Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Masquerade Mask
Fraternal Compagnia (Italy/Scotland)
Genre: Commedia dell'Arte, Family, Physical Comedy, Physical Theatre
Venue: C Aquila
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
With a respect to the tradition, the investment of joy that comes with the beauty of the form and three people invested in its delivery, this is a cracking expose to Commedia dell’arte. Sumptuous costumes and a tightly directed piece of theatre makes this unmissable for those of us who think we are scholars of the genre.
Review
The Professor, along with his two servants – Pizza and Pasta – introduce us to an old Venetian merchant, Pantalone, the servants Zanni and Arlecchino, the Doctor, not one but two Captains amidst madness and mayhem on a stage designed for such fun. The conceit, that they have lost their company to BREXIT and need to do the whole thing in double quick time brings a contemporary feel to it. The skills on display bring an authentic feel to it as we have three incredibly well drilled and highly skilled performers.
Commedia will never be known for its naturalism and the slip between the nervous servants and the expectant professor and the characters they inhabit in Commedia are managed with glee. There is a real passion on display, and it is one we are invested in from the very beginning. It is there to be loved and it is that love for the craft that drips off the front of the stage. All three manage to give the conceit such charm that the interplay between them suggests pantomime but stays just on the right side of believable that we are sold. There is a very important relationship between the three of them and this, with the looks, the arguments and the disagreements over who must play death and the witches abound with joy. Though most of the Commedia is performed in Italian, it has a clarity in its physicality that you are never left wondering what is going on.
But to keep that line of communication open, the performers must be steeped in the tradition of the artform. This is therefore no whimsy, but a deeply held passion of each of the three. Added to that is the writer and director, also made the masks and you have clear connection between the theory of an exceptional artform and the desire to communicate and share that enjoyment with an audience.
I was hooked from the beginning to the end. It might not have been the history lesson of the artform as promised but it was a sneak preview of how it works and what joy it can bring. This is particularly true of the slapstick. Oftentimes this can be left to chance and feel a little as an afterthought, but here it has the strength, of people who know where and how to get the laugh. Add in music which makes many sequences work better and then the costumes… and the costumes. Now I love a set and a I love a costume. Here the costumes sit out onstage for the duration and whilst you could work out how much time there was left to go, based on the number of costumes to be worn, this was more of a hint and a suggestion of what was to come. It never disappointed as the costumes – especially the masks – made the piece. Eloquent and grotesque when they needed to be, craft fully created and beautiful in their suggestion of the inner workings of each character, these were a nod to a tradition which had three exceptional proponents of its craft onstage.
