UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item Moving from the Archive: Historiography and "Authenticity" in Commedia dell'Arte Performance(2018) Wilson, Matthew R.; Hildy, Franklin J.; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)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.Item "The Sauce is Better Than the Fish": The Use of Food to Signify Class in the Comedies of Carlo Goldoni 1737-1762.(2006-04-26) Coyle, Margaret Anne; Nathans, Heather S; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the plays of Venetian Commedia del'Arte reformer-cum-playwright Carlo Goldoni, and documents how he manipulates consumption and material culture using fashionable food and dining styles to satirize class structures in eighteenth century Italy. Goldoni's works exist in what I call the "consuming public" of eighteenth century Venice, documenting the theatrical, literary, and artistic production of the city as well as the trend towards Frenchified social production and foods in the stylish eating of the period. The construction of Venetian society in the middle of the eighteenth century was a specific and legally ordered cultural body, expressed through various extra-theatrical activities available during the period, such as gambling, carnival, and public entertainments. The theatrical conventions of the Venetian eighteenth century also explored nuances of class decorum, especially as they related to audience behavior and performance reception. This decorum extended to the eating styles for the wealthy developed in France during the late seventeenth century and spread to the remainder of Europe in the eighteenth century. Goldoni 's early plays from 1737 through 1752 are riffs on the traditional Commedia dell'Arte performances prevalent in the period. He used food in these early pieces to illustrate the traditional class and regional affiliations of the Commedia characters. Plays such as The Artful Widow, The Coffee House, and The Gentleman of Good Taste experimented with the use of historical foods styles that illustrate social placement and hint at further character development. In his later plays from 1753-1762, Goldoni developed his satirical use of food in order to illuminate current social problems and bourgeois status issues. Plays such as Mirandolina, The Superior Residence, and the three plays of The Country Trilogy offer a social commentary about the role of consumption in the formation of class structure during the period. My work offers a new look at the theatre and literary output of the eighteenth century, and particularly how writers used material culture as a way of illustrating social changes.