L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017 L'Italo-Americano S hakespeare wrote 38 plays. A century later, and over a thousand miles away, a 14 year old Venetian had just run away from school to start a playwriting career that would see him write an astonishing 250 plays. He would breath life back into the traditional Commedia dell'Arte theatre, creating more realistic characters and hilarious, tight scripts that had audiences in stitches. And his plays still res- onate today, gracing the stages of Broadway and London's West End. So who was Carlo Goldoni and how did he become the com- edy king? Born Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni in 1707, the youngster spent his early years at the family palazzo, Ca' Centanni, just off the city's Grand Canal. By four he had already started to read and write, becoming a keen reader with a vivid imagination. He would spend hours devouring the books in his father's library including the comedies of Florentine play- wright Giacinto Andrea Cicognini and Mandragora by Niccolò Machiavelli. He created comic sketches with a puppet theatre made by his father, making them dance in the watery reflections from the canal at the front of the house. And by the age of eight was even making up little plays for his family, later crediting his grandfather as the inspiration for his dramatic tastes. But his father already had other ideas for his child. And they didn't involve drama. Giulio Goldoni had trained in medicine in Rome, taking up positions in Venice, Perugia and Rimini, meaning his family moved frequently. In 1719 the physician sent for his son, bring- ing him south to Perugia to study at the Jesuit College nearby in an attempt to train the precocious young mind. When Goldoni's contract ended a year later after arguments with his patron, Goldoni senior returned to Chioggia on the Venetian lagoon, placing his son under Professor Caldini, a philosopher based in the coastal town of Rimini, to continue his studies. But the teenager, on the cusp of man- hood, was restless to follow his literary passions and in 1721 ran away with a passing troop of actors from the Florindo de' Maccheroni company. The theatrical adventure was short-lived, with Carlo soon returning to the family home in Chioggia. Again his father tried to instil the student with a respectable profession, sending him to first to a Venetian school and then to Pavia's Collegio Ghislieri to study law as part of an apprenticeship with his lawyer uncle. The elder Goldoni would have been pleased to hear that the youngster was often found nes- tled in the library. But rather than swotting up on laws, statutes and decrees, the fledgling playwright had returned to his first love, his head buried in Greek and Latin comic poetry. By 1725 Carlo's law studies had hit a bit of a buffer after a summary expulsion from college for writing a satire about the peo- ple of Pavia called "Il Colosso." Undeterred, his father enrolled him in law school in Modena. But the young man found study hard, suffering a breakdown before heading home to Chioggia where, now aged 20, he took his first job as a clerk in the criminal chancellery. For the next few years Carlo seemingly knuckled down, as his father had hoped, passing his law doctorate and being admitted to the Venetian bar. All was going well as Goldoni rose through the ranks holding increasingly lucra- tive positions including legal sec- retary and councillor. But for all his father and uncle wished Carlo would settle, he never gave up his passion for playwriting. And in 1733 he wrote his first full work – a melodrama called Amalasunta. Goldoni was 26 years old, just about the same age that Shakespeare wrote his first play, Henry VI Part One. Amalasunta was written in a style reflecting Goldoni's passion for ancient playwrights. So whilst the young writer followed the rules of ancient Greece and Rome, he didn't follow the con- temporary Commedia dell'Arte tradition that had dominated the 17 th century, much to the dismay of his critics, producers and actors. The Commedia style relied on a series of original draft ELIZABETH SALTHOUSE Carlo Goldoni: the comedy king sketches – the so-called canovac- ci – that actors used as a template and foundation for their ad-libbed productions. Characters were based on another of set outlines, known as the masks, each of which also had a set costume so the audience could recognize them. But the Commedia approach was increasingly pro- ducing lack-lustre shows, as the actors simply re-hashed the same worn out tales and stereotypes. What Goldoni did next would completely transform Italian the- atre. Firstly he brought the writer back to the forefront of theatrical productions writing full scripts for the players, giving dialogue, characterization and original new plots. Secondly, whilst Goldoni himself acknowledged the impor- tance of some of the mask char- acters, particularly Harlequin, Pantaloon, Brighella and Berga- mask, he consciously wrote other non-masked, totally original characters, too. It was a stroke of genius as Goldoni began to write characters pulled straight from the emerging Venetian middle classes that he saw around him. These in turn resonated with his audiences who recognized ver- sions of themselves and made his plays more accessible. And its this modification that also now allows us to time travel back to detailed descriptions of the life led by Goldoni's counterparts and neighbors, especially in his works such as La Locanderia. Thirdly, he wrote about real life via hilariously comedic scenes and storylines, again drawing upon what he saw from his house or whilst out walking around the cities of Italy and, later, France. He included every- thing from recipes for hot choco- late to the minutiae of tavern life, from legal conflicts to the precar- ious lot of servants as in Il servi- tore di Due Padroni more com- monly known by its recent Broadway title One Man, Two Guvnors, made famous by James Cordon. Today, some three hundred years later, it probably doesn't sound like much of an achieve- ment that Goldoni wrote about real life, as we're used to seeing lifelike depictions of the world around us via dramas, YouTube and the onslaught of reality TV. But what Goldoni was doing in his day was ground-breaking and, to some, quite shocking. From his first attempt at tragicomedy in 1733 he would go on to write more prolifically and comedical- ly than any other Italian play- wright before or since refining his techniques, reviving the the- atre and exchanging his law career for his lifelong passion of playwriting. Today his work stands the testament of time mak- ing audiences roar with laughter night after night, just as One Man, Two Guvnors proved with several years of sold out tours in the UK and USA. And we owe a debt of gratitude to the man who introduced real life, farce and joy to the Italian theatre. Goldoni truly was the king of comedy. A scene from "Arlecchino Servant of two Masters", an 18th century classic by Carlo Goldini LIFE PEOPLE MOVIES MUSIC BOOKS

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