Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Theatre and Media Arts, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 140-147).

Thèse--Lettres--Aarhus, 1990. / Résumé en français. Bibliogr. p. 263-265. Index.

My thesis proposal is to research, workshop, develop, script, direct and produce my own commedia dell'arte. This proposal stems from my desire to explore improvisational comedy theoretically and practically. The genre of commedia dell'arte is not only timeless, but continues to further our ability to create characters and scenario for future projects as the root of improvisation. By coupling research on commedia components (character, lazzi and scenario) with the creation of an improvisational troupe, a commedia piece will be developed, documented and performed. The first part of my thesis will consist of research on the history of improvisational comedy. The earliest traces of improvisational comedy are seen in 800 B.C., when Susarion and his troupe of comedians of Icaria wandered throughout Greece. Many other comedic performance troupes were later formed, some expressing their comedies through acrobatics, like the schoenobates of Greece and funambuli of Rome. During the sixteenth century, improvisational comedy became a flourishing art form, known as the commedia dell'arte. It is the sixteenth-century commedia dell'arte form that will be my primary focus of research. A bibliography and outline will serve as the preliminary guidelines. The research should be in a coherent enough form to share with a cast by mid-January. The second part of my thesis will involve practical application of this research. By mid-January, I will have selected a troupe with which to workshop the commedia. The workshop will consist of adopting commedia stock characters for each troupe member and creating lazzi and scenario around these characters. Improvisational satire continues to be the most difficult theatrical form to master. Pierre Louis Duchartre in his book The Italian Comedy states: The success of the commedia dell'arte depended almost entirely on the acting rather than the scenarios. In the opinion of Gherardi and Riccoboni it was easier to train ten actors for the regular theatre than one for the extemporaneous stage. Moreover, a good improvisator had to practise a kind of self-abnegation and refrain from indulging in his own conceit or overplaying his part to the detriment of other roles. (Duchartre 30) The art of listening and sharing the stage as a performer is the basis of modern performance techniques and the primary skill of a great actor. The purpose for this workshop is not only to develop the commedia piece, but also to further the troupe's understanding of the commedia tradition as we continue our exploration. This will be a three- to four-week process. The end results of this workshop will be a scripted commedia that will be used for production and documentation of the process itself. By mid-March, the research, process of the workshop, and script will be documented in clear and concise terms for the purpose of this thesis. April will focus on production elements based on approval from the department on venue and budget details. The performance will take place in April or May. The final conclusions will be completed at the same time. This commedia will serve as a comprehensive experience in theatrical studies, culminating my academic and production work at University of Central Florida Conservatory Theatre. It will be an educational and collaborative effort for all involved, as well as enjoyable and entertaining for those who see it.

No description available.

The Italian madrigal comedy experienced a relatively short, but exceedingly popular life during the late Renaissance. The works that may be called madrigal comedies, numbering less than two dozen in total, represent a type of musical entertainment that delighted audiences at courts and within the cultural academies of Renaissance Italy. The small subset of works within the genre, designated in this research project as "theatrical" madrigal comedies, showed an increasing focus on dramatic representation of text with music. These works, the plots of which derive from the commedia dell'arte tradition, may be seen as early forms of musical comedy and musical theater. Arguments concerning the manner in which the works were performed have centered on a debate for and against the staging of them.Because madrigal comedies have been largely neglected as concert and theatrical literature, there is little published to assist a director in finding the repertoire or to offer a guide to performance. The research project on which this document is based, along with the associated lecture-recital, resulted in the compilation of means to a successful madrigal comedy production. This was done by advocating historically informed performance decisions that are given a practical spin. In this manner, a director may put together a madrigal comedy production that is accessible to professionals and non-professionals, as well as secondary- and higher-education communities.

O presente trabalho é uma reflexão acerca do gênero cômico cinematográfico denominado commedia all\'italiana. Para essa pesquisa, primeiramente, acompanhamos a evolução do cinema cômico italiano desde seus primórdios até o fenômeno estudado. Na formação do cinema cômico, aludimos não só à importância da contribuição da vertente teatral - através da commedia dell\'arte - como também dos atores cômicos do primeiro cinema, do período conhecido como telefoni bianchi, de figuras como Totò, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia e Mario Mattoli, além da fase denominada neorrealismo rosa. Desse modo, através do percurso anterior à commedia all\'italiana, procuramos estabelecer sua inserção na tradição cômica da Itália. Também foram considerados aspectos importantes do contexto históricosocial à época do surgimento e consolidação desse gênero cômico popular do cinema italiano. Procuramos resgatar as origens e fontes da commedia all\'italiana, focalizando as diferentes fases que a compuseram e as principais filmografias que a evidenciaram. Ainda nesse momento, traçamos seus percursos e suas particularidades, percorremos a trajetória de seu surgimento e focalizamos algumas de suas características intrínsecas. Trouxemos a discussão de três momentos emblemáticos na história do gênero ao trabalharmos com três obras fílmicas significativas de diretores e fases diversas, apresentando alguns dos aspectos presentes na commedia all\'italiana e ressaltando questões que se mostraram pertinentes na construção de um senso crítico nas obras desse gênero / This dissertation explores the comic genre in Italian cinema known as commedia allitaliana. First, we accompanied the evolution of Italian comic cinema from its beginnings up to the phenomenon studied. In the formation of comic cinema, we alluded not only to the importance of the contribution of theatre - through the commedia dellarte - but also to the first silent comic actors in cinema from the period known as telefoni bianchi, including such figures as Totò, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia and Mario Mattoli. We also traced the influence of the phase known as pink neorealism. In this way, through an analysis of comic genres before commedia allitaliana we aimed to insert it in the entire Italian comic tradition. We also considered the important historical and social contexts of the era in which this popular comic genre arose and consolidated itself. We attempted to rescue the origins and sources of commedia all\'italiana, focusing on the different phases that composed it and its principal films. We charted its emergence, traced its development and peculiarities and stressed some of its intrinsic characteristics. We highlighted three emblematic moments in the history of the genre through an analysis of three significant films from diverse phases and directors, showing some of the main aspects present in commedia all\'italiana and emphasizing the pertinent questions for a critical approach to works in the genre

O presente trabalho é uma reflexão acerca do gênero cômico cinematográfico denominado commedia all\'italiana. Para essa pesquisa, primeiramente, acompanhamos a evolução do cinema cômico italiano desde seus primórdios até o fenômeno estudado. Na formação do cinema cômico, aludimos não só à importância da contribuição da vertente teatral - através da commedia dell\'arte - como também dos atores cômicos do primeiro cinema, do período conhecido como telefoni bianchi, de figuras como Totò, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia e Mario Mattoli, além da fase denominada neorrealismo rosa. Desse modo, através do percurso anterior à commedia all\'italiana, procuramos estabelecer sua inserção na tradição cômica da Itália. Também foram considerados aspectos importantes do contexto históricosocial à época do surgimento e consolidação desse gênero cômico popular do cinema italiano. Procuramos resgatar as origens e fontes da commedia all\'italiana, focalizando as diferentes fases que a compuseram e as principais filmografias que a evidenciaram. Ainda nesse momento, traçamos seus percursos e suas particularidades, percorremos a trajetória de seu surgimento e focalizamos algumas de suas características intrínsecas. Trouxemos a discussão de três momentos emblemáticos na história do gênero ao trabalharmos com três obras fílmicas significativas de diretores e fases diversas, apresentando alguns dos aspectos presentes na commedia all\'italiana e ressaltando questões que se mostraram pertinentes na construção de um senso crítico nas obras desse gênero / This dissertation explores the comic genre in Italian cinema known as commedia allitaliana. First, we accompanied the evolution of Italian comic cinema from its beginnings up to the phenomenon studied. In the formation of comic cinema, we alluded not only to the importance of the contribution of theatre - through the commedia dellarte - but also to the first silent comic actors in cinema from the period known as telefoni bianchi, including such figures as Totò, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia and Mario Mattoli. We also traced the influence of the phase known as pink neorealism. In this way, through an analysis of comic genres before commedia allitaliana we aimed to insert it in the entire Italian comic tradition. We also considered the important historical and social contexts of the era in which this popular comic genre arose and consolidated itself. We attempted to rescue the origins and sources of commedia all\'italiana, focusing on the different phases that composed it and its principal films. We charted its emergence, traced its development and peculiarities and stressed some of its intrinsic characteristics. We highlighted three emblematic moments in the history of the genre through an analysis of three significant films from diverse phases and directors, showing some of the main aspects present in commedia all\'italiana and emphasizing the pertinent questions for a critical approach to works in the genre

This thesis sets out a case for a mode of reading I term first-person participation in relation to Dante’s 'Commedia', a narrative poem I propose to function as an exceptionally participatory text. That Dante’s poem invites active engagement on the part of its readers is widely accepted in scholarship. My objective is to extend this debate by identifying certain of Dante’s innovations in relation to the mechanisms of narrative transmission through which such active engagement is invited. In so doing, I seek to establish that these mechanisms together constitute a narratological strategy of invitations to the reader to engage with the poem, intermittently and electively, in a mode of first-person participation, mentally simulating on her own account the journey to the desire for the divine. My research transfers and adapts for textual literary theory new notions of embodied simulation from cognitive neuroscience and emerging ideas in videogame critical theory relating to the mechanics of player presence and the function of the avatar, suggesting and evidencing parallels with the deeply personal and embodied modes of interaction with devotional texts associated with medieval practices of affective piety. I identify in the 'Commedia' a comprehensive and systematic programme of invitations to participate facilitating three types of presence in the responsive reader, and underpinning the invitation to first-person participation. Spatial presence (the perceptual illusion of ‘being there’) is invited through a multi-layered strategy I describe as narration through situated body states. Social presence (the illusion of being physically in relation with others) is invited by narration through kinaesthetic empathy. Self-presence (the experience that ‘something is happening to me’) is constituted, I suggest, through a combination of five mechanisms: a model of narrating instances that identifies the existence of four “faces” of the Dantean ‘io’; a strategy I borrow from film theory of narration through mobile camera view; a new reading of the functioning of the direct addresses to the reader; a strategy of narrative training; and a comprehensive strategy of narration through the manifold gaps in the text.

II problema critico della Divina Commedia è stato sempre uno dei più difficili e dei più controversi. La lettura del Paradiso poi ha dato luogo ad interpretazioni discordanti e coritraddittorie, si da costituire il "nodo", come lo chiamò il De Sanctis, più complesso nella storia della nostra poesia. I vari interpreti lungo il corso dei secoli, anche se hanno sentito il fascino di una poesia unica ed eccezionale, pure hanno spezzato la mirabile unita del poema dantesco quando si sono accostati ad esso con criteri e gusti lontani dal sentire e dal pensare di Dante. Le antinomie di una tale posizione critica divengono evidenti specialmente nel De Sanctis e nel Croce, i quali mostrano nel loro lungo travaglio critico un profondo conflitto tra una lettura basata su finissime intuizioni critiche che riconoscono la poesia in una vasta zona della Commedia, e i loro principi che la limitano invece a quanto sa di terreno e di passionale. L'insufficienza delle teorie estetiche del De Sanctis e Croce si rivela specialmente quando si cimentano all'esame critico del Paradiso, poesia dottrinale, aliena dai contrasti, dai drammi, dalle passioni della vita reale, nei quali soltanto, secondo i principi estetici di derivazione romantica, si faceva consistere la materia e la forma poetica. II Paradiso viene quindi giudicato nettamente inferiore alle altre due cantiche. Si delinea, nel primo capitolo, la genesi e lo sviluppo di queste antinomie, riportando ed approfondendo le ragioni storiche, culturali e letterarie che determinano le rispettive po;sizioni critiche. II problema aperto dalla critica desanctisiana e crociana, che scinde I'unita poetica della Commedia in "mondo intenzionale" e "mondo reale", in "struttura" e "poesia", può essere risolto quando ci si accosti di piu a quel mondo medievale "barbaro", attraverso una equilibrata riceroa storico-filologica, metodologia gia suggerita dal Foscolo, e si arrivi ad una più profonda conoscenza della cultura e della civilta che consenti al genio poetico di Dante un volo cosi alto. Nel secondo capitolo si mette ancora in rilievo la conseguenza assurda a cui puo condurre una metodologia basata su pregiudizi culturali; ma nello stesso tempo, pur riconoscendo la necessità di una intelligenza del mondo culturale di Dante, si fa notare che la pura ricerca storico-filologica non è sufficiente ancora a farci capire la poesia del Paradiso. La ricostruzione storico-f ilologica può portare alia conoscenza della "legna" che Dante brucia nel suo fuoco poetico, ma non oi può mai far capire il mondo intimo, il fuoco sacro che genera una poesia cosi sublime. Il suggerimento foscoliano di considerare il poema come "sacra visione" viene accettato ed indicato come esempio metodologico, perché come fa rilevare il Nardi, esso vieno proposto "con animo sgombro da pregiudizi": I'atteggiamento del critico non può essere influenzato da scelte o gusti personali. La poesia del Paradiso nasce da un'intima e viva esperienza spirituale, da una fede viva in una realta trascendente, realtà di "cose sperate". II Singleton, cercando una formula che stabilisse la genesi della poesia dantesca, punta la sua attenzione al rapporto tra fede e visione, tra fede che genera la visione di "cose sperate", le quali agli occhi di Dante sono reali quanto quelle sensibili. Il Singleton esclude in questo processo mistico il termine medio "intellectus", che ai fini della nostra interpretazione, assumera tanta importanza. Facciamo notare infatti che pur accettando il "raptus" mistico nell’esperienza spirituale del poeta, esso non basta a spiegare la parte più importante del processo creativo, la soluzione poetica di una segreta, intima esperienza spirituale. Tanti altri mistici ci hanno descritto la loro avventura spirituale, ma nessuno l'ha saputo trasformare poi in parola poetica, nella quale soltanto sta l'originalita, e la genialità di Dante. A noi interessa conoscere soprattutto questo momento il più importante di tutta la sublime operazione. Si fa rilevare allora l'importanza del momento “intellectus": praecedit fides, sequitur intellectus. La fede sostiene ed orienta il poeta alla ricerca della "Divina Scienza che e piena di tutta pace... e questa chiama perfetta, perché perfettamente ne fa il vero vedere nel quale si cheta l'anima nostra". (89) Si pone in relazione questo passo del Convivio con la poesia dottrinale del Paradiso e si rileva come la mente del poeta resterà per sempre "fissa immobile ed attenta" nella contemplazione e godimento della verità, che forma il paradiso della sua anima. In questo contesto intellettuale-mistico di esperienza reale, la poesia dottrinale del Paradiso acquista significato e dimensione estetica. Essa non nasce, come suggeriva il De Sanctis, da una rappresentazione di un imprecisato e vago sentimento dell'infinito, ma è rappresentazione poetica di una realtà, che non e piu pura verita di fede, ma è diventata certezza razionale ed esperienza spirituale del trascendente. Il poeta trasvaluta poeticamente non soltanto una ricca selezione di temi e motivi teologici, ma arricchisce la sua poesia di un insieme di reazioni psicologiche e sentimentali, nate dall'intuizione della realtà delle verita trascendenti. La conoscenza della teologia e allo stesso tempo anche fede vivissima; oltre ad essere fatto intellettuale, è vita interiore che tocca la sfera affettiva e sentimentale: la contemplazione e il godimento della verità diventa forza viva ispiratrice che da visione intellettuale si trasforma in canto lirico. Nei terzo capitolo si da un saggio di lettura di questa lirica intellettuale. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

Sixteenth century commedia dell’arte actors relied on gaudy costumes, physical humor and improvisation to entertain audiences. the Spieltenor in the modern operatic repertoire has a similar comedic role. Would today’s Spieltenor benefit from consulting the commedia dell’arte’s traditions? to answer this question, I examine the commedia dell’arte’s history, stock characters and performance traditions of early troupes. the Spieltenor is discussed in terms of vocal pedagogy and the fach system. I reference critical studies of the commedia dell’arte, sources on improvisatory acting, articles on theatrical masks and costuming, the commedia dell’arte as depicted by visual artists, commedia dell’arte techniques of movement, stances and postures. in addition, I cite vocal pedagogy articles, operatic repertoire and sources on the fach system. My findings suggest that a valid relationship exists between the commedia dell’arte stock characters and the Spieltenor roles in the operatic repertoire. I present five case studies, pairing five stock characters with five Spieltenor roles. Suggestions are provided to enhance the visual, physical and dramatic elements of each role’s performance. I conclude that linking a commedia dell’arte stock character to any Spieltenor role on the basis of shared traits offers an untapped resource to create distinctive characterizations based on theatrical traditions.