Critical Response: Vincenzo Tortorici

Last Friday, Vincenzo Tortorici gave us an interactive performance of Commedia dell'arte. I had taken Vince's Commedia workshop at the ISTA conference in New York and had learned all about the characters and character traits they possess. This workshop was the sealing of my knowledge. It helped me fully understand and remember what I had been taught over the past few weeks (in class and in New York).

A way in which Vince helped us understand the Commedia characters was through interactive performance. He brought members from the audience up on stage and had them perform specific stock characters used in Commedia performances. Watching how my friends portrayed the characters, gave me a better understanding of what I was learning. It helped the information that I needed to know, solidify itself in my brain. I'm sure the impact was a lot stronger for those who were actually performing the characters. Being able to experience the character as apposed to watching would help a person get a stronger feel for that specific character. 

Vince was very clever in the way in which he incorporated Shakespeare and his possible inspirations. There were times when he was quite subtle in dropping hints and titles (e.g. 'The Merchant of Venice) and other times when he was quite blunt in saying 'Commedia thought of this concept first'. Another tool he used to help us relate Shakespeare to Commedia was the story he used for the performance. He chose to do Romeo and Juliet which was supposedly being used by commedia companies before Shakespeare wrote the play. By using this play, our class realized how similar it was to the style of commedia. It had all of the stock characters and was easily adaptable to any setting.

Finally, Vince used a puppet show to help us understand the concept of Punch and Judy. Punch and Judy is a story about a married couple. Judy left to go to the store and asked her husband (Punch) to look after the baby. The baby started to irritate Punch so he threw it off the edge and said the famous line 'that's how you do it'. His wife (Judy) then came home and discovered what Punch had done. Feeling conflicted, Punch threw Judy off the edge and said his famous line yet again. Punch then became caught in his web of lies and continued to kill everyone that accused him of his actions. The story of Punch and Judy is now used to teach children what is wrong from right. Vince's puppet show was a version of the story of Punch and Judy. His puppets consisted of Roman Catholics (e.g. the pope). The popes son was jealous of how his father favored his brother. Therefore, he killed his brother and persisted to kill everyone that caught him out. He also used Punch's famous line ('that's how you do it') after each murder.

As shown above, Vince used various methods to help us understand the art of Commedia Dell'Arte. His interactive performance gave us a better understanding and solidified what we had been learning over the past few weeks.