Arlecchino
A Winter's Tale
The Tempest
By Renate Stedhal
When I first saw the Piccolo Teatro of Milano, in the seventies, Giorgio Strehler was one of the undisputed masters of European theater, and his product Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters, was a sensation.
In 1949, Strehler had single-handedly resuscitated the ancient tradition of commedia dell' arte. Commedia dell'arte had been all but forgotten, and his production of Goldoni's Arlecchino reinvented it.
I remember the dizzying effect of acrobatics in the peak scene, when Arlecchino literally serves two tables (invisible in the wings), racing back and forth across the entire stage, while plates, sausages, and soup terrines are flying in the air. He catches them with one hand and with the other tosses the empty dishes back to the kitchen and to three other servants.
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My dizzying experience in Paris did not repeat itself. There was great visual beauty in the little improvisational stage that was set up as if the traveling company had just arrived in a market place between old Italian villas. Or as if some Count Almaviva or Don Giovanni had invited the comedians to his court for a performance. "Off-stage," so to speak, the actors were coming and going, sitting around the little stage, sewing, sometimes commenting, leaning against the walls and "hanging out" in this scenery of golden Italian light, while they were waiting for their next moment "on-stage." There were wonderful moments of comic pantomime and clowning in this story of a young girl promised to two prospective husbands and a servant trying to profit from the confusion. The acrobatic peak scene was still a marvel,
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when I saw the young Enrico Bonavera, the stand-in, the next-generation-Arlecchino, in the matinee performance. Bonavera displayed the electric, hyperactive, bouncing child energy needed for the part.
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By Robert Hurwitt,
Chronicle Theater Critic
Friday, October 28, 2005
Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters: Comedy. By Carlo Goldoni. Directed by Giorgio Strehler. (...)
The situations are as familiar as, as one character puts it, all the wild things we do for love. The comedy is as immediate as the waves of chuckles, giggles, snorts and guffaws that roll through Zellerbach Playhouse for almost three hours. Piccolo Teatro di Milano's remarkable "Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters" has been generating that kind of laughter for thousands of performances spread over almost six decades.
Few productions have ever sustained so long a run, let alone so successfully. Fewer still have remained as fresh, invigorating and seemingly spontaneous as the "Arlecchino" that opened Wednesday in Cal Performances' season.
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Enrico Bonavera is so expressive a physical comic that he makes the cook Brighella's bawdy verbal jokes work even without reference to the supertitles (Bonavera will substitute for Soleri at Saturday's matinee, as Soleri did for his predecessor when "Servant" last played Berkeley in 1960).
Sara Zoia and Stefano Onofri are engagingly petulant young lovers, warbling composer Fiorenzo Carpi's comically plaintive duets as their plans are thwarted by the unexpected arrival of her deceased former fiance Federigo -- actually Federigo's daringly unconventional sister Beatrice (a superb mock-macho Giorgia Senesi) in disguise, on her own comically problematic love quest. A delightfully feisty, fluttery Alessandra Gigli is Arlecchino's apt love interest, the outspoken Smeraldina.
Oh yes, there's an actual slapstick in use as well. Comedy doesn't get much more classic than this. Or funnier.