Devising from an image: Narrative approaches

Waiting: an introduction to drama conventions

Acting Shakespeare: Monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Practising physical and vocal skills

Live theatre responses: Becoming a critic

Narrative structures using poetry: Developing monologues

Acting Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Posture, gesture and voice in performance

Live theatre responses: Using social media

Approaching text: Bringing it to life

One text, different approaches

The journey: a verbatim project

Live performance responses: Evaluating stagecraft

Understanding roles and responsibilities of the creative team

Commedia dell'arte: an introduction

Using Drama conventions to explore contemporary issues

Drama

Y9 Drama

Key Stage 3

Year 9

UNIT

In this lesson, we will be exploring what commedia dell'arte is, where it came from, and how it is different from other styles of theatre.

What is commedia dell'arte?

In this lesson, we will be experimenting with the commedia style through the use of mime and physicality.

Using mime in commedia

﻿Hello, and welcome back to drama. This is lesson two out of six for Commedia dell'arte: An Introduction. Today's lesson is about using mime in Commedia. My name is Mr. Wood, and I'm going to be your teacher for this topic. Can you make sure that this lesson is taking place inside? Make sure that there's plenty of space for you to work safely. Please make sure that your shoes and socks are off. The floor is not slippy, and you're wearing comfortable clothing, ready to work. Pause the video if you need to to get those things done and we will get started. For this lesson, you are going to need plenty of space. Well done to those of you that have completed your introductory quiz. If you haven't had chance, now is the time. We'll start by recapping the previous lesson. We'll move on to understanding mime. We'll continue with applying the mime in Commedia before we finish with our exit quiz today. So last lesson, we discovered where Commedia dell'arte came from and a handful of the core values that make it a distinguishable style. The first being stock characters, the same in every performance. Largely improvised work with the exception being the lazzi, which you can remember is a rehearsed section of comedic scene, can be any duration. Audience involvement, trying to get everybody included. Mask work, which we'll come to in more detail next lesson. Exaggerated play, which was the focus of our last lesson. And all of these extra elements combine to make it non-naturalistic, okay. The stock characters are largely the same in each performance. It is the storyline that changes. Is that true or is it false? What do you think? Three seconds, true or false? The answer is, of course, true. The characters stay the same throughout. We may not see all of them in the same performance, but we do see the same recurring characters throughout. Your first key word for today is emotion. And that is a strong feeling derived from your circumstance or mood. Your next one is exaggeration. And that is the way of making something seem larger, more important, better or worse than it really is. You might recognise that from last lesson. An improvisation is a performance that is not practised or planned. The Commedia dell'arte performers had to compete with the range of dialects and languages as they toured through Europe. And you may be wondering how they did this. How do you go into a different country and communicate with the locals and expect them to know what's going on? They had to try and engage the masses and make it clear to them. The way they did this was through mime. Something that works alongside language, but isn't constrained or limited by a lack of understanding through words. We're going to start by understanding mime next. And to do this, we need to warm up. So gather the space that I asked for previously at the start of the lesson, and let's get ready to work. We're going to start today's warm up with some light jogging on the spot. So if we're all ready and we've got that space, on the spot. Just hands by your side, quite loose. And in a couple of seconds, what we're going to do is we're going to do a short burst of sprinting on the spot. When you're ready, we're going to do it for five seconds. So, three, two, one. One, two, three, four, five. And back to jogging. We're going to do that again. Second time, just five seconds in three, two, one. One, two, three, four, five. And back to the jog. Okay, starting to feel a little bit warm? I'm starting to get a little bit out of breath. That's good, it's not a bad thing. Okay, let's start with our rolling our shoulders back, just what we did last lesson, for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Take them forwards, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. This time we're going to make those circles wider going backwards with our arms. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. This time you're going to connect your hands to your shoulders and we'll go around for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. This time we're going to go forwards. In reverse, all hands up to the top. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Hands on your shoulders. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Okay, shake your hands a bit. How do you knees feel? I think we need to warm up our knees a little bit. So I'm going to turn to the side. Hopefully you can see me a little bit better, but I'm going to go down into a lunge and then back up. See how far down you can go. Don't push yourself too far to the point where you hurt yourself, okay. You definitely shouldn't be landing on the floor harshly. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Okay, you should start to feel quite warm now at this point. If you don't feel like your legs are as warm as your shoulders, if you're hands aren't as warm as your legs, please go back over this video again to make sure that you're safe and ready to do the work ahead. If you're ready, let's move on. Mime involves the use of the body. Do you think that that's true or false? Three seconds to have a think about that. Think about what we've just done. Three, two, one. The answer is of course true. It uses 100% of the body to communicate its intentions. Mime is a series of clear, exaggerated and obvious movements, including gestures, which communicate meaning and emotions. Emotions being quite an important word here. Mime must have the following: energy, the whole body, and precision. You can mime almost anything. Have a little look at this. I wonder if you can identify any of the skills for mime in the clips you've just seen. For now, you get to have a go yourself. So your activity now is to mime opening a present. It sounds simple, but that's exactly what it needs to be. Practise this without talking and try to notice how you go about making this clear for your audience. If you've got a mirror accessible, use that now. If not, a reflection in a window, anything like that will be incredibly useful. You need to pause the video and come back to us once you've had to go for the next task. All right, what did you notice? Facial expressions? Were they clear? Gestures? Did they have precision? What about your space? Did you incorporate a full use of space or did you stay static? How could you have used your whole body? And would people in a crowd be able to clearly understand what you're trying to do? I wonder if there's anything we can do in facial expressions, gestures, and space to make it even clearer. So your next task is to now develop how you open the present. And you can do this by considering the moment before opening the present, the moment of opening it, and the moment after opening it. Break it down into those three clear chunks, And that should make a lot more sense as to what you're trying to communicate to an audience. To do this, you need to pause the video and then please come back to resume when you're ready. All right, what did you notice? Did this help to add clarity? By breaking the meaning of the scene down into sections, it can often help us make a clearer message. So hopefully you found some nice, clear instruction in that in delivering your message to an audience. This time, I need you to develop how you open your present, but in a different way. I would like you to ask the following items. Exaggerate your gestures, a bit like what we did in our first lesson. Make them have a start and a finish to make them precise. So similar to what we've just done in a previous activity. And give it some energy. This will look entirely flat and not as effective if it doesn't have your full energy. So yet again, please pause the video, complete your task, and then come back for the next instruction. Did you notice anything different in this time round? Did you exaggerate your gestures as much as we practised last lesson? Did you look forward or up at any points as if there was an audience there? Hopefully even if your audience are teddies on a bed or cushions on a sofa, pens in a pen holder or books on a shelf, that works fine. There are more core elements to consider when moving. To start with I'd like you to experiment with resistance, and by resistance, I mean the thing that stops us doing what we would like. So for example, if I'm trying to push a door open, there could be something stopping me from doing that. And that's what we're going to do with this task. Step one is to go find a real door inside your house. Don't forget to have the before, the during, and the after moments that we've looked at so far. Step two, little bit different. I need you to find some books and put them on the other side of the door. Maybe three or four books, nothing too much. This should, when you try to open the door again, give you a little bit more resistance. And step three, practise the last step, but minus the door and the books. So in theory, when you do mime, the last step, you will be able to see how you incorporate resistance as part of your mime. You need to pause the video, complete the task, and then press resume when you're ready for the next step. Now, is there something different you noticed about this? Does resistance give us something more? Did step three look the same as step two, in your opinion? Because if it did, then that's your job well done. And how exaggerated was it? Could you have pushed it just that little bit further? This time, I'd like you to experiment with weight. So we've looked at resistance and now we look at weight. Step one is to carry an imaginary pile of books in your arms. Think about the moment before, think about the moment of, and think about the moment after. Step two is to then try it again, but with books in your arms. Hopefully this gives you the sense of weight and resistance. And then step three is to scrap the books and try it a final time, and see if you can copy that element of weight and resistance. This shouldn't take you too long, so please pause the video, complete the task, and then rejoin for the next step. And what did you notice about this? Did the books help you make it look more effective this time? Similar to how we did it with the door? Did you over-exaggerate how heavy those books were? For example, were your arms all the way down on the floor? "Oh, I'm really struggling to carry those books." Or did it look just right? For this task, I'd like you to imagine you're crossing a road, but you need to incorporate hesitation. And that is the thing that makes us consider, Should I do it? Should I not? It's thinking time, all right. You need to exaggerate being cautious by trying to cross a road multiple times before you succeed. And here's a tip. The longer it goes on, the better it will get. Your exaggeration will help you show emotion here. So the more you push yourself, you'll find the more emotion comes out from your scene. So you need to pause this video, give it your best go, don't forget your energy, and then resume when you are ready. Now, was there something different about this time? The key word tension here. Did that come from anything? Was it perhaps the longer the scene went on, the more tension grew? Hopefully. Did you engage with your audience? Did you look to someone on the other side of the road as if to say, "I'm coming, I will get there." Did you look over your shoulder as if to say, "Please don't make me cross." Did you find that you escalated your exaggeration a bit too soon? Could it have been slower and more thought out? Did you rush it? Now we're going to explore how we apply some of these skills to our Commedia work. When using mime in Commedia dell'arte, actors would use these following steps to communicate their intentions. Firstly, they'd always have larger than life emotions, similar to our exaggeration that we worked on last lesson. And they would always overreact to situations. Next, they would always draw the audience's attention to finer details. For example, the cherry pips or cherry seeds being spat out of a balcony or a fly landing on someone a bit like our lazzi. And then keeping it simple with a start, a middle and an end, just like what we've done in our latest activities. Are you starting to see the connections? And how what we've done so far leads nicely in to what we're about to do. Now it's time for you to have a go at experimenting with comedy in dropping your food on the floor. I want you to exaggerate how upset you can look after dropping some form of food on the floor. Of course I chose ice cream. So it could be whatever is closest to your heart because that will give you the most genuine and authentic look possible. It will be the easiest step to exaggerate. Combine as many of your prior skills as you possibly can. You need to pause the video, give it your best go, use all the energy you have because this is the last task you have for this lesson. Click resume when you're ready to wrap things up. All right, how was that? Did you look at your audience? Did you involve them in the story? I could have picked up the ice cream and thrust in front of their faces to say, "Look, look, it's gone, it's gone, it's ruined." Did you highlight a key moment, a bit like what I just said from the first lesson, perhaps. Where was the most comedic moment? Wonder what the most comedic moment in mine was in your opinion? I think it's safe to say that there's been a lot of work today. There's been a lot asked of you, a lot of expectations, and you've done brilliantly. If with the work that you've created today, you'd like to share it with Oak National, please ask your parent or carer for permission first. And they can tag us on Twitter with @OakNational, and #LearnwithOak. Thank you very much for working so hard yet again. It was a pleasure. I look forward to our next lesson where we're going to explore some more concepts of the Commedia style in a very practical way. Until then take care. And I will see you next lesson.

In this lesson, we will begin exploring the use of language and speech in Commedia dell'Arte.

Speaking through Commedia

﻿Hello and welcome to Drama. This is lesson three out of six for Commedia dell'Arte: An introduction. Today, we're going to focus on speaking through Commedia. My name is Mr. Wood and if we're all ready, let's get started. As ever, you're going to need space for this lesson. We start with our introductory quiz, if you haven't had a chance, you can do that now. We'll move on to recap with our last lessons content, We'll move on with understanding the Commedia language today before we go into playing with Grummelot, more on that later, before we finish up with our exit quiz. So last lesson, what did we get up to? We explored mime in Commedia dell'Arte and the elements that make it successful. Can you remember any? Exaggeration, making it as clear as possible, having a very clear before moment, the present moment and the after moment that helps to add clarity to a performance when you break it down. Well done if you've got any of those. Breaking mime down to specific moments can be useful. Is that "True" or "False"? Three seconds. "True". Okay, if you remember, we broke it down to the moments of before, the moments of and the moments after the specific scene. So whether it was opening a present, for example, the moment before opening, the moment of opening and the moment after. Well done if you've got that right, if you didn't don't worry for now. Here are your key words for today's lesson. Speech, is the ability to communicate thoughts and feelings through sounds. Sound is a noise that can convey an impression or meaning. An emotion is a strong feeling derived from your circumstance or mood. We're going to start with experimenting with speech next. To do this we need to warm up. Okay, today's warm up is going to look a little bit different to how we'd done them previously. This warm up is all about our voice and it's really important to make sure that our mouths are ready to move, ready for the work ahead. So the first thing we're going to start with are some 'Ss' We are going to do the following. I'd like to say it and for you to repeat it and we'll do it just like that as we move through some of these sounds. So the first one is /sss/, /sss/, /sss/, /sss/. Your turn.

And again, but we'll do it slightly differently each time. So I'm going to adjust it to myself and then I'll adjust it to you for you to have a go. /Sss/. /ss/, /ss/, /ss/. /sss/, /sss/, /sss/ /sssss/. /ss/, /ss/, /s/. /ss/, /sss/, /ss/, /ss/, /ss/. Nice, okay. Next one will be 'Sh'. let's have a go. /Sh/. /sh/, /sh/, /sh/. /shhhhhhh/. /sh/, /sh/, /sh/, /sh/, /shhh/. /shh/, /shh/, /shhhh/, /sh/. /Sh/, /sh/, /sh/, /sh/, /shsh/, /sh/. Okay, next one was on, Will be /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/. Okay. /ffff/, /f/. /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/. /fff/, /fff/, /f/, /f/, /f/. /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/. /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/ /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/, /f/ Well done. If by now you haven't realised, this is going to be a little bit silly and we are going to look a little bit on edge. We are going to be, looking a little bit different how we normally do so, but that's okay. Close the door if you need to. Make sure you really focus and get involved. The next sound is going to be /kuh//kuh//kuh//kuh//kuh/ Okay, all to do with the /kuh/ Ready, /kuh/,/kuh/,/kuh/. /kuh/,/kuh/,/kuh//kuh//kuh/. /kuhkuh/,/kuhkuh/,/kuh/. /kuhkuh/, /kuh/, /kuhkuh/, /kuh/ Lovely, this next one's going to be a little bit different. This is a lip roll and it's almost similar to how we do a raspberry. So watch me and copy. /brrrrrrrrrrr/, /r/. /brrrrrrrrrr/, /r/. /brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr/, /r/. /brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr/. /brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr/. /brrrrrrrr/, /r/, /rrrrrrr/, /r/,/rrrrrrr/. /brrrrrrrrrr/, /rrrr/, /rrrrrr/, /rrrrrr/. Lovely, okay. This next one we're going to have a little bit of fun. We're going to do a couple of tongue twisters. So the first one is how much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? So do that again. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Are you ready? Let's do it together. Three, two, one. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could Chuck wood? let's try and do it a bit quicker. Are you ready? How much wood could a woodchuck Chuck if a woodchuck could Chuck wood? even quicker, three, two one. How much wood could a woodchuck Chuck if a woodchuck could Chuck wood? and again let's try and go as quick as we possibly can. Three, two, one. How much work could a woodchuck Chuck woodchuck could Chuck wood? Hopefully you're even quick than I am. The next one is going to be, Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Okay so Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Let's do this one together. Three, two, one, Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Let's try and go a bit quicker. Sally sold seashells by the seashore. and if you can, I'm sure you would see my brain starting to work. Even quicker three, two, one, Sally sold seashells by the seashore. A bit quicker, Sally sells seashells by the seashore. And this time as quick as you possibly can. ready? Three, two, one, Sally sold seashells by the seashore. I'm sure you're quicker than me on that one. My brain was really struggling and it's only going to get tougher. Here's the next one. Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. Yeah, tough. Here we go. Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. Let's go a bit quicker, ready? Three, two, one, Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. Even quicker, ready? Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter is quicker. This one definitely has more sense of rhythm. You ready? This time we're going to go as quick as we possibly can. Three, two, one Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. Crushed it. Okay, last one. And this one is tough. I'm actually going to read this. Are you ready? Stick with me. If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch? Yeah, tough. Again, here we go. Three, two, one If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch? Okay, I'm going to have to add in some gesture to it. It's the only way that's going to make it work. If two witches would watch two watches which witch would watch which watch. Okay now that's making it more difficult. Ready, three, two, one, If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch? Okay, even quicker, three, two, one. If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch? Getting the hang of it, last time as quick as you possibly can. Three, two, one. If two witches would watch two watches which watch would which watch witch? No, that was wrong, but we made it. Hopefully your mouth's starting to feel a little bit more lubricated ready to move. If you are, let's get ready to move. If not, please go back to watch this video again. How do we know if someone is angry? we're going to start by seeing it in a facial expressions, secondly, through their body language. But what happens if we can't see? How do you know if someone's really angry? You take away that sight. There's another sense which is going to be hit first. We're going to hear it on me. Each emotion has a very distinct sound. So let's start with a game of Silly sounds. I'm going to call out a silly noise and a complimenting gesture for you to follow. I'd like you to copy this, including the gesture if you're able and at the same level of exaggeration as me I want you to aim, to duplicate exactly what I do. Don't worry about it not making sense. At this stage, that's not a problem. This feeds into the very next activity. So make sure you're giving all of your energy for this. If you can, for an exception, think about what emotions you can identify through these sounds. /Blalala/, /blalala/, /blalala/, /blalalaaa/. /bgloooo/ /pthss/ Playing with Grummelot. Grummelot is the name given to the muffled speech used in traditional Commedia Dell'arte scenes. Is complete gibberish and makes absolutely no sense. However, there are particular sounds and certain phonics that give off a certain emotion and that emotion is something that we can identify. If you remember back to last lesson, I said that these touring troops would journey to different regions of Europe and they'd have to perform to audiences that didn't speak their language. Even if they were in the same country sometimes the dialect would vary massively meaning that they still didn't know what they were saying. So it was really important that they communicated their intentions through mime as we discovered last lesson but also something to help ease that and some things to help evolve it so that it was very clear to an audience, not just a visual but an audible version as well. And that's where grummelot became so useful. Now I would like you to try and identify the meaning within the grummelot you hear. Which one do you think this is? Don't forget grummelot does not make sense. Okay. Which one do you think that was? Anger. Superiority, sadness or confidence? Superiority, well done. Okay here's your next one. See if you can identify the meaning here. Which one do you think that was? Would it have been anger, sadness, confidence. What do you think? Confidence. Okay next one is the last one I'm going to do. What'd you think that was? Was it anger? Was it sadness? It was sadness. Okay. Well done. How do we make this sound right? How do we make sure that it makes sense? And how do we communicate these intentions clearly? I tried not in that activity to demonstrate too many gestures. Points I got carried away and I had to reign it back in because the focus right now is on how we make it sound like that particular feeling. So we need to think about what engages it for us past experiences, moments where you felt confident sad, angry, personal, and observed so it could be seeing somebody else seem quite Su... well they could be superior to you. For example, if you've seen someone who is a boss of a company and you know them because someone in your family works for them. So, you know they're off great status. How do we show that clear enough? Could we repeat it? For example, if we've seen them do a particular aspect of a walk or a talk, we can amplify that. And today using grummelot, we could use repetition to communicate those same intentions again and again and again. And then lastly, exaggeration, the more you repeat it the bigger we get with our exaggeration until we've got this massive caricature, which if you remember from last lesson was the art of telling the truth in an exaggerated way because it was amplified. Now its your turn to have a go. So pause the video to complete this task. I'd like you to pick an emotion from the table below and try and communicate it through improvised silly noises. Don't think about it too much. The more you think about it the harder this activity will get. It has to be rough and ready. So go with your instinctive reactions to make that emotion. If you're stuck, think back to that first activity the game that we did with silly noises and when you're ready, click resume to come back for the next step. Okay. The next point to consider is eye contact. By directly addressing your audience, you engage them. You need to involve them like they are part of your performance. Consider them another character. And when speaking grummelot, you must form a connection. You've got to make them understand. So you've got to try and imagine that they are there and listen to me and we don't know what happened there. And I want to help I want to say what I really feel over there so you're using your eyes to engage and deliver. You're thinking about what the intention is and you're offloading it onto somebody else. You're making your story, your problem, your issue their business, and to do this you will need some kind of reflective surface. So like last lesson, if you have a mirror, great if you don't, that's not a problem. We can get creative with a phone or window even a car door from your window. Please don't go outside. You could also make your audience with your family. Teddy bears, dolls, bottles, plants whatever you can to make it feel like you have someone there with you. With this in mind, I'd like you to pick a different emotion to try and copy whilst making those silly noises. Just like before, don't think too much. Remember to hold a connection with your audience or reflection, depending on what you have around you. To do this, you need to pause the video and then click resume when you're ready for the next step. Commedia dell'Arte ignored improvisation and scripts everything. Do you think that's true or false? Three seconds. Because the answer is both. Although they were rehearsed sections we would call them Lazzi, as we discovered in our first lesson everything else came from the actors knowledge of the mask on the character. For this task, you've got one more opportunity to select an emotion from the below table. I'd like you to try and copy it whilst making those silly noises like we've practised so far. Remember it's really important to hold a connection with your audience and potentially your reflection. Push yourself to exaggerate this one step further. You need to pause the video to complete it and click resume when you're ready to move on. Pick a feeling that you can relate to. Anger, you catch someone eating out of your fridge. Sadness, you've dropped your ice cream on the grass. I've seen that one before. Happiness, someone gives you a million pounds, lucky. Power, You are sophisticated adult, Very cool and everyone is interested in what you have to say. Pick one of those now for me. I would like you to now experiment with grummelot. So all of the skills that we worked on so far, I'm going to culminate and we're going to have a go at creating grummelot. We need to take the emotional feeling from the previous slide, anger, sadness, happiness or power, including the scenario that was attached. And you're going to have a go at improvising another key word, the sounds that match that emotion. That's all it is. It should be exaggerated and it should be playful. Use the sounds that we've previously explored. Don't think you have to reinvent the wheel. Okay we're building on the previous skills for a reason. Don't forget, have fun with it. You'll need to pause the video to complete this task and then click resume and we will wrap up the lesson. Welcome back and well done. I hope you enjoyed that last activity where you could combine your prior knowledge from today and the lessons before. As ever, if you would like to share your work with the Oak national, please do. Just make sure you ask your parent or carer for permission first. And they can tag us on Twitter with @OakNational and the #LearnwithOak. Until our next lesson, take care and I will see you then for more Commedia dell'Arte.

In this lesson, we will begin exploring the stock characters and the masks that form the basis of who they are.

Stock characters and masks - Part 1

In this lesson, we will continue exploring the stock characters and the masks that form the basis of who they are.

Stock characters and masks - Part 2

In this lesson, we will combine our prior knowledge of character, through the commedia style.

Applying commedia to a scene

﻿Hello, and welcome to drama. This is lesson six. The last lesson of Commedia dell'Arte: An introduction and this lesson is called applying commedia to a scene. My name's Mr Wood and if we're all ready, let's get started. For this lesson, like all the others, can you make sure that you are taking part inside, there's plenty of space for you to work safely, your shoes and socks are off, the floor is not slippery and you're wearing comfy clothing, ready to move. Pause the video now if you need to make those things happen. If you're ready, let's continue. For this lesson you're going to need plenty of space. Well done if you've finished your introductory quiz, that's super. If you haven't had a chance, you can go back to do that now. We'll then continue with recapping last lesson's content, we'll then move on to combining some characters and then we will look at applying our prior knowledge altogether in a couple of scenes, before we finish with our exit quiz. So, last lesson. We taught about the remaining stock characters and these weren't the masters. Can you remember which faction they belonged to? The servants, well done. We looked at where their power came from. It wasn't necessarily from the body. It was from, the masks they wore. The masks were almost where the character was born from and we explored each different character practically. We then moved on to looking at Zanni in closer detail. Your key words for today's lesson are, traits and they are, distinguishing qualities or characteristics. Energy, again we're going to need a, and that is the strength required for physical activity. We then have scene, which is a sequence of continuous action, and then lastly, exaggeration, which is the way of making some things seem larger, more important, better or worse than it really is, and I'm sure you recognise that one from our earlier lessons. There are four main categories to which all the stock characters belong. Do you think that's true or false? Three, two, one. Of course, the answer is false. There are not four. There are two and they are the masters and the servants. The only characters that are the exception, are the lovers, the Innamorata or the Innamorato. Now we're going to start combining some of these characters. To do this safely, we need to warm up. So gather the space that I asked for previously, and let's begin. We'll start today's warm up with a little bit of jogging on the spot. So if you've got your space and you're ready, let's get going. We're going to turn this into the quickest sprint, we can manage for the next five seconds. Three, two, one, go. Three, two, one, stop. Okay, back to a light jog, feel the heart rate going, and this time, what we're going to do, is we going to go into a couple of squats. However these squats are going to be a little bit different. Arms going to be up, widen your legs and we're going to, squat down just like this, and each time that we go down, I want you to drop your hand as well. Okay, try and keep your back flat. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Okay this time we're going to twist it a little bit. So we are going to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Lovely, okay, now we are going to start mixing it up a bit. We going to roll our arms back in little circles, but what we are going to do when we go down, so, if we can go down, one, two, then we're going to jump up one, two, one, two. So all together it should look, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, okay. So we do that all together. We'll start standing. Arms out, three, two, one. Roll them back, jump down, roll them back, jump down, roll them back, jump down, roll them back, jump down, Okay we are going to bring our knees in, just to benefit our hips and the other side and to just them in but not to force them up as high as you possibly can. You should just be able to feel it in your hips. Okay, lovely, now shoulders, going to cause a strain a little bit more because it's quite important for what we got to do today. Shoulders going to rolled forward and we'll do that for 8, so, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Take them back, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Hands and shoulders, going back, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Going forward, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, lovely. Okay, this time, I'm over to the other side of the body as we did before. It's a line down here that we're trying to stretch. You'll find that the longer you're in it, the more it goes down. Lovely, and the other side, just down the line. Super, okay. Start with head now, just over to our left, I am sure it looks like right in your screen. And the side, back again and see the other side. And roll our head, so we're going down to the left, down to the right, don't move your neck too quickly here. You don't want to hurt yourself, and back to the other side. Lovely, okay, right, over to the voice. Repeat after me. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. We, we, we, we, we, we, we. She, she, she, she, she, she, she. He, he, he, he, he, he, he. Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Sally sold seashells by the seashore. Sally sold seashells by the seashore. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Betty Botter bought some butter but, said she, the butter's bitter. Betty Botter bought some butter but, said she, the butter's bitter. See how quick you can go. Betty Botter Betty Botter bought some butter but, said she, the butter's bitter. Lovely, I'm finishing off with a few of these. A-I-U, A-I-U, A-I-U, A-I-U, A-I-U, A-I-U, A-I-U. Lovely, okay, if you're not warm. If you feel like your voice could do with a little bit of more warming up and go over each of those stages as and when you need to, if not let's get ready with the lesson. Out of all of our stock characters. I would like you to think about which ones really stand out and they may be different for all of us. For me personally, I think Magnifico stands out because of his power. I think Pantelone stands out because he is so overtly nasty. I think The Captain stands out for being this hilarious coward character and the facade he holds. Arlecchino, for his cheeky and fun loving nature and then Zanni for being a complete and utter fool. If we look at all the Arlecchino, here's one of the best characters for engaging and communicating with the audience because of his bubbly, cheeky and animalistic traits. He has a natural connection with the people he is looking at and talking to, and I think there's a lot to be said for that type of relationship. Arlecchino, no, Arlecchino, Arlecchino, Zanni, Arlecchino. Arlecchino, Your task now is to become all the Arlecchino. Your aim is to show your audience something. Now that could be, a spying on people through a crack on the wall. It could be getting amazed by an insect on the floor or you could simply be showing how strong, beautiful and funny they really think they are. And don't forget all the Arlecchino is a cheeky, playful and dimwitted character. You need to think about exaggerating the gestures and the movement that we've already started to work on both by the last lesson, and today. To do this, you need to pause your video. You will need to rehearse this at least three times to be able to get to grips, with pushing that exaggeration. By now we should be getting into a nice system here and then click resume when you've completed this and ready to move on. Well done. I hope you enjoyed that. Now, I would like to know, who you would pair up out of the stock characters and why? So we have Magnifico for being powerful. We've got Pantelone for being greedy and they're both masters. Then we have Arlecchino, is cheeky. We've got Zanni the fool and they're both servant characters. Now there's no wrong answer here. There's nothing you can say in the combinations that will be wrong. I would pair up Magnifico and Zanni because we've got, two ends of that hierarchy at the top and the bottom. And within that, there's so much scope for creative potential. I think there's a lot of scenes between the king of kings and the utter fool, that could be quite interesting and engaging to an audience. What scenarios do you think of with these two characters together? The strongest and the weakest? Are there any that are quite obvious? Here are a couple, Magnifico walks down the street and Zanni gets in his way. Magnifico is being waited on by Zanni and he accidentally knocks over Magnifico's drink. Zanni walks into Magnifico's mansion by mistake, idiot. and Magnifico finds him. What's going to happen there. That's going to be a showdown, epic proportions.

Any ideas on which character I was? Was it Magnifico or Zanni, well done if you said Zanni, now you're going to have a go at improvising a moment between those two characters. Specifically the relationship between the two. Now you can choose to be Magnifico or Zanni at this moment and that's dependent on which character you feel you can do the best. Now, if you'd like some extra structure, go with this example, Magnifico walks down a street and Zanni gets in the way. So you can either be Zanni or Magnifico there, either is fine. If you're up for an extra challenge, try and pick one of the other examples that I listed previously. Obviously I went with the example of Zanni being in Magnifico's mansion, and then he stumbles across him. I thought that was more exciting. Don't forget the limitations of the masks. Now I would argue that Magnifico is not as limited, as Zanni is. When you consider the length of the nose. He needs to lead with the nose and he needs to consider all the things that might get in his way. Don't forget about your use of exaggeration, Grim a lot where possible and your engagement with the audience. So try and find moments where you can look away from the character and look at your audience and then back and forth. There should be a nice communication, with you as the middle person, between audience and actor. You need to pause the video to complete this task, and this activity will take a considerable amount of time. So really consider how you are approaching this character and how they engage with somebody else. If you've got someone in the space with you, ask them to watch and see if they can pick up on your character being exaggerated. Does it look amplified enough, once you're ready, click resume and we'll carry on with the next activity. Well done. I hope you got on well with that last activity. Now it's time to apply all of our prior knowledge into a new task. The Lazzi is a rehearsed section of comedic scene that can be any duration, is that true or false? Three, two, one The answer is true. Well done. If you've got that correct. It can be any duration and it always has to come away from the scene behind it. So the storyline will allow for moments to dip out of it and to be entertained. Now we're going to have a go at combining our use of characterization from what we've learned in our previous lessons, alongside a Lazzi. So choose one of the following options. We've got Zanni. You're watching a fly buzz around the room, it lands on your hand, your nose and your forehead. At this time, you attempt to swap the fly and only end up causing damage to yourself. We have Arlecchino, sitting on a balcony, eating cherries and spitting the pips over the edge. They start hitting people in serious conversations, so you continue. And we have Pantelone. Stood in the market square, counting his money. He keeps losing count and has to start again. Pick one of those three options for me. Now that you've chosen, you need to pause this video because we're going to add character to the Lazzi. Similar to what we've done before, but now that we understand the characters and we can assign a character to a specific Lazzi, we should be able to develop our skills and our knowledge and combine them together. So using your selected character and Lazzi, develop your skills. Now you have an understanding of how these stock characters move. Think about exaggeration, grim a lot if you can, and engaging with your audience. This may take you a fair few minutes to be able to get to grips with your Lazzi again, and your use of characterization alongside that. Once you've finished click resume and we will move on with the next part of the lesson. Well done. I hope you managed to develop your skills in that last activity, and I hope you found the enjoyment in it as well. I would personally chose swatting the fly because that sounds the most interesting to me. Now we've come towards the end of this lesson and in turn the end of this topic. So a massive congratulations for taking part in the activities over these last six lessons. And thank you very much for giving it your best effort. I hope you found the content useful and it becomes beneficial to you later down the line, but for now that's it for Commedia dell'arte and Introduction. You should be really proud of the work that you've created over this topic. So if there's anything that you would like to share, please do. Just ask your parent or carer for permission first, and ask them to tag us on Twitter, using @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Until your next giver work. Thank you very much. Take care and goodbye.

Unit Overview: Commedia dell'arte: an introduction

Lessons: