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In Commedia Dell'arte Performa

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In Commedia Dell'arte Performa ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: MOVING FROM THE ARCHIVE: HISTORIOGRAPHY AND “AUTHENTICITY” IN COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE PERFORMANCE Matthew Ray Wilson, PhD, 2018 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Franklin J. Hildy, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies This dissertation examines the multiple definitions of “Commedia dell’Arte” in historiography and contemporary performance, analyzing potentials and problematics behind attempts to understand “historical” Commedia dell’Arte and to (re)construct contemporary Commedia using what Franklin J. Hildy calls an “applied theater history” approach. Employing archival historiography, literary analysis, art historical techniques, practical dramaturgy, Practice-as-Research, and qualitative research, I describe different realities of Commedia dell’Arte performance from history and contemporary practice, including ways in which “mistakes” or “appropriations” in the form have become included within its present identities. Chapter One describes the status of the field, problems, and approaches to identifying what Commedia dell’Arte “is” today based upon autoethnography and interview material from contemporary practitioners, whose competing approaches inform the ongoing conversation. Chapter Two traces the history of the form known as “Commedia dell’Arte” from its origins to contemporary pedagogy with special attention given to appropriations, evolutions, distortions, and efforts at reproduction. In Chapter Three, I narrow the focus to a specific case-study—a recent production of the classic scenario Il Cavadente (The Tooth-Puller) from the Commedia dell’Arte repertoire—with special attention to the problematics of translating, interpreting, and reconstructing historical sources as dramatic literary content. Chapter Four describes an art-historical approach to assessing, analyzing, and utilizing iconography from Commedia dell’Arte’s history, while Chapter Five describes a specific attempt to design the visual world for a contemporary production of The Tooth-Puller with reference to competing goals of faithfulness to the tradition and availability for artistic innovation. Chapter Six employs Practice-as-Research (and what I advocate as Research-as-Practice) to embody reimagined characters based on the Commedia archive. Chapter Seven utilizes participant interviews and audience surveys to reflect upon Ole Miss Theatre & Film’s production of The Tooth-Puller, the final (though always fluid) script of which is included as Appendix A. This concluding chapter also reflects, through the voices of contemporary teachers and practitioners, on the nature of Commedia dell’Arte and its place in current actor training and theatrical innovation. While the field of Commedia practitioners today is divided between those who prescribe an “authentic” system for “historical” Commedia and those who freely declare that “Commedia doesn’t exist” in any knowable form, this dissertation models a middle way of interacting faithfully and rigorously with extant data from the past in order to freely create a continuation of the Commedia tradition for the future. MOVING FROM THE ARCHIVE: HISTORIOGRAPHY AND “AUTHENTICITY” IN COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE PERFORMANCE by Matthew Ray Wilson Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Advisory Committee: Professor Franklin J. Hildy, Chair Associate Professor Faedra Carpenter Professor Kent Cartwright Senior Lecturer Federica Deigan Professor Esther Kim Lee Associate Professor Stefano Villani, Dean’s Representative © Copyright by Matthew Ray Wilson 2018 Preface This project was born out of a desire to make Commedia dell’Arte in a manner that is both faithful to the tradition and innovative as a living art form. Within circles of Commedia dell’Arte practitioners, those words—“faithful,” “tradition,” “innovative,” “living,” “art,” and “form”—can be landmines. In fact, even the term “Commedia dell’Arte” (or “commedia dell’arte” or a few other formats) can be contentious.1 “Commedia dell’Arte doesn’t exist,” some experts today say. Then they charge money for workshops on Commedia dell’Arte. What they mean is that we do not know exactly how sixteenth-century performers made their audiences laugh, so we are free to find new ways to amuse an audience today. Commedia is living, not dead, and anyone who teaches codified rules has at worst made them up in an act of pedagogical fraud or is at best mummifying a living theatre through a process of aesthetic euthanasia. “Commedia dell’Arte is like this,” other experts demonstrate. Then, in a longer workshop, they demonstrate exceptions, pointing out that Commedia dell’Arte is found all over the world across five centuries and is never just one way. What they mean is that they have studied sources and tried experiments, and through their interpretations they have created their own working system about how Commedia dell’Arte functioned before and can function today. Commedia is part of a tradition 1See Chapters One and Two below for my discussion of the term and my reasonings in rendering it “Commedia dell’Arte,” unitalicized, with a capital “C” and “A.” ii that grows from the past, and it is necessary to respect and understand the past in a disciplined way if one wishes to join the tradition by slapping the label “Commedia dell’Arte” on one’s own work. To the performer or teacher looking for answers, these diametrically opposed responses might engender more confusion than clarification, more caution than confidence. This dissertation seeks to bridge the gap between scholarship and practice to serve the performer, student, teacher, or director who does not want a prescribed set of rules or mechanical “steps” but who also feels lost by the notion that the Commedia dell’Arte tradition is irrecoverable today. Theatre is about freedom, and, since Commedia dell’Arte is theatre, artists should create, explore, experiment, and invent. However, this project is built on the belief that informed freedom is preferable to ignorant freedom. We cannot and will not know exactly how Commedia “was” or “should be” done; nevertheless, there are ample surviving sources that provide both grounding and guideposts to help us make something called “Commedia dell’Arte” today. The project is for those who understand that easy answers are often false and that prescribed methods can be confining. It is also for those who respect the heritage of Commedia dell’Arte enough to try to find out what that heritage is if they want to claim to be a part of it. As will be discussed in more detail and with more academic rigor below, there are already books full of simple exercises that prescribe a Commedia style, but their authors do not explain how they arrived at their conclusions or what historical or iii methodological justifications substantiate their systems. Other books include rigorous history with ample footnotes about who wrote what contract when and where a certain company performed, but they do not address what Commedia dell’Arte looks like on stage or how one can create one’s own work. My approach seeks to combine history and practice. It provides suggestions for a method that is both historically reliable and theatrical relevant. If we want to understand theatre history through living performance, then the question is really quite simple: How do we evaluate, analyze, and implement sources from Commedia dell’Arte’s past in order to make our own contribution to Commedia dell’Arte’s future? This question has been on my mind for two decades as a student, practitioner, and scholar of Commedia dell’Arte. The search has led me to the feet of living maestros, to the pages of dirty old books, and ultimately to stages around the world as a performer, director, and playwright who seeks to know the tradition of Commedia’s past in order to entertain audiences today. iv Dedication To the artist-entrepreneurs of old who convinced the West that theatre is a profession; And to future artists who will create a Commedia that the world has never seen before and yet has always known… v Acknowledgements This dissertation, as all endeavors, is but a cobbling together of generosities, favors, and lessons handed on graciously from the earliest innovators of masked comedy all the way to my current dissertation committee. The latter are to be thanked for their encouragement, guidance, and faith in this project. Deserving of special thanks are Dr. Federica Deigan, whose generous assistance greatly enriched the translation work in Chapter Three, and my dissertation chair, Dr. Franklin J. Hildy, whose own passion for “applied theater history” made both my doctoral education and this project possible, as will be seen through his frequent appearances in my footnotes. On the archival side, I am indebted to the hardworking librarians, archivists, donors, and sponsors of the Folger Shakespeare Library, British National Archives, London Metropolitan Archives, British Library, British Museum, Garrick Club (especially Moira Goff and Marcus Risdell), and London Theatre Museum, as well as the library systems at The University of Maryland—College Park and The University of Mississippi. On the performance side, I owe a debt to thousands of practitioners, creators, students, and audience members around the world. I am especially grateful to those who sacrificed their own time to participate in surveys and interviews, with special thanks to Ars Comica/Teatro del Vicolo/Lo
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