balance in a pair of roller-skates he is one of us who, in the most ridiculous ways, struggles to reach our goals in life. If Jesus would have done the same thing, he would no longer be a God. Therefore Jesus and the angles are always representing seriousness. And by seriousness they are also representing the power (both the sacred and the secular) when claiming the eternal and the stabile.
The devils on the other hand are not tied to seriousness and can therefore represent the people in their insufficiency and with their gay laughter.
In popular culture hell was also looked upon in another way. The sterile eternity that represented perpetuation of the past was, the dead, against the earth and the underworld that represented the fertile bosom, death meets birth and new life is generated. Or to recite Bakhtin: -“Hell is a feast and a happy carnival.”

The diavolas were very popular as the most comic and burlesque part of the plays. The devil could also be let out in the streets and squares to roam around free before the plays, sometimes for several days. Then they also were free from the ordinary rules in town. There was an atmosphere of unrestrained freedom around them.
The devils could allow themselves to be satirical and sometimes even political. They could always hide behind the idea that they were devils, besides it was still a church event and one could always find support in the Bible.
By the time, the diavolas became, in some places in Europe, stand-alone performances that were played independent from the Corpus Christi and the mystery plays. It was usually under the carnival or other similar festivities.

It is also here where we hear the word mask for the first time in Europe. The word, that comes from Arabic and means clown, prankster, jester or rouge, replaced the earlier word larva meaning ghost or maggot.

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Posted on 2017-03-13 by Micke Klingvall

Vulgar Comedy and the Church (Part 2 – the Feast of the Ass and the Feast of Fools)

The church was not just a religious building during the middle ages and the renaissance. It was also a cultural center where one could very well be engaged in worldly matters, despite protests from the priests. For example the cathedral of Aarhus in Denmark was used as a ball house. This was naturally since there were no other indoor spaces big enough.
Seeing the church as also a cultural center it is getting the church closer the theatre. We have already mentioned the Feast of the Ass “festum asinorum”, the Feast of Fools “festum stultorum”, the Easter Laugther “Risus Paschalis” and other feasts within the church. Let’s have a closer look at them.

These were part of other church ceremonies celebrated by the clerks, in order to provoke laughter among the church visitors.
The Feast of the Ass, the 14:th of January, was a part to the long lasting Christmas celebration. It was a salutation to the donkey that took Virgin Mary to Egypt. A donkey were put by the altar and a parody mass was held. When it was supposed to be singing a great squeak was heard from the audience and instead of benediction the priest let out a donkeys squeak three times, instead of “amen“ there was a another squeak and so on. The donkey is also a very old travesty on God.

The Feast of Fools could be celebrated on Saint Stephen’s day (Boxing day), The day of the Holy Innocent (28 December), New Year’s Day, Epiphany or on the Birthday of John the Baptist (Midsummer’s Eve) to remember the children Herodias killed. It was the clergy and the younger priests who arranged the Feast of Fools.
The scenario in the Feast of Fools was relatively loose. It was foremost about an idea built on the thought of an anti-community. It was first of all mocking and a degradation of the church rituals and its static order and hierarchies. It was dancing in the church and in the streets, the priests wore masks and women’s clothing, the mass book was carried up-side-down, the vestment was dress back to front, instead of blessing the congregation it was cursed. In the same manner as in the Carnival a mock bishop or pope was elected. He led a solemn service backwards and also led the procession through town. In some places the clerks rode in wagons full of excrement, after the ceremony, throwing the excrements on the following crowd. (Throwing excrements goes back all the way to ancient Greece and the satyr plays.) Another important part of the Feast of Fools was masks and disguises.
In Lombardy they used a professional jester, whose function was to, under great pageantry, wearing a mask that caricatured the bishop. Then from his hand he got a vestment. Dressed in it he imitated and put up a ceremony where he took up all the sins the bishop had committed that year. The audience demanded total mockery and abasement of the bishop. Later when the bishop got back up in the pulpit no one could hold back their laughter whatever he said.
It is said the archbishop Guido da Brescia after being mocked at the Feast of Fools wanted to ban the feast. But he had to flee from the town and the raging population. And that he could not return until the feast was reinstalled.
The jester could feel safe as long as the feast lasted with the protection from the people. But they had to sneak him in, disguised, to the town and then sneak him out again so that the city authorities would not find him. On the other hand it might have been the best paying job that year.
From the start the feast was sanctioned by the church, but gradually – as priests and bishops complained that they lost the respect they wanted – the feast got more and more prohibited. And by the thirteenth and fourteenth century it got thrown out of the church and by the end of medieval ages it was banned everywhere.

When the Feast of the Fools was thrown out of the churches the clerks started to form amateur companies together with bourgeois other scholars. These companies, who once were responsible for the Feast of Fools and the Feast of the Ass, now got the responsibility for all official festiveties year round. In Italy those groups were called Associazioni Giovanili and had names like Abbazia degli Stolti (Brotherhood of idiocy) or Societá della Gioventú (Academy of Youth). Gradually they started to create primitive performances as part of the festivities. In the sixteenth century, when Commedia dell’Arte was well established they were among the first to form Commedia dell’Arte companies. Just as long after that, one of the most common jobs for Commedia dell’Arte companies was to organize official festivities.

Go to:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

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Vulgar Comedy and the Church (Part 2 – the Feast of the Ass and the Feast of Fools)

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