07/29/2017
Shakespeare and Commedia dell’arte: Play By Play is the culmination of 14 years of research on, and direction of, Shakespeare’s comedies and tragicomedies with Italian characters in a Commedia style. In Commedia dell’arte scenarios, Italian characters engaged in wordplay and sight gags from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. For more than a century, scholars have hypothesized the influence of Commedia, Italian dramatic literature, and travelogues on Shakespeare’s plays. As directors and actors periodically incorporated Commedia dell’arte and slapstick in some of Shakespeare’s comedies, reviewers remarked on wordplay and sight gags in some of these Shakespearean productions. Because Shakespeare and Commedia dell’arte: Play by Play systematically applied Commedia to Shakespeare’s comedies and tragicomedies with Italian characters, this cycle of plays differs from previous productions. This cycle of Shakespeare’s comedies and tragicomedies with Italian characters included Comedy of Errors, Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew, All’s Well That Ends Well, Winter's Tale, and Much Ado About Nothing. In this cycle, 1) Commedia types were aligned with Shakespeare’s characters, 2) lazzi originally performed by 16th and 17th century Commedia dell’arte actors were incorporated into lazzi, and 3) new sight gags and wordplay related to lazzi of period Commedia types and the context of Shakespeare’s plays were invented. Shakespeare and Commedia dell’arte: Play by Play shares selected applications of Commedia characters and lazzi to Shakespeare’s comedies and tragicomedies with Italian characters, examines how Commedia dell’arte improvisation and lazzi influenced these plays, and suggests how contemporary actors and directors might apply Commedia techniques to these plays in Shakespeare’s canon. Shakespeare and Commedia dell’arte: Play By Play advances the argument that the Commedia performance style significantly impacted Shakespeare’s characters, stage directions, text, and stage actions in his comedies and tragicomedies with Italian characters.
