Commedia Dell'Arte is an improvised kind of popular comedy that was in Italian theatres in the 16th–18th centuries, and it used a variety of stock characters. Actors adapted their comic dialogue and action according to a few basic plots (normally their love intrigues) and to topical issues.
We first looked at the different characters used in Commedia, these are called stock characters, which are a range of characters who all have different personalities and traits, and when they are put in a scenario with other characters the outcome is different every time and also very funny, male stock characters include:
Magnifico- We had a look at this character, but didn't really play around with him, personally I think he is a bit boring and I couldn't see any comic potential form using him.
The Lovers- They are also known as actor one and two, me and Reece created an improvisation using two male lovers who were talking about a girl they had just met and were boasting about it, but little did they know that they were talking about the same girl. I really enjoyed playing a lover, and I think that me and Reece bounce off each other well.
Pantalone- Pantalone was by far my favourite character to improvise with, I think that his comic potential comes from his stance, and also the fact he is an old man who thinks that ladies love him.
The Doctor- I didn't have a chance to try out this character, but watching others adapt the stance into a hippie like doctor was hilarious, I think he is funny because he claims to know everything about illness, but he doesn't he just makes everything up and everyone is convinced.
Punch- Punch is a very difficult character to play because he is meant to be very rude and in your face, but playing him is hard, as you have to play his character without having the audience shocked at what's happening because you want them to laugh.
Harlequin- I didn't like the harlequin very much as they had to be very quick on their feet, and their comedic potential lied in how they move and the things that they did to get in the scenarios.
Brigella- Brigella is a smarter version of Harlequin and takes pride in doing their work, but in initially I wasn't drawn to this character as it just seemed very boring.
The Captain- I found that this character was also very funny, but there was only one thing I could think to do with this character and that was to boast, The Captain makes out they do a lot of dangerous things, but is really a coward.
Zanni- These are the lowest of the low in the master servant role and they are very stupid, I think that there is potential with the Zanni as they can look very visually funny.
So after looking at characters we started to look at settings, at first this seemed really easy it wasn't until we try to improvise the scenes that it got harder, some of the scenes I looked at were as follows:
BBC Studios- this was the first setting I looked at, we went down the children's show route as we thought it was very simplistic, little did we know how difficult it was and I found it difficult playing a punch character in this scene.
Bank- Later I went in a group who tried a bank scene, we had the idea of having everyone in line and having different problems in the bank, this was easier but it did drag out for a bit.
One of the settings I was drawn to was Buckingham Palace, now I didn't get a chance to try this setting but watching others do it was fantastic. I didn't like the prison idea as it seemed to be very complicated.
So eventually we started to pick groups we didn't settle on two scenes only one, so one group looked at the Buckingham Palace idea, and the others looked at many settings that they could do, but eventually we decided to join as one big group and do the Buckingham Palace idea. We also chose characters, but when we looked at them we also looked at what sort of character they would be in the Palace, I first chose to be a Captain and we thought about him being David Cameron, but then we thought that the Captain could be Prince Williams publicity double, and I really liked that idea, after trying a few scenes with the Captain I eventually came to a block, I couldn't think of how I could use him to create comic scenes, so I decided we should make the publicity double dumber, and want with the character Harlequin, now at the beginning of the module I didn't want to play a Harlequin, but after improvising a few scenes I loved the character.
