JUN
23

A Lesson in Commedia Dell’Arte:

One-Two-Three Comedy 

By Lane Riosley 

Lane Riosley is a writer living and working in Houston, Texas.  She has over 20 plays in publication, including 12 with Pioneer Drama Service. 

Last week, I shared a brief history of commedia dell’arte and the invention of the romantic comedy.  This week, let’s talk about lessons in commedia dell’arte.

When I do school workshops about commedia dell’arte — middle school, high school, or university level — I use the two exercises below to teach some basics of comedy.  I’ve even had college instructors tell me these exercises help their students perform Shakespeare in particular.  No surprise there, since the Bard was heavily influenced by commedia dell’arte.

Whether it’s Shakespeare, the Muppets, the Marx Brothers, or a stand-up comedian, the one-two-three of comedy makes audiences laugh so is important to learn.  In the tradition of commedia dell’arte, this is how actors use a play text as a starting point for their own creative work.

I think you’ll find that students really get into this.  In fact, both students and teachers tell me they like doing these exercises over and over, since they learn more every time they perform them.  And they’re fun!  As a workshop instructor, I have fun, too.

Note:  These two exercises can either be done back-to-back in one workshop or in two parts, one a day, in a classroom setting.

The One-Two-Three Comedy Exercise

This exercise provides practice in comedic timing for scenes.  Your students will work in groups of about five to improvise a short scene following the one-two-three of comedy:

One:  Premise
First, have your students perform a premise.  It can be anything that is true for the scene like an activity, a goal, an assumption, or even a magical event.  Have them act out their premise for their audience, remembering to show, not tell.

Two:  Fun and games
Next, they should have fun with the premise by using the physical space to play games with it.  Comedy is most successful when it surprises the audience just as they realize they should have seen it coming.  Astonishment + satisfaction = laughter.

Three:  Payoff tag/reversal
Finally, they should deliver a payoff and/or a reversal.  They resolve or tag the scene in a way that completes or satisfies their premise.  They can also create a reversal where they turn their premise around entirely.

Have them think of movies or plays where a scene or story ends with a surprise reversal and everything they thought was true turns out to be something else entirely.  If they can do this, their audience will first be astonished, then laugh and applaud.

Example:  Here is an example from the play Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, a playwright who wrote many comedy (and commedia) scenes.  The one-two-three of comedy is as follows:

One (premise):  Malvolio, a steward, is in love with his lady mistress.  He finds a letter he believes is from her, hinting at her love for him and instructing him how to best please and charm her.  The audience knows the letter is a trap, a jest, and a joke on Malvolio.

Two (fun and games):  Malvolio reads the letter aloud and agrees to comply with each ridiculous request (such as cross-gartered yellow stockings).  Meanwhile, Fabian, Sir Andrew, and Sir Toby listen and respond with comic asides.  This scene is often performed as a game where the listening actors hide in clever ways and briefly emerge to mock Malvolio, all unseen.

Three (payoff tag/reversal):  After announcing that he will do everything in the letter, Malvolio exits.  Fabian, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew rejoice in anticipation of Malvolio's imminent embarrassment.  This is a payoff tag with a reversal that the audience expects.

Q&A and teams
Once you have explained the exercise, take questions from the actors.  Then send the teams off to go to work for 20-30 minutes.  Give a 10-minute warning, then a 5-minute warning before you call them back to perform their scenes.

Feedback and conclusion
Give feedback after each scene is performed.  (Tip:  When actors give each other feedback, the learning experience is enhanced, as long as you’ve worked with your students on how to give constructive feedback to each other.)

To conclude the exercise ask, “What did you like about this exercise?”  and “If we do it again, what would you like to do differently?”

The Grummalot Comedy Exercise

This exercise trains actors to express emotions and dramatic situations entirely with sound and physical movements.  No understandable words are used, so actors are free to improvise movements, sounds, and responses.  The resulting improvised scenes are typically surprising and funny.

Grummalot (or grammelot) originated in commedia dell’arte.  It’s when an actor pretends to speak in a foreign language but is actually speaking gibberish.  It can sound like a foreign language, such as French, Italian, or German, but often works best as an invented language with random sounds.

Before you begin, on index cards write single-emotion words, such as:

Then sort the actors into teams of four to six.  Each team of actors draws 6 emotion cards.  Give the teams four blank cards to write nonsense words for use in their scenes.  Teams then have 30 minutes to create scenes using the one-two-three method of the first exercise:

One (premise):  Teams play the first part of the scene with the first emotion.  Example:  The first emotion is angry.  Actors face off, shout, wave their fists, chase and threaten each other.  They should shout a nonsense word back and forth as it if has deep meaning.

Two (fun and games):  Teams play the second part of the scene with the next four emotions.  Transitions from one emotion to another may be smooth and planned, or unexpected and surprising.  Example:  The next cards are mocking, curious, persuasive, and skeptical.  The actors initially respond to anger with mocking.  Then, curious, they ask questions like in a game of tag, sharing a nonsense word.  One actor attempts to persuade the others, who become skeptical.

Three (payoff tag/reversal):  Teams play the third part of the scene with the final emotion.  Resolve everything and end with a payoff tag/reversal.  Example:  The last card is pleading.  Other actors plead with one actor, who responds (positively or negatively) with a nonsense word.  The other actors reject this response, turn their backs and walk off.  The remaining actor then laughs and shouts the nonsense word at them as they exit.