Reading the actress in commedia imagery

Katritzky, M. A. (2008). Reading the actress in commedia imagery. In: Brown, Pamela Allen and Parolin, Peter eds. Women players in England, 1500-1660: beyond the all-male stage. Studies in performance and early modern drama. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, pp. 109–143.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315233703-6

Abstract

Women had been performing in Europe and England long before the commedia dell’arte created the first female stars. Nonetheless, commedia troupes are rightly credited with pioneering the systematic promotion of professional actresses as celebrity performers. Soon the comici were drawing Italian audiences away from the amateur players of the regular comedy, who always used males for women’s roles. A better approach is to “read” individual pictures of actresses within the context of a wide array of relevant documentation, textual as well as visual. Such identifications are far more reliable than those made for some of the better-known paintings featuring commedia actresses. Portraits or assumed portraits of commedia players are vastly outnumbered by pictures showing unidentified performers, both on- and off-stage. As the commedia dell’arte prima donna became an essential stage presence, artists began to make actresses the focal point of theatrical compositions.

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