Commedia Dell Arte Character Analysis

Commedia Dell’arte is a form of theatre identified by improvisation and a cast of set stock characters. This theatre type was created in the 16th century in Northern Italy which later was found to be performed all over Europe. Comedia Dell’arte is an Italian word which directly translates to ‘comedy of skills’. The theatrical performances were usually performed in open air venues and based on a set scenario and plan which the characters then improvised their dialogues on. It focused on improvisation, physicality, and refined comedy that an audience could easily understand, using masks, stock characters, nonsense language called ‘ grammalot’ , comic business known as ‘ lazzi’ and over the top acrobatics to tell their stories and entertain their audiences.
In this discussion essay stock characters will be discussed. I will be giving a synopsis on each character and to which modern day character i can relate them too.
There are 6 main prototypes of Comedia Dell’arte namingly: Pantalone, Ill Dottore, Ill Capitano, Arlecchino, Brighella and Columbina. Each of these stock characters portrayed a distinct set of attributes—characteristic speech, gestures, props, and costumes- that became the portayal of the character.
The 2 prototyped characters in discussion will be Ill Dottore and Columbina.

Words one could use to describe Ill Dottore are

Many of the characters from the Simpsons are portayed with the same personalities as the stock characters in Comedia Dell’arte. Both Commedia Dell’arte and The Simpsons use stock characters to appeal to a wide audience, and achieve comic entertainment combined with social commentary. They make us laugh, but equally make us think about our own culture. The Simpsons achieves ‘art of comedy’, minus the masks. Another shared characteristic is the concept of ‘ lazzi’ of taking the viewer on a side journey for comic