Relationship of Oral and Literate Performance Processes in the Commedia Dell'arte Beyond the Improvisation/Memorisation Divide
| Author: | Fitzpatrick, Tim | |
| Year: | 1995 | |
| Pages: | 468 | |
| ISBN: | 0-7734-9003-5 978-0-7734-9003-1 | |
| Price: | $279.95 + shipping | |
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Beyond the Improvisation/Memorisation Divide
This study argues that the performers who developed the commedia dell'arte in the 16th century did so by applying oral storytelling techniques to a multi-performer genre. The book argues that the predominant documentary evidence of this theatre phenomenon, the eight hundred extant scenarios, can be examined as specific literate elements in a theatrical production process which can be delineated in relation to other well-documented oral processes. Extensive analysis of scenarios from different collections demonstrates how the scenarios are structured for, and might have functioned in, performance: they provided a series of clear schematic units for which the performers could develop specific formulaic material able to be quickly and fluently strung together to create a seamless whole. Further analysis distills the scenarios into a finite list of categorized performance units to create a notional compendium of all the sorts of schematic material for which the performers would have needed to generate formulaic utterances and actions, a sort of 'encyclopedia of the performable which influenced not only this genre but much subsequent theatre practice.
This study argues that the performers who developed the commedia dell'arte in the 16th century did so by applying oral storytelling techniques to a multi-performer genre. The book argues that the predominant documentary evidence of this theatre phenomenon, the eight hundred extant scenarios, can be examined as specific literate elements in a theatrical production process which can be delineated in relation to other well-documented oral processes. Extensive analysis of scenarios from different collections demonstrates how the scenarios are structured for, and might have functioned in, performance: they provided a series of clear schematic units for which the performers could develop specific formulaic material able to be quickly and fluently strung together to create a seamless whole. Further analysis distills the scenarios into a finite list of categorized performance units to create a notional compendium of all the sorts of schematic material for which the performers would have needed to generate formulaic utterances and actions, a sort of 'encyclopedia of the performable which influenced not only this genre but much subsequent theatre practice.