Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 17 - 07/03/16

Today we evaluated where we are at the moment with our piece and we devised a couple of new scenes!

We began by writing down which scenes we had already done and which scenes we knew we wanted. This pictured to the right. We started planning out how we wanted to perform Zanni's entertainment as we knew this was a scene that James couldn't wait to perform and we didn't have much of a priority to which scene we had to. We decided that we wanted Zanni to sing (attempt to sing) Whitney Houston's, "And I Will Always Love You." This is a very well known and song and Zanni making a mess of it will be very comical to watch. 

For this scene we focused more on the lead up to Zanni's entertainment as opposed to her actually entertaining. This is the outline we have come up with (character are shown by their initials):

• B informs D and P that the entertainment hasn't shown up. P and D are furious and go to the kitchen to come up with a plan.
• D and P ask the kitchen staff what they can do. D volunteers himself after no reply. Everyone looks at the audience in disappointment and H splutters and laughs.
• D asks if anyone else would do it. Cp volunteers himself as an Elvis tribute act. D denies Cp and its back to square 1.
• P and D ask themselves who else could handle the entertainment. B pushes Z into the centre, coughing loudly to draw attention to him. D has an epiphany and claims B's obvious idea as his own. Z is now the entertainment for the night.

After devising this scene, we completely devised our idea for a closet scene between Doctor and Captain. The basic outline of this scene is Captain is writing a note to Columbina and asks Harlequin to give it to her; the note is asking her to meet him in the dry stock cupboard. Harlequin gives this note to Doctor and says its from Columbina and he gets excited and flees to the cupboard to meet her. Doctor enters the cupboard in the dark where he meets Captain whom thinks Doctor is Columbina. Things get a tad heated in the cupboard with noises and one of the pair say Columbina's name. The lights come up and the pair look at each other and run away. They are baffled as to why the other is there and say that they were there to meet Columbina. Captain references the poem he wrote and Harlequin enters to laugh at the mess he's made. The pair chase after Harlequin offstage.

For next lesson I will have a set design drawn up and annotated with references as to where I can get any of the set from. Lorna is in charge of designing costume and James is in charge of props.

Next lesson, we will share our ideas in terms of costume, set and props and get to work devising some more of the scenes. Perhaps the Cooking Oil Cocktail with Harlequin and Brighella.