Commedia dell'arte (10)

To begin this lesson I took a physical warm up to ensure we were ready to move as our characters. We decided to run the scene we had created last lesson to see if everyone remembered it. Thankfully, everyone did remember roughly what they were doing but unfortunately the scene was no longer slick and had become a little bit messy. Therefore, we thought it best not to add any more to the scene yet and that we should go back through the scene and make adjustments (using forum theatre). Due to the piece not being slick, we had lost the comic timing we had before; so our first step was to tidy the scene again. The parts that needed to be tighter were whenever Columbina turned around and spotted Zanni. As soon as Columbina turns around, Zanni needs to instantly stop struggling and try to impress Columbina. As James needs to keep interacting with the audience (to fit the Commedia dell'arte style), he didn't always notice when Rhiannon had turned round and spotted him. Therefore I suggested that Rhiannon could make a little noise whenever she turned round and spotted him (perhaps an inquisitive "hmmm" or a subtle cough). Our next issue was that James "used the glue" realistically until he clapped the bottle over his head, when the bottle seemed to magically disappear. Therefore Oliver suggested that, when we did the scene again, James should use a plastic bottle as the glue bottle. We then ran the whole scene up until Doctor enters again to see how the scene looks having done forum theatre. Thankfully, the scene was a lot better as it was tighter, clearer and funnier.

Having improved the section before Doctor entered, we decided we would run the scene from Doctor's entrance until Il Capitano's entrance. This scene was a lot stronger though still had a couple of parts we wanted to improve. The first of these parts was to do with being stuck to each other. At times, the illusion was lost as they let go of each other and then quickly tried to cover this up (for example, James moved his head to fast that Rhiannon lost grip on his hair, thus spoiling the illusion of Rhiannon's hand being stuck to his head). Having sorted this, we decided to alter the section where Zanni gets stuck to Columbina who is stuck to the Doctor. As this happened too quickly, the audience may not have noticed how he became stuck - therefore we decided to try the section just before Zanni became glued to Columbina in slow motion. This took quite a while to perfect to make it look realistic and to ensure the three of them were moving at the same time. Our thoughts then turned to sound - we discussed having some tense music whilst this was happening to add to the tension. Originally, we did have them talking in slow motion as well but we decided against this as it was a little bit too typical and thought that having either the tense music or just silence would work better. This also would allow the transition back in to "normal speed" to be smoother - this happens by Rhiannon moaning at Zanni (starting quietly and then getting louder - the moan is an elongated "ah" sound). By having just Rhiannon do this and then have Oliver join in afterwards, ensures that the transition is clean and smooth and the audience understands what is happening.

Once the section with Doctor had been improved, we worked on Il Capitano's entrance. We decided to have Robert pretend he was on horseback and that this would also be a good opportunity for sound effects too. We wanted Il Capitano's entrance to be very grand and elaborate to match his character. We then kept the rest of the scene how it was and then added more to the end. We then had Harlequin enter and frighten Il Capitano, who then jumps in to the Doctor's arms, resulting in everybody being stuck (except Harlequin). Doctor asks Harlequin for help; Harlequin considers this and then walks off, dancing as he goes (as this is how Harlequin moves as he is very playful).


Ideas for new scenes:

• Pantalone bosses Brighella and Harlequin around. Harlequin never does as he is told so Brighella has to do everything herself, meaning the jobs are never done quite to Pantalone's standard. However Brighella gets the blame and not Harlequin. Brighella comes up with a plan to get Harlequin in trouble. Brighella ensures that the opposite of what Pantalone asks is achieved and frames Harlequin. However, Pantalone prefers the way that work has been done and praises Harlequin for his hard work and gives him the week off.
• Il Capitano is trying desperately to win Columbina's love. Brighella and Columbina have had a massive argument and cannot stand the sight of each other. Il Capitano asks the Doctor to create a potion to make Columbina love him. The potion doesn't work for Il Capitano and Brighella actually falls for Brighella. Il Capitano is livid with Brighella for supposedly wooing Columbina and puts a potion into Brighella's drink to ensure that Brighella did not fall for Columbina. Unfortunately, this potion doesn't work either and Brighella falls for Il Capitano. (This scene was inspired by Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and is extremely similar, but I thought we could make this scene similar and almost mock the play to make ours comical).