FROM THE HANDOUT
KNOW THE FOLLOWING VOCABULARY WORDS:
Commedia dell’Arte
Lazzi
Chiusetti
Repertorio
Inamorate
Two kinds of theatre develop in the Renaissance: Popular [Commedia dell’Arte] and the
Formal Theatre.
The Commedia dell’Arte is much like the early Greek comedies.
The Formal Theatre was the darling of the Humanists
Commedia was essentially an improvisational theatre. It used stock characters with
specialized characteristics of attitude and appearance.
The formal theatre used standard scripts and were of various types: translations of the
Greek and Latin, original comedies, tragedies, pastorals, operas, and native models of
classic comedy and tragedy
The invention of the printing press helped spread the translations of Roman writers.
Formal theatre plays were preoccupied with the revenge motive, the appearance of
ghosts, oratorical prologues, and long declamatory passages, the substitution of horror for
tragedy, of narration for action.
The first significant opera was Dafne , first performed in 1597.
Staging for the Commedia was simple using usually a platform and simple backdrop. The
structure was temporary.
The first permanent theatre of the Italian Renaissance was the Teatro Olimpico, designed
and built by Andrea Palladio in 1580.
The Teatro Farnese [1618] had the first permanent sculptured proscenium arch.
Sebastiano Serlio furthered the idea of perspective by using a raked stage floor.
Sabbatini recommended that oil lamps with strong wicks be used. Serlio described how
colored lighting effects may be achieved by using colored water or wine in glass vessels
with lamps and reflectors behind them.
The commedia characters used masks to identify the characters.
The Commedia had the professional actors which were usually family members while the
Formal theatre used amateurs
Marie Fairet was the first female performer on the professional stage in France.
Although actors were very popular, they were not permitted to be buried in holy ground.
A Company of Wayward Saints
Know the various characters and their “type” – what sort of person did they usually
portray.
The Duke wanted a play about the History of Man. At first what did the actors think that
the Duke wanted? How did they change this thinking in Act Two?
Be able to describe, briefly how each of the stages of man was told in Act Two.