The Problem of Commedia dell’Arte

Abstract

The inherent ephemerality of performance, doubly so in respect of the debated practice of improvisation within the genre, presents many issues in terms of examining Commedia's history, both in terms of how a performance unfolded before an audience, and the hypothecated abilities of its performers. I propose that a way of understanding the historical practice is through an individual actor's development of individual performance habits. Commedia was the first professional theatre in which each actor played the same character in many different plays. In doing so they acquired embodied performance mannerisms that were recycled from show to show. These may be termed performative habits. This article focuses on 'habit' as a positive process of accruing the skills required to perform the genre's specific characteristic: the reusable 'stock character' appearing in multiple shows, with that role being based on a combination of geographical, social, economic factors and culturally embodied skills. One of the conclusions I draw is that these 'habits' required time to acquire and were done so within the context of an evolving system or method of performance skills, publicity and business practices together with the social skills required to inhabit this putative system over a significant proportion of the actor's life. An individual's al improvisso performance, within a scenario, therefore, can be seen as a conscious deployment of acquired and highly specific performance habits.