IX.
The stock in trade of an acting company consisted of some scores of plots in outline. Gozzi, writing in the eighteenth century, calculates that there may have been from three hundred to four hundred dramatic situations.[43] We possess a certain number of these scenari, as they were technically called Flaminio Scala published a collection of fifty in his Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative (Venetia, 1611). The titles of about one hundred others survive from the archives of Basilio Locatelli and Domenico Biancolelli, incorporated in eighteenth-century histories of the Italian stage. The records of the theatres where Italians played at Paris supply titles of another set, and a few have been disinterred from miscellaneous sources. Quite recently a complete collection of well-formed scenari was given to the press by Signor Adolfo Bartoli from a Magliabecchian MS. of the last century.[44] It contains twenty-two pieces.
Comparative study of these scenari shows that the whole comedy was planned out, divided into acts and scenes, the parts of the several personages described in prose, their entrances and exits indicated, and what they had to do laid down in detail. The execution was left to the actors; and it is difficult to form a correct conception of the acted play from the dry bones of its ossatura. "Only one thing afflicts me," said our Marston in the preface to his Malcontent: "to think that scenes invented merely to be spoken, should be inforcively published to be read." And again, in his preface to the Fawne, "Comedies are writ to be spoken, not read; remember the life of these things consists in action." If that was true of pieces composed in dialogue by an English playwright of the Elizabethan age, how far more true is it of the skeletons of comedies, which avowedly owed their force and spirit to extemporaneous talent! Reading them, we feel that we are viewing the machine of stakes and irons which a sculptor sets up before he begins to mould the figure of an athlete or a goddess in plastic clay.[45]
The scenario, like the plat described for us by Malone and Collier, was hung up behind the stage. Every actor referred to it while the play went forward, refreshing his memory with what he had to represent, and attending to his entrances. But before the curtain lifted a previous process had been gone through. This was called Concertare il soggetto. The company met in their green-room. What followed may be told in the words of a seventeenth-century writer on the technique of the Commedia dell' Arte.[46] "The Choregus, who rules and guides the troupe by his ability and experience, has to plan the subject, to show how the action shall be conducted, the dialogues concluded, and new sallies of wit or humour introduced. It is not merely his business to read the plot aloud, but also to set forth the personages with their names and qualities, to explain the drama, describe localities, and suggest extemporaneous additions. For instance, he shall begin by saying: 'The comedy we have to represent is so-and-so; the personages such-and-such; the houses are on this side and on that.' Then he will unfold the argument. He will impress upon his comrades the necessity of bearing well in mind the place where they are supposed to be, the names of people and the business they are engaged in, so that they shall not confound Rome with Naples, or say that they have come from Spain when they are bound from Germany. A father must not forget his son's name, nor a lover his lady's. It is also most important that the houses in which the action has to take place should be accurately known. To knock at the wrong door, or to take refuge in the home of your enemy, would spoil all. Afterwards, the planner of the subject must indicate occasions suited to the sallies of the several characters. 'Here a piece of buffoonery is right. A metaphor, or sarcasm, or hyperbole, or innuendo, would make a good effect there.' In fact, he has to show each actor how to play his part to best advantage in the circumstances of the piece. Then he must look to preventing inconvenient entrances and exits, providing that the stage be not left empty, and indicating proper ways of bringing scenes to their conclusion. After the Choregus has read this lecture to the troupe, they will meet and sketch the comedy in outline. Then they have the opportunity of bringing their own talents forward, and combining new effects. Yet, at such rehearsals, they must all be mindful to maintain the outlines of the subject, not to exceed their rôles, nor yet to trust their recollection of similar plays performed under different conditions. The piece has each time to be produced afresh by the concerted action of the players who will bring it on the boards."
The Choregus was usually the Capocomico or the first actor and manager of the company. He impressed his comrades with a certain unity of tone, brought out the talents of promising comedians, enlarged one part, curtailed another, and squared the piece to be performed with the capacities he could control. "When a new play has to be given," says another writer on this subject,[47] "the first actor calls the troupe together in the morning. He reads them out the plot, and explains every detail of the intrigue. In short, he acts the whole piece before them, points out to each player what his special business requires, indicates the customary sallies of wit and traits of humour, and shows how the several parts and talents of the actors can be best combined into a striking work of scenic art."