Under the guest direction of theater artists Todd Espeland and Allison Williams, known collectively as Commedia Zuppa, the show on Wednesday and Thursday, March 1 and 2 will be a two-hour, double bill. It features Grand Valley acting students in their original work, "The Actor and the Mask," and Espeland and Williams who will perform their acclaimed touring piece, "Boxhead."
Commedia Zuppa is a Kalamazoo-based company focused on creating and teaching physical theater, including mask, stage combat, circus, and Commedia dell'Arte. They travel six to eight months each year, sharing their work with theatres, festivals, colleges and schools across North America and Europe through performances, guest residencies and workshops. They have won wide acclaim on New York's Off-Broadway stages, as well as at the Edinburgh and London Fringe Festivals, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, and other venues.
At Grand Valley, Commedia Zuppa has been training theater students since mid-February with a 50-hour workshop in mask work and other Commedia performance skills. The culmination is their performance of the short group-developed piece, "The Actor and the Mask."
"The mask and how the mask's physicality is speaking, is what's actually playing," said Espeland. "I tell students that they're simply a vessel that the mask is working through."
The student performance will be followed by "Boxhead," a one-hour series of vignettes, ranging from comic to poignant, centering around one man's journey to learn how to fit into the world. The title character wakes up one day to find he has a box for a head. The performers use a myriad of masks from cultures throughout the world to tell the story of Box Head's quest for his own identity. It is a show that foregrounds the expressive possibilities of movement on-stage, the humor and originality of improvisational acting, and the transformative power of the mask in human culture.
"After the show, the audience should feel that the time they spent with us was well worth spending," said Williams. "They may also feel puzzled or amazed or confused or enlightened or just entertained." She added that the two-hour evening event will be appropriate for all ages as it doesn't deal with adult themes, but is accessible to everyone on a variety of levels.
Grand Valley will also produce Goldoni's famous masterpiece, "Servant of Two Masters," in a period style and setting. Seven performances of this Italian farce are scheduled from March 24 to April 2.
All productions will be presented in the Louis Armstrong Theatre, located in the Performing Arts Center on the Allendale campus. Ample free parking is available for each performance. "The Actor and the Mask" and "Boxhead" performances are March 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $6 for all seats, and may be purchased at the door, or in advance at the LAT Box Office, noon to 5 p.m. weekdays. Tickets are also available, with a service fee, through Star Tickets Plus outlets, online at www.starticketsplus.com, or by calling (616)222-4000 or (800) 585-3737.
Contact Person: Roger Ellis, GVSU Theatre, (616) 331-3485 or [email protected]
BACKGROUND
Commedia Zuppa's modern approach to Commedia dell'Arte is based on the well-known form of renaissance comic theater originating in Italy, in which dialog was improvised around a loose scenario involving a set of stock characters, each with a distinctive costume, mask and traditional name. In Italian, Commedia dell'Arte means "plays of professional artists." It's also a distinct theatrical genre that evolved from outdoor performances by acrobats, jesters and the first professional actors in Italy. With stylized masks, gestures and plot improvisations, Commedia players satirized well-known types.
Between the 16th and the 18th centuries, the Italian Commedia troupes spread across Europe, performing in streets and squares and even for courtly audiences, influencing writers like Shakespeare and Moli¿re. Over time their artistic style became more formal and less pop. They reached their artistic zenith in Italy in the late 18th century under famous authors like Goldoni and Gozzi, who wrote many comedies for the beloved Commedia players.
Although Commedia Zuppa's characters are based on those of Commedia dell'Arte, it's clear that they present modern themes and characterization skills rather than more scenario-based characters, or mask interactions within the framework of a story. And even though their scripts are very "tight," there are frequent improvisational moments (traditionally called "lazzi") such as interactions with video cameras and cell phones. In Commedia Zuppa's own words, "Comedia dell'Arte is a theatre tradition rooted in Europe, but the way we interpret is very American."
This modern approach is most vividly reflected in the work of the United States' most famous Commedia group, Dell'Arte International, a performance ensemble and advanced theater conservatory founded in the early 1970s in northern California by the acclaimed European artist, the late Carlo Mazzone-Clementi. Comedia Zuppa's Todd Espeland is a graduate of Dell'Arte, as is Grand Valley's producer-director Roger Ellis, who has brought a number of Dell'Arte artists to campus since 1979 including Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, GVSU alumna Amy Tetzlaff, and Dell'Arte's current artistic director Joan Schirle.
