The Italian Commedia and Please be Gentle
The Italian Commedia and Please be Gentle

Author: David Griffiths

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 1135304866

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Focusing on Commedia Dell'Arte, this work provides a historical and critical commentary of the Commedia. It highlights common factors between this genre and that of the Japanese Noh theatre. The author proposes six similarities: characters familiar to their audience and masked, minimal properties and scenery with the focus on the actor, the "families" of performers, a sharp mind as well as an agile body, a professional living on these skills and patronage, and a knowledgeable audience. Complementing this book is the play "Please Be Gentle" which explores the various tricks and devices of Commedia Dell'Arte acting.

The Italian Commedia
The Italian Commedia

Author: David Griffiths

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 9783718657186

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Focusing on Commedia Dell'Arte, this work provides a historical and critical commentary of the Commedia. It highlights common factors between this genre and that of the Japanese Noh theatre. The author proposes six similarities: characters familiar to their audience and masked, minimal properties and scenery with the focus on the actor, the "families" of performers, a sharp mind as well as an agile body, a professional living on these skills and patronage, and a knowledgeable audience. Complementing this book is the play "Please Be Gentle" which explores the various tricks and devices of Commedia Dell'Arte acting.

The Tradition of the Actor-author in Italian Theatre
The Tradition of the Actor-author in Italian Theatre

Author: Donatella Fischer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-12-02

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1351191659

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"The central importance of the actor-author is a distinctive feature of Italian theatrical life, in all its eclectic range of regional cultures and artistic traditions. The fascination of the figure is that he or she stands on both sides of one of theatre's most important power relationships: between the exhilarating freedom of performance and the austere restriction of authorship and the written text. This broad-ranging volume brings together critical essays on the role of the actor-author, spanning the period from the Renaissance to the present. Starting with Castiglione, Ruzante and the commedia dell'arte, and surveying the works of Dario Fo, De Filippo and Bene, among others, the contributors cast light on a tradition which continues into Neapolitan and Sicilian theatre today, and in Italy's currently fashionable 'narrative theatre', where the actor-author is centre stage in a solo performance."

The Training of Noh Actors and The Dove
The Training of Noh Actors and The Dove

Author: David Griffiths

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 1317972015

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First Published in 1998. This is the second volume of Mask: A Release if Acting Resources, and David Griffiths provides a detailed and sensitive view of the Japanese Noh theatre: historically, philosophically (with an evaluation of Zeami's treatises) and in respect of the rigorous practicalities of Noh training. The latter is given particular authority and insight because of the access Griffiths had to Noh actors in training and performance. Greatly enhanced with the author's illustrations, this volume gives one of the most accessible introductions to Noh that is available in English. Appended to the descriptive and analytic material is a short play, The Dove, written by Griffiths (and subsequently professionally performed) described as 'unashamedly' acknowledging its Noh influence. This one-woman price is a sensitive and evocative drama with subtle references to its cultural source. Is potential as an exercise in mask work is excellent.

Touch and the Masquerades of Nigeria
Touch and the Masquerades of Nigeria

Author: David Griffiths

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-08

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 1135304807

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First published in 1997. In the 'Masquerades of Nigeria' and 'Touch', the fourth volume of his mask: A Release of Acting Resources, David Griffiths investigates the use of mask in the Masquerade traditions of West Africa, and specially of Nigeria. The author persuasively argues in favour of a common language of masek performance, and focuses particularly on the manner in which the Nigerian dramatist Wole Soyinka explores the theatrical virtuosity and vibrancy of mask in his plays, specially his 'root' play 'A Dance in the Forests'. David Griffiths then presents his short Trilogy of plays, under the title 'Touch' which he created to explore the intricate subtleties of African mask in a manner accessible to Western actors. 'Touch' is based on Soyinka's play and arguably needs that as a point fo reference- but being directed to rad Soykina is to everyone's benefit.

Acting Through Mask
Acting Through Mask

Author:

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 9783718657131

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In the first volume of his "Mask: A Release of Acting Resources" David Griffiths examines the present state of actor-training, and surveys past experiments and styles developed by Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Grotowski and Brecht. He recommends a way in which the standards of performance skills in theatre may parallel those already established in other performing arts such as music and dance. The author's philosophy as a theatre practitioner is the mask and here he explains the special skills required to animate it, helping the reader by extensive and cogent use of his own illustrations.

Commedia dell'Arte in Context
Commedia dell'Arte in Context

Author: Christopher B. Balme

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-04-05

Total Pages: 709

ISBN-13: 1108670571

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The commedia dell'arte, the improvised Italian theatre that dominated the European stage from 1550 to 1750, is arguably the most famous theatre tradition to emerge from Europe in the early modern period. Its celebrated masks have come to symbolize theatre itself and have become part of the European cultural imagination. Over the past twenty years a revolution in commedia dell'arte scholarship has taken place, generated mainly by a number of distinguished Italian scholars. Their work, in which they have radically separated out the myth from the history of the phenomenon remains, however, largely untranslated into English (or any other language). The present volume gathers together these Italian and English-speaking scholars to synthesize for the first time this research for both specialist and non-specialist readers. The book is structured around key topics that span both the early modern period and the twentieth-century reinvention of the commedia dell'arte.

A History of Italian Theatre
A History of Italian Theatre

Author: Joseph Farrell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-11-16

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0521802652

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A history of Italian theatre from its origins to the the time of this book's publication in 2006. The text discusses the impact of all the elements and figures integral to the collaborative process of theatre-making. The distinctive nature of Italian theatre is expressed in the individual chapters by highly regarded international scholars.