Double - Commedia dell'arte - Blog 3 - 08/01/16

Today we were asked to conduct research into Commedia Dell'arte. We were asked to research the characters, the masks used and typical plots and stories of Commedia Dell'arte.

I decided that I would conduct some thorough research into the stock characters of Commedia Dell'arte; I looked into their personalities and their interests. I thought this would be useful as I was yet unaware which character I would be in our piece so researching as many of them as possible would help me understand the characters I'd be performing with.

Whilst researching we discussed as a class which characters we wanted to keep in our piece as we haven't got the cast size to use all of them and not all were necessary. We agreed as a group that we wouldn't have a Magnifico as not only was Magnifico similar to Pantalone in many ways but he also is used in most Commedia Dell'arte performances so we decided to get rid of him to make our performance much more different. I was mildly disappointed by this as I was very fond of Magnifico but I decided to do a lot of research on Pantalone as he was thought to be very similar to Magnifico.

Below is all of my research including my research on Pantalone:

Pantalone:
Hunchback (thought to be because of his age but only to protect his money), walks with hips forward, often falls over to bad news about his finances which leads to him being stuck on his back like a turtle, puts the Panto in Pantomime, former Magnifico, greedy, skinny legs, high regard for intelligence, egotistical, represents money, intent on keeping the lovers apart (he's usually the father of one of them), bachelor or widower, flirty, always rejected, his merit is based on action not on words, shares a lot of banter between Doctor

Zanni:
Trickster, Servant, Falls asleep often, lower sense of gravity, curious, loud (coarse voice because of this), silly, dull, always hungry, foolish, clumsy, principle contributor to any confusion, ignorant, loutish, doesn't think, most sympathetic character, emotional, peasant.

Brighella:
Bother, musician, witty word play, dancer, singer, takes advantage of those higher than her, cruel to those below her, likes money, big spender, alcoholic, schemer, always gets what she wants, manipulative, sly, cunning, liar, known to kill, 

Finally, after we gave our preferences for roles, we recieved the cast list:
Pantalone: Lewis (Me)
Brighella: Lorna
Zanni: James
Doctor: Ollie
Columbina: Rhiannon
Captain: Rob
Harlequin: Charlie
1st Actor: James
1st Actress: TBC

Next lesson, we will start looking at the different plot lines we can try and perhaps even make a decision on which one.