Last Class, Mr. Downey introduced another type of mask work, Commedia Dell’Arte, which is also part of improvisation. Commedia Dell’Arte is a humorous Italian theatrical presentation which was performed from the 16th century to the 18th century in Italy and all around Europe in different languages like Spanish, Bolognese, and gibberish. Being performed on city streets and on temporary stages, Commedia has vastly influenced the European drama.  This is one of the Italian shows performed in a carnival:

As each mask has a different character, they can be easily identified by the audience. In addition, the fact that the person performing can speak while having the mask on makes it much more interesting and expressive.This can expressively reveal the characters’ states of mind as well as some of the characteristics of the character being introduced.  However, one of the hardest challenges I face is actually memorizing the masks’ names as the names are Italian. (Unfortunately, I don’t speak Italian :() Dottore is one of the characters that I’ve liked as he is the pompous and fraudulent character who is intellectually revealing his knowledge through his language.

Finally, I believe that the introduction to these new masks will help me project a characters’ feeling through how they act , their voices and how they react will another character. The picture below displays some of the masks that we have in class; however, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of fascinating other masks: