Download Renaissance Theatre in Italy, France, and Germany

About the time that the great cycle plays were turning to the use of the vernacular, Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio were writing their great works in their native Italian. As early as the 13 th century, an abridged Latin
translation of Aristotle’s Poetics had been made by a German scholar, and in the next century, Mantinus of
Tortosa in Spain had done the same thing. The spreading belief that all things are possible to man led to the
great voyages and great discoveries, to great music, the great art, and the great literature of this era. The
decreasing fear of punishment in the next world led to libertinism, exploitation, political chicanery and murder.
It was the best and worst of all possible worlds. And the drama, as the true mirror of its age, reflected these
often contrary images. We can be exalted by Shakespeare and revolted by Machiavelli – but both are of the age.
DRAMA SECULAR, NOT SACRED
The early Renaissance theatre was of two distinct types: the select and formal theatre promoted by Humanists,
and the popular theatre which, in Italy, became to be called the commedia dell’arte. Both types were secular.
Though the presentation of mysteries and miracles was to continue through many years of the Renaissance
period, the animating spirit of the time was secular rather than religious.
TWO THEATRES DEVELOP
It is easy to see in the popular theatre, though a definite connection has not yet been established, the
continuation of the mime tradition reaching far back into the earliest days of theatrical history. For the vigor,
art, and vulgarity of the commedia dell’arte are certainly reminiscent of the early Greek comedies and the
Atellan farces, with overtones of Menander, Plautus, and Terence. It was produced by companies of highly
specialized professional actor-managers who generally grouped together on family lines, with both men and
women participating. The commedia itself, and the playing of specific roles, often became a family tradition.
The more formal theatre, on the other hand, was the darling of the new intellectual elite who have been called
Humanists. Its dramatic performances were generally given as special entertainments, or to mark special events.
It was patronized and supported by the noble and the wealthy, such as the family of the Medici, the Duke of
Urbino, the Popes, and there confreres. Its performers were both professional and amateur depending on the
occasion, the purpose, and the producer. Its audiences, however, were almost always select.
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Though the period itself produced no important dramatic literature, the modern stage was born in the
Renaissance theatre.
FEW PLAYS OF LASTING VALUE
As a matter of fact, there are no complete playscripts from the commedia. It was an improvisational theatre
using type characters and stock situations. The plays were simply scenarios freely stolen from novels, old plays,
or any source at all, or cleverly invented on the basis of current happenings, remembered incidents, or spicy
gossip.
The characters were stock figures, with specialized characteristics of attitude and appearance and particularized
names. Often an actor assumed one of these characters for a lifetime.
The scenarios comprised chiefly comedies, but included also are tragedies, tragicomedies, pastorals, and – as
the type developed – operas. Though dialogue was not set down and memorized by the actors, they did have
certain speeches and bits of business which were standard and which were used over and over again. The bits of
business were called lazzi, and these corresponded to the stock farce actions with which our modern stage is
familiar. The set speeches were of two kinds: one, the chiusetti, was a type of lyrical outburst on subjects such
as hope, parting, and friendship; the other, the repertorio, was more ordinary, and took the form of advice,
rage, and various greetings – to a lady, to a gentleman, and so forth.
The formal theatre, however, used standard scripts of various types: translations of the Greek and Latin masters,
native models of classic comedy and tragedy, original comedies, tragedies, pastorals, and operas.
In 1429 Cusano discovered in Germany twelve previously unknown plays of Plautus; after the invention of the
printing press by a group of German mechanics working with Gutenberg, they received wide distribution.
Terence’s comedies were first printed in 1473. Printed translations of both Roman writers soon followed and
were widely read. In 1502 the Venetian printer, Aldus, published the seven existing plays of Sophocles. A year
later he published Euripides, and, in 1518, Aeschylus. Now the theatre was equipped with most of the classic
masters, and the humanist writers aped them sedulously.
Both native comedy and native tragedy served theatre, and there were many practitioners. Chief among the
Italian writers of comedy were Ariosto and Aretino, though no lesser persons than Machiavelli and Lorenzo de
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Medici were also writing. The level of native comedy is low by any dramatic standard, but that of native
tragedy is even lower. It is most completely unoriginal, boring, and weltering in blood: early and late examples
adhere to the pattern of Seneca. Play after play of the period shows the preoccupation of the playwrights with
the revenge motive, the appearance of ghosts, oratorical prologues, and long declamatory passages, the
substitution of horror for tragedy, of narration for action.
Sumptuous also were the settings of that particular child of the Renaissance, the pastoral play. This was the
escapist drama of the period; its time was always set in The Golden Age, its place was Arcadia, and its
characters were shepherds and nymphs. The pastoral had many manifestations all over the Continent, and
Shakespeare did not scorn to use the form in such a play as AS YOU LIKE IT.
Related to the pastoral drama by reason of its luxuriant production was the one other form of theatrical
presentation cultivated in the Renaissance – the opera. Though the chanting of lines and actual singing had been
a part of the medieval cycle plays, and though the Humanist Poliziano had written, in 1422, a dramatic poem set
to music called THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS, it remained for the little circle of musicians and poets gathered at the
palazzo of Giovanni Bardi in Florence and dedicated to a study of the classics, to produce something new. It
was DAFNE (first performed in 1597), with words by Rinuccini and music by Peri, that became the first
significant opera.
SIMPLE STAGING IN COMMEDIA THEATRE
The typical background of a commedia performance was a simple platform and a backdrop, sometimes painted,
sometimes not. The platform was always of a temporary nature, being erected in marketplaces, squares, open
fields, or halls, and remaining only for the duration of the performance. If the platform were high enough, it was
curtained off and the understage area was used as a dressing room. If not, the area behind the backdrop served
the purpose. Only the most rudimentary of stage props were used – a table, a chair, and a basket – and since the
performances were mostly outdoors, absolutely no lighting effects were necessary. The focus was on the actor
and there it remained, whether he was attempting by his skill to catch the attention of a noisy crowd at the
Parisian theatres de la foire, or whether he had the undivided attention customary at command performances at
courts and royal houses.
COURT AMATEURS HAVE ELABORATE ACCOUTREMENTS
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The early Humanists combined what they found of staging suggestions in the texts of Plautus and Terence with
what they knew of the medieval custom of mansions, and presented their plays on platforms with backings
which indicated three or more individual doorways for the various characters, which grew to be ornamented and
elaborated, with suggestion of rooms behind them. With the discovery of Vitruvius in 1484, attention began to
be paid to the accommodations of the audience. In 1580, the Olympic Academy of Vicenza commissioned
Andrea Palladio to design and build a theatre according to the best classical ideas of the time, and this Teatro
Olimpico, as it came to be called, is the first permanent theatre building of the Italian Renaissance. The theatre
designed by Palladio has 13 tiers of seats arranged in semi-elliptical fashion around an open floor area called the
orchestra, abutting at the ends on a stage which is 70 feet long and 18 feet deep. Palladio died before the
building was completed, and Vicenzo Scamozzi altered the original plans for the stage proper by adding
perspective vistas. The Teatro Farnese [1618] had the first permanent, sculptured proscenium arch, and behind
it, a flat-wing system for change of scenes. The proscenium arch and the flat-wing system persist in today’s
theatre.
STAGECRAFT HIGHLY SKILLED
The stage itself was soon highly decorated with curtains of gold cloth and with tapestries and intricate columns.
Just as the simple mansion settings of the cycle plays became complex enough to require as many as eight
“masters of machines,” so the stages of the classic revival developed from simplicity to elaboration. To them
was added the wonders of perspective representation with which the artists of the Renaissance were so
concerned.
Sebastiano Serlio furthered the idea of perspective: the floor of the rear stage was sloped upward to emphasize
the forced perspective which had become so popular. Thus was born the raked stage which continued in use
even into the 20th century. In his further descriptions of stage effects, Serlio particularized the reference in
Vitruvius to the three types of classic settings: comic-tragic, and satiric – and solidified a convention which was
slavishly followed for many years in many places. For the comic scene he prescribed houses “for Citizens, but
specifically there must not want a brawthell or bawdy house, and a great Inne, and a Church.” For the tragic
scene he planned “none but stately houses. . . Chimneyes, Towers, Piramides, Oblisces, and other such like
things or Images. . .cut out round, and well coloured.” The satiric scene, he said, “should be made with Trees,
Rootes, Herbs, Hils, and Flowers, and with some countrey houses.”
The desirability – or necessity – of sets which could be changed during the course of the production led to the
development of nested angle wings and flat wings. Since all changes were made in full view of the audience,
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great care was taken to make the operation smooth and interesting. In addition to the wing system, Sabbatini
describes a scene change using an adaptation of the Greek three-sided prism. Sabbatini also discusses how the
lights should be arranged on the stage, and how to light them. He recommends oil lamps with strong wicks as
most reliable and durable. Serlio describes how colored lighting effects may be achieved by using colored water
or wine in glass vessels with lamps and reflectors behind them, and tells of the effects of various ingredients;
DiSomi recommends that the auditorium be darkened so that the stage lights would appear brighter – a practice
which did not become universal until more than a century later.
COMMEDIA COSTUMES STEREOTYPED
In both the formal and popular theatres, costumes and makeup played an important part in creating the scenic
illusion. In the popular theatre of the commedia they served to identify the characters as well as to add to the
stage decoration. Masks were worn by almost all of the actors. The inamorate [juvenile and ingénue] rarely, if
ever were masked, and ordinarily wore contemporary dress as rich as the treasury of the company would allow.
CLASSICAL ADAPTATIONS AND CONTEMPORARY DRESS IN FORMAL
THEATRE
In the plays of the formal Renaissance theatre the costumes became a part of stage decoration; the richer the
production, the richer the costuming. Classical adaptations were used for the Greek and Roman plays. For
native comedy and tragedy contemporary dress was the rule. The aim was to make every actor as unique as
possible in style and color, with an emphasis on light and definite colors which would enhance the stage picture.
TITLED DILETTANTES AND SCHOLARS IN AMATEUR RANKS
If we are to make an arbitrary division we might say that the formal theatre of the Renaissance was a theatre of
amateurs, while that of the commedia was a theatre of professionals. The corps of actors in the formal theatre
was comprised largely of dilettantes [dabbler] and scholars. In the pastorals sported the lords and their ladies,
much as the ladies and courtiers of Jacobean England participated in the masques at a somewhat later date. No
doubt these amateur groups also profited from working with the professionals from the commedia with whom
their casts were sometimes augmented. More generally, however, the commedia companies were invited – or
commanded – to present a performance at a marriage, a visit, or at some other special event.
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COMMEDIA ACTING A FAMILY TRADITION
Generally the core of the company was a single family, as the Andreini family was in I Gelosi, and the scenarios
and reputation of the group descended from one generation to the next. The training was rigorous. Commedia
players were expected to be proficient in song, dance, and acrobatics as well as in the more usual spoken
dialogue. They had to have nimble wits as well as nimble heels, for the improvisational nature of the
performance demanded it.
The most famous of the troupes played in the courts of the nobles and traveled from city to city. To the
commedia performer Marie Fairet goes the honor of being the first woman performer on the professional stage
in France, when her company visited Paris about the middle of the 16th century. In 1568 a commedia company
traveled in Austria, delighting the court in Vienna. In 1571 a troupe was summoned to Paris to play at the
marriage of Charles IX. A commedia troupe performed before Elizabeth of England in 1577, and Philip II of
Spain was greatly pleased with the troupe which he had invited to play at his court.
But however famous or sought-after performers or companies might become, the uncompromising Church was
still opposed
to these professional theatre people, and many municipal
edicts as well as church
pronouncements were issued against them. It is recorded that even so famous a player as Isabella Andreini, who
died in 1601 soon after she had been newly honored by Queen Marie, was refused burial in hallowed ground in
conformance with the law of the Church.
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