Prerequisite Knowledge
Students should know how to improvise and should have had some experience with drama movement without words.
Focus
This mini-unit gives students a mere glimpse of the particular style of theatre performance known as Commedia dell’Arte and can be taught in conjunction with “Learning from the Past” Part One: Exploring the Style of Melodrama. It includes a final culminating task based on both mini-units. In this unit, students will
- identify and describe various dramatic forms and describe the historical origins of these forms;
- create and perform dramatic presentations using knowledge of conventions performance spaces and audience perspectives;
- learn that comedy is rooted in old theatre forms;
- employ the techniques of exaggerated movement to create their own versions of Commedia characters such as Arlecchino, Pantalone and Columbina;
- explore the possibilities of scenarios based on exaggerated physical clowning.
Materials and Resources
- CD player and CD with fast paced classical or jazz music such as “The Sting” or selections from Cirque de Soleil
- Rolled up tube of newspaper wound with a few pieces of masking tape (to substitute as a slapstick)
- A cloth blindfold
- A set of keys
- Video clips of television shows with Commedia-like characters, such as The Simpsons, Seinfeld, or Three’s Company
- Optional half masks for the characters
Special Notes
- See Background Notes for more details on Commedia dell’Arte.
- If using masks for these lessons, it is important to discuss the use of masks and experiment with the masks before beginning the unit. If the students have no prior experience in using masks, it may be more productive to work without them.
- For more in depth coverage of this style, see the Commedia dell’Arte unit in the Ontario Curriculum Profile for Grade 12 Dramatic Arts U/C Level (Unit 2: pgs 21-31) and sample lessons from Interpretation: Working With Scripts by David Booth and Charles Lundy.