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Character Analysis
| Character Name | Lelio (DiCraprio) |
| Status
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Lover, usually the son of either Pantalone or Dottre.
High in stature, but usually brought low by the hopelessness of their infatuation. - Rudlin Member of Innamorati – Rudlin |
| Costume
|
The latest fashion. Males sometimes dressed as young soldiers
or cadets. -Rudlin
Flowing and somewhat over fashionable in a color scheme that is very feminine with a great deal of panache. – Tim Shane Gentry-class dress, nice looking, modest, cute. Usually with a heart motif -Little |
| Origin (History)
|
The aristocracy of the Italian Renaissance courts amused themselves with a form they called commedia erudita based on the plays of Terence and Plautus, for example Calandria by Cardinal Bibbiena which, like Shakespeare's later Comedy of Errors, is based on Plautus' Menaechmi. As the professional improvised comedy looked to extend its range it seemed to have borrowed the Lovers from the amateur form. - Rudlin |
| Physical Appearance
|
Had to be young, well set up, courteous, gallant even to the point
of affectation - in short, a blade and a dandy. - Duchartre
Young and attractive – Rudlin The lovers and wooers of the Commedia dell'arte were always dapper and engaging and just a trifle ridiculous. - Duchartre |
Mask
|
None
No actual mask, but heavy make-up. Mascara and beauty spots for both sexes. The make-up in fact becomes a mask enabling performers to play the role well into middle age, or even beyond - Giovan Battista Andreini, son of Francesco, played Lelio until he was 73. Vizard or loup could be worn for disguise, usually made of black velvet. This was a normal accoutrement for society ladies when walking to a rendezvous and could be half- or full-face. But since it has not expression it does not count as a mask in the Commedia sense, although it does provide plenty of plot potential, enabling, for example, Columbina to attend rendezvous in her mistress's place. - Rudlin Occasionally wore a mask that just covered eyes or a loop mask. - Laver |
| Signature Props |
Handkerchief. -Rudlin |
| Stance
|
They lack firm contact with the earth. Feet invariably in
ballet positions, creating an inverted cone. Chest and heart
heavy. They are full of breath, but then take little pants on
top. Sometimes when situations become too much for them, they
deflate totally. – Rudlin
Legs tightly together, usually with only one foot firmly planted on the ground, and the other crawling upward like he has to urinate badly. The groin is usually inward and protected with the upper torso bent over it. – Tim Shane |
| Walk
|
They do not walk as much as tweeter, due to the instability of
their base. First the head leans the other way to the body
sway. Then the arms have to be used, one above the other, as a
counterweight. -Rudlin
Light, fluttering on tip toes, arms extended with wrists loose allowing the hands to flap like wings.- Tim Shane |
| Poses
|
1.) On toes in various ballet positions with wrists bent down.
2.) Anything that might look Vogue. 3.) Whenever sitting, legs crossed in a feminine manner. Head always sits very delicately on the frame of the body. 4.) Never stand up right, always with a hip cocked out to expresses “attitude”. 5.) Mimic poses of female lovers 6.) Back of hand against forehead, other arm outstretched. |
Movements
|
Actors would use the same dancing masters as the well-to-do whom
they were parodying in order to point up the ridiculousness of exaggerated
deportment. Movement comes at the point of overbalance leading to a
sideways rush towards a new focus, with the arms left trailing
behind. Stop at the new point (usually the beloved or some token
thereof) before (almost) touching it. The Lovers have little or no
physical contact. When there is any, the minimum has maximum
effect. - Rudlin
Light and fluttery. – Tim Shane |
| Gestures
|
Foppish- Tim Shane
Often while holding a handkerchief or flower, etc. in the leading hand. The arms never make identical shapes. Because of their vanity, they frequently look in a hand mirror, only to become upset by any minor imperfection which is discovered. Even in extremis they are always looking to see if a ribbon or a sequin is out of place. A button found on the floor or a blemish in the coiffure equals disaster. - Rudlin |
| Speech
|
Language: Tuscan, making great display of courtly words and
baroque metaphors. Well read, knowing large extracts of poems by
heart (especially Petrarch). They speak softly in musical sentences
- in contrast with the zanni. Their sentences are often
flamboyant, hyperbolical, full of amorous rhetoric. By the end of
the 17th Century in Paris, the Lovers spoke French. - Rudlin
Light and every sentence is like a sigh, adding occassional sighs in between words and speaking in crescendos and decrescendos. – Shane |
| Animal | Butterfly. |
| Relationships
|
When it comes to women, his words are the only thing that shows
that he might have any interest. His body language, actions, tone,
all contradict any infatuation he may have with a female. The only
reason why he would express an interest in a female is because he loves
the idea of love. However he seems genuinely more in love with
himself and other male characters before he is in love with a woman.
– Shane
They [the lovers] relate exclusively to themselves - they are in love with themselves being in love. The last person they actually relate to in the course of the action is often the beloved. When they do meet they have great difficulty in communicating with each other (usually because of the nerves). And they relate to their servants only in terms of pleading for help. The Lovers love each other, yet are more preoccupied with being seen as lovers, undergoing all the hardships of being in such a plight, than with actual fulfilment. Consequently they frequently scorn each other and feign mild hatred; they rebut, despair, reconcile, but eventually end up marrying in the way of true love when the game is up and they know they cannot play any more. After a quarrel the male may try a serenade to win back favour. This will be (dis)organized by Zanni: he employs musicians who are drunk or spends the money on something else and has tu use tramps off the street. The result is total chaos, but in the end the serenade is beautifully played and sung because everyone miraculously turns out to be good at their job after all. - Rudlin |
| Relationship to Audience |
Extremely aware of being watched. Play with the audience for sympathy in their plight. Occasionally flirts with spectators. -Rudlin |
| Frequent Plot Function
|
Indispensable. Without them and their inability to resolve
their own problems, there would be no function for the zanni, no
struggle between the ineffectuality of youth and the implacability of
age. The lovers are never alone on stage - they always have someone
with them or spying on them. - Ruldin
Their function was to depict a state of mind rather than to paint a personality. - Duchartre |
| Characteristics
|
Whatever the names of the lovers in the commedia dell'arte, they
had no other trait as 'characters' than that of being in love. -
Duchartre
Three, like primary colors: fidelity, jealously and fickleness. They are vain, petuluant, spoilt, full of doubt and have very little patience. They have a masochistic enjoyment of enforced seperation because it enables them to dramatize their situation, lament, moan, send messages, etc. When the Lovers do meet they are almost always tongue-tied and need interpreters (i.e. a zanni and/or a servetta) who proceed to misinterpret their statements, either through stupidity (Zanni), malicious desire for revenge (Brighella) or calculated self-interest (Columbina). Their attention span is short like young children’s. The fear that they might be nobodies keeps them hyper-animated. Their element is water: they are very wet creatures indeed. The females are more passion-wrought and energetic than their male counterparts. The lovers exist very much in their own world- and in their own world within that world. Self-obsessed and very selfish, they are more interested in what they are saying themselves and how it sounds than in what the beloved is saying. They are primarily in love with themselves, secondarily in love with love, and only consequentially in love with the beloved. What they learn, if anything, from the tribulations of the scenario is the need to reverse these priorities. They do, however, come off better than most other Commedia characters: there is no viciousness in them, and less to be reproached for – except vanity and vapidness, which, given their parents, they can hardly be blamed for. They represent the human portential for happiness. – Rudlin The lover had to play with dash and be able to simulate the most exaggerated passion. - Duchartre If then true lovers have ever been crossed |
| Lazzi | 1.) Very afraid of women, and fears them as if they are monsters
that want to rip him apart. 2.) Hypochondriac, feigning illness whenever possible. 3.) Very sensitive and is reduced to tears with the slightest stimulus or agitation. 4.) Likes to get lost in his thoughts and drop off into long soliloquies of rhyming poetry until silenced or knocked unconscious. 5.) Anything gay (as in happy). 6.) Talks with his hankerchief, occaissonally making a scene out of picking it back up again. 7.) Being deafly afraid of women’s cleavage. 8.) Accepting a compliment and then adding to it and polishing it himself. |
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Commedia dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook by John Rudlin. Routledge 1994 Commedia dell'arte: A Scene-Study Book by Bari Rolfe. Personabooks 1977 The Commedia dell'Arte by Winifred Smith, New York, 1912 The Italian Comedy by Pierre Louis Ducharte. Dover Publications, inc. 1966 Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell'Arte by Mel Gordon. Performing Arts Journal Publications 1983 Harlequin On The Moon by Lynne Lawner. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1998 Scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte: Flaminio Scala's Il Teatro Delle Favole Rappresentative translated by Henry F. Salerno Limelight Editions 1996 All other comments have come from growth and experience of the performers of Commedia dell'Carte |
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