![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Back from New York City
Aug. 9th, 2012 11:03 pmLis and I spent a couple days in NYC, because her parents had a trade show there, so having us help set up and break down was a good excuse to get together. We went to a couple museums, and saw a couple shows, and had some good meals, and generally got to spend time with my in-laws who are just really fun people whom I love.
I'd like to make one recommendation: all of you who are commedia dell'arte fans? You want to see the Tony-award winning play "One Man, Two Guvnors."
A quick background: commedia dell'arte was -- and is -- a form of improv comedy developed in the mid-fifteen-hundreds in Italy. The idea is that you had a bunch of standard characters, and you'd set up a scenario, and in each scene you'd have plot points which had to come out, but, basically, the troupe would improv the whole thing.
The ideas and characters were picked up by playwrights who used them in non-improv plays, too -- most of Shakespeare's comedies have a significant commedia influence, for instance. And, in 1743, Carlo Goldoni wrote what is considered to be one of the greatest commedia-like plays ever -- "Servant of Two Masters". Because it's actually written down, and not improv, it's not commedia dell'arte, but it's entirely based on the stock characters, stock themes, and stock setups of commedia.
Last year, English playwright Richard Bean wrote an adaptation, moving it from 18th-century Italy to 1963 Brighton. It had, and continues to have, a successful run on the West End, but the star actor opened the play on Broadway, where we saw it.
James Corden is the best Arlecchino I've ever seen. We were fortunate enough to see a matinee performance in which a few things went wrong. Because, well, just because it's a written-down play doesn't mean that the actors CAN'T improv. And, when props went flying off the stage and getting lost, or audience members totally messed with the plot (Arlecchino's motivation is the fact that he's really, really hungry. What happens when an audience member who's seen the play before brings him a sandwich?), and the play just went off the rails -- well, those were among the best parts.
I'd like to make one recommendation: all of you who are commedia dell'arte fans? You want to see the Tony-award winning play "One Man, Two Guvnors."
A quick background: commedia dell'arte was -- and is -- a form of improv comedy developed in the mid-fifteen-hundreds in Italy. The idea is that you had a bunch of standard characters, and you'd set up a scenario, and in each scene you'd have plot points which had to come out, but, basically, the troupe would improv the whole thing.
The ideas and characters were picked up by playwrights who used them in non-improv plays, too -- most of Shakespeare's comedies have a significant commedia influence, for instance. And, in 1743, Carlo Goldoni wrote what is considered to be one of the greatest commedia-like plays ever -- "Servant of Two Masters". Because it's actually written down, and not improv, it's not commedia dell'arte, but it's entirely based on the stock characters, stock themes, and stock setups of commedia.
Last year, English playwright Richard Bean wrote an adaptation, moving it from 18th-century Italy to 1963 Brighton. It had, and continues to have, a successful run on the West End, but the star actor opened the play on Broadway, where we saw it.
James Corden is the best Arlecchino I've ever seen. We were fortunate enough to see a matinee performance in which a few things went wrong. Because, well, just because it's a written-down play doesn't mean that the actors CAN'T improv. And, when props went flying off the stage and getting lost, or audience members totally messed with the plot (Arlecchino's motivation is the fact that he's really, really hungry. What happens when an audience member who's seen the play before brings him a sandwich?), and the play just went off the rails -- well, those were among the best parts.