Brief Summary
This video explores the world of Commedia dell'Arte, focusing on its archetypal characters and their relationships. It categorizes characters into masters, servants, and lovers, detailing their traits, motivations, and positions within the social hierarchy. The video also touches on the dynamics between masked and unmasked characters and the overall theatrical style of Commedia dell'Arte.
- Commedia dell'Arte features universal character types.
- Characters are categorized into masters, servants, and lovers.
- The performance style involves audience interaction and exaggerated movements.
Commedia dell'Arte presents a world populated by masters, servants, and lovers, all of whom are universal character types. A diagram is used to illustrate the relationships and hierarchy within this world, placing characters like Magnifico at the top and Zanni at the bottom. Other characters include Pantalone, the Doctor, Colombina, Brighella, Harlequin, the Captain, and the first actor and actress.
Magnifico is the leader, an eagle-like figure who oversees everything. Zanni, at the bottom, is a peasant new to the city, curious and eager to please. Pantalone is a miserly old merchant, a diminished version of Magnifico, while the Doctor is a man of immense but often useless knowledge.
Brighella is a cunning servant, a master of servants and servant of masters, akin to a maitre d'. Harlequin is an intuitive, happy-go-lucky servant, driven by immediate desires and lacking a sense of right and wrong. Colombina is at the center, embodying the cunning of Brighella, the playfulness of Harlequin, and the financial acumen of Pantalone, while also possessing the intellectual capabilities of the Doctor.
The first actor and actress are aristocrats who command attention and operate in a dangerous world of courtly intrigue, similar to characters in Shakespearean tragedies. The young lovers are educated but naive, akin to Romeo and Juliet. The Captain is an outsider, often a mercenary soldier full of swagger but cowardly in reality.
The first actor and actress do not wear masks, creating a dynamic where masked characters are treated as real by the unmasked ones, enhancing the theatrical game. The performance style involves big, bold characters with strong desires and energies, creating an exaggerated reflection of society.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “The World of Commedia dell'Arte”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:07 the world of commedia masters servants and lovers there Universal types that you see everywhere immediately wrong we use this diagram to look at the world of commedia at the head you've got Magnifico at the feet you've got zani at the shoulders you've got the first actor and the first actress then you've got the two masters Pantalone ii and the doctor in the very center you've got colombina the servant girl at the hips you've got brighella and alakina at the knees you've got the captain and down at the feet zanny this is magnifico he's like an eagle he looks down on
0:54 everything he's the leader of the city when he dies another Magnifico automatically appears he's the most powerful man there he said he thinks down at the bottom is the zani and that's the one where you were leading with the nose and the arms are involved in that and the feet of the there the feet that want to come up oh oh like a pigeon xanies a peasant and he's come to the city everything is extraordinary to him and he's extremely curious oh oh and enthusiastic cuz of course he wants to please and he wants work oh I've never been here before oh yes I'm ready to please you seen
1:41 Manuel in Fawlty Towers oh oh oh oh no mr. Baldi mr. Malik No oh yes mr. Fawlty is absolutely zanny exactly zani so you heard Magnifico the top master evil think evilness and a crazy zanny as his servant and it's look at us in between there we go see that's it good see the relationship is absolutely with the audience not jumps with the person on stage God from zani grow all the other servants and from
2:27 Magnifico grow all the other masters these are the two old men you have pantalone ii the merchant the miserly old man who is a version of Magnifico who's lost his teeth everything about him is mean and vinegary he's called Pantalone EDB Sanya of the needy he needs he's got a lot of needs these two old men live on the same Piazza and they love to argue the doctor is the man of learning who knows everything about everything but understands nothing is so weighed down with knowledge that he can hardly contain himself and he was and he was
3:13 and he was and he was haha reminds me over for ya you then have the two servants brighella and Harlequin brighella is the cunning servant and Harlequin is the stupid servant he's not stupid in the ways Arnie's stupid he's stupid because he doesn't he doesn't necessarily new logic he he's a body Harlequin is a body character whereas brighella is a brain character so to a certain extent you're getting a minor magnificos re going on
4:01 there brighella is the master of servants and the servant of master sir he's like a maitre d in a hotel or in a restaurant he welcomes the guests it's a little bit like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers Oh major major no do a general do command when were you can use empower no problems in the kitchen no no no the food's fine so somebody who's got a position and has worked very very hard to get that position and has a uniform so very proud of his uniform he can also be a great womanizer and he can fall in love with people and first actresses and things can be tempted by him because he's cunning he thinks ahead what's in it for me what's in it for me you're any any any situation what am I going to get out of it Harlequin is
4:47 intuitive and happy-go-lucky he thinks he's gorgeous cuz why wouldn't he he's not immoral he's immoral he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong he lives very much in the moment he is very acrobatic he's very cheeky okay anything else in the mask any other animals a monkey a pig always hungry mm-hmm you know oh oh you know I can open his stomach and say that there's nothing in the fridge so it back up again very very very very playful colombina is at the center of the diagram she is as cunning as brighella she's as playful as
5:34 Harlequin she's as good with the money as Pantalone II might be and she can hold an academic discourse on love men marriage and life just like the doctor the first actor and the first actress at aristocrats everything they do is very very grand they take up a lot of space because they own it they are serious dangerous lovers they are part of the court but mainly became quite capable of killing the first actress may well have had a previous husband who has died in mysterious circumstances and nobody's quite sure whether she had anything to do with it or not they are Shakespearean
6:20 actors they are the parents of Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth and Lady Macbeth it's a dangerous world they live in it's the world of the Borgias the Medicis and the top players of the politics of Italy at the time so the first actor in the first actress don't have a mask you have masks and non masks then what happens is that the non masks act with the masks as if they were real so you believe them differently it is all a game we know it's a game we know that they're people who are weren't that they're people wearing masks but when I'm on stage without a mask working with one of them I treat them as if they are normal so the game continues the second
7:11 pair of lovers are the young lovers the teenage lovers and they're the children of pantalone Ian the doctor but they've been bought a fantastic education which means they can move up the social scale they could become aristocrats they are just moving into the world of the grown ups so they don't really understand everything they are if you like Romeo and Juliet lastly we come to the two outsiders the which is actually a 20th century invention but she represents a Magnifico of the countryside she is dark she is powerful she is earthy and she's the supernatural element and she basically moves in figures of eight
7:58 yeah always a very wise coordinator in this country yeah Cordelia here please according like hardly were they were always gonna charge ah your mother's got a o yah so she just got a real freedom about her the captain comes from somewhere else he is often a mercenary soldier he could be Spanish he is full of swagger and braggadocio but in reality he would do anything to avoid a fight when you put
8:47 all of these characters together big and bold with their desires their needs their energies their shapes their ways of walking it's like a firework display it's an exaggerated mirror of society you
