Prospectus. Beckett s Waiting for Godot, I introduced training in the Commedia dell Arte to aid the actors in

Transcription

1 Prospectus In directing the Lindenwood University Theatre Program s 2007 production of Samuel Beckett s Waiting for Godot, I introduced training in the Commedia dell Arte to aid the actors in their characterizations of Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky. Through a guided exploration of the Commedia fixed types, the physical and psychological characteristics that are shared with Beckett s clown tramps, the actors were able to develop a framework, both physical and behavioral, through which they created the characters of Waiting for Godot. The inspiration to incorporate Commedia dell Arte into the rehearsal process of Waiting for Godot came from Beckett s own thoughts about his famously enigmatic work. Beckett claimed that Waiting for Godot must be presented balletically, non-realistically. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the Italian comedy and Beckett s enduring play combine to form a poetic physicality that serves Beckett s vision of the human condition. The characters of Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, and Lucky are based upon the English Music Hall and silent movie clowns of the early twentieth century, of which Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are perhaps the most influential to Beckett, but the list must also include Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers, most notable among many others. Arguably, these famous clowns share in a comedic history that is traceable to the Commedia dell Arte characters that came to full maturity in the early to mid-sixteenth century. It is often put forward that the roots of the Commedia characters reach back to the ancient Fabula Atelleana of Rome, and the New Comedy of Greece. Though there is no conclusive historical evidence to support a lineage linking the comedy of antiquity, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to our modern comedic forms, it is hard to ignore the similarities between the stock characters in the comedies

2 of Plautus or Terrence, such as Phormio or the Miles Gloriosus for instance, and the Commedia s Zanni and Il Capitano. Throughout the 16 th, 17 th, and 18 th centuries, Commedia Masks were diffused throughout Europe, adapted and evolved, finally to be assimilated into the written plays of Carlo Goldoni, among others. As world-renowned maestro Antonio Fava relates, the assimilation of the Commedia dell Arte into a literary form:... the historical disappearance of Commedia is not because the social significance of the fixed types has lost relevance, because fixed types have always spoken the language(s) of the audience... Commedia, which has never completely disappeared, experienced a collapse of interest and diffusion in the period of great social and cultural change subsequent to the French Revolution. The new theatre writers wore down Commedia, which became incapable of renewing itself. In reality, Commedia s lessons not only resisted but fused itself into a thousand new forms... Commedia entered the pens of the best theatre writers. Shakespeare is not immune to its influence, Moliére despite himself is Commedia, Gozzi enthusiastically continues it, and Goldoni is its illustrious victim. (The Comic Mask 57) I would argue that Beckett too, whether he was aware of it or not, joined in this great comedic tradition. The actions of Estragon and Vladimir find their basis in the comic construction of games, word play, and physical bursts of energy comparable to the Commedia dell Arte s lazzi. Literary scholar Edith Kern has drawn a connection between the Commedia dell Arte and Waiting for Godot noting that there are clear traces of the very spirit of the

3 Commedia dell Arte that are to be observed in Beckett s plays: its lazzi... something of its attitude towards language; and above all, its preference for grotesque stylization at the total expense of verisimilitude and probability. (260) In the traditional Commedia, the comic servants, called Zanni, wind themselves into complex farcical situations which grow out of a combination of misinterpretation of instructions or overheard conversations, or deeply ingrained behavioral shortcomings such as: being easily distracted, perpetually hungry, amorous, and/or just plain mischievous. The Zanni always come in pairs: a more crafty and capable first Zanni, and a baser second Zanni. Compare the following description of the Zanni from Antonio Fava s The Comic Mask in the Commedia Dell Arte to a later quote by Beckett: Seized by duty and necessity but also by the wish to play, he is permanently active in a game of construction and deconstruction of relationships, schemes, messages, maneuvers, manipulations, small, medium, and large acts of survival. He does to achieve goals, he undoes to repair the mess of what goes wrong, and vice versa. Zanni is a stupid genius: both his genius and his stupidity contribute equally to preventing him from approaching life in a rational manner. (112) The opportunity and/or desire for the servants to dupe their master, to satisfy (or become distracted by) sexual urges, to make a profit, or to eat, was the root cause of the mayhem that followed in the Zanni s wake. The resulting chaos and physical knockabout arose directly out of the action that drove the Commedia scenarios. The parallels between Waiting for Godot and the Commedia are found in the improvisations and games that define the relations of the comedic pairings. Just as the lazzi of

4 the Commedia grow directly from the circumstances of the Zanni, so too the games and banter of Vladimir and Estragon, and their interaction with Pozzo and Lucky, grow from their circumstances and help define who they are. In Beckett s words: It is a game, everything is a game. When all four of them are lying on the ground, that cannot be handled naturalistically. That has got to be done artificially, balletically. Otherwise everything becomes an imitation, an imitation of reality... It should become clear and transparent, not dry. It is a game in order to survive. (DTF 536) The survival of the characters through game play or lazzi, is exactly what Edith Kern is pointing out in her comparison between Commedia and Godot. The parallels between Beckett s quote and Fava s quote speak to a shared lineage which is made apparent in the physical and verbal antics of Vladimir and Estragon and the nature they share with the Commedia characters. Of course Beckett s characters are not Commedia characters, but in using an amalgamation of the fixed types from Commedia and judiciously applying certain characteristics of their physical behaviors to the clown/tramps of Godot, the actors are able to embrace the reality of the grotesque in Beckett s play. In Antonio Fava s words, the concatenation of intentions is emphasized, exaggerated, pronounced, and maniacally specified. A concatenation of intentions elaborated to achieve credibility in the character s behavior will produce an effect of formal exaggeration of the reality that the actor wishes to describe. (7) In other words, the actors, acting from the demands made by the mask, are lifted out of psychological realism into the artificially balletic presentation that Beckett envisioned.

5 There is little in the way of naturalism in the exaggerated movements and situations that evolve from the Commedia masks and their behavioral structures. However, the heightened action is believable in so far as the Masks, by working through the actors, demand a faithful representation. The Mask dictates its character and the actors must respond. This is achieved through what Jacques LeCoq refers to as a sense of play or le jeu, an open responsiveness and acceptance to spontaneous moments. This openness, an active and mutual communication, is developed between the actors through the exploration and training in the masks. Working in this way serves both actor and play by upholding a pertinent Beckett directive, that is, to avoid getting too naturalistic, while rooting the actors in a specific form from which to base their work. The mask is, in its essence, the embodiment of action, the action grows out of the fight for survival, and the actor s way into the honest presentation of the character is by focusing on the character s struggle to survive. Developing a deeper understanding of Beckett s characters through the exploration in Commedia Masks allowed the actors to approach a balance between the humane and the grotesque inherent in Waiting for Godot. Selected Bibliography Beckett, Samuel. Samuel Beckett The Grove Centenary Edition. Ed. Paul Auster. Four Vols. New York: Grove Press, , The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett Volume I Waiting for Godot. Ed. Dougald McMillan and James Knowlson. New York: Grove Press, Calder, John. The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett.

6 Great Britain: Calder, 2001; Edison, NJ: Riverrun Press, Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Trans. Justin O Brien New York: Knopf, New York:Vintage-Random, Cohn, Ruby. Samuel Beckett: the Comic Gamut. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, Dukore, Bernard F. Dramatic Theory and Criticism Greeks to Grotowski. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Esslin, Martin. Samuel Beckett, A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, , The Theatre of the Absurd 3rd ed. New York: Vintage-Random, Fava, Antonio. The Comic Mask in the Commedia Dell Arte. Trans. Thomas Simpson ArscomicA, 2004; Canada: Northwestern University Press, Green, Martin and Swan, John. The Triumph of Pierrot: The Commedia Dell Arte and the Modern Imagination. Penn State University Press, Harvey, Lawrence. Samuel Beckett Poet and Critic. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, Kern, Edith. Beckett and the Spirit of the Commedia Dell Arte. Modern Drama Quarterly IX (1966): Knowlson, James. Beckett Remembering Remembering Beckett A Centenary Celebration Eds. James and Elizabeth Knowlson. New York: Arcade, , Damned to Fame The Life of Samuel Beckett. Grove Great Lives New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996; New York: Grove Press.

7 LeCoq, Jacques, et.al. The Moving Body Teaching Creative Theatre. Trans. David Bradby. Great Britain: Methuen, 2000; New York: Routledge, Hardback 2001, Paperback, Nicoll, Allardyce. Masks, Mimes and Miracles. London: Harrap, Cooper Square, , The World of Harlequin. Cambridge, Cambridge, Pitches, Jonathan. Vsevelod Meyerhold. New York: Routledge, 2003 Richards, Kenneth and Laura. The Commedia Dell Arte. Blackwell Publishers, Robinson, Michael. The Long Sonata of the Dead a Study of Samuel Beckett. London: Hart-Davis,1969; New York: Grove Press, Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. The New Folger Library. Ed. Barbara A. Mowatt and Paul Werstine. New York, WSP, Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. 4th ed. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Harper Collins, Smith, Winifred. The Commedia Dell Arte: A Study in Italian Popular Comedy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1912.