Lazzi

Of debatable origin, the words lazzi (plural) and lazzo (singular) define the transferable comic routines inserted into commedia dell’arte plots and are [Page 444]now also used to refer to any actor's stage “business” teased out of a plot. Lazzo is generally accepted as deriving from l’azzo or l’azione, meaning “action” or activity on stage, although some authorities also apply it to verbal pyrotechnics, “a jest, a witticism, or a metaphor, in words or actions” (Perrucci, 1699/2008, p. 192).

Through numerous historical records, the titles of many hundred commedia lazzi are known, although only about 250 have any descriptive details. The records cover situations, scenarios, and sketchy plots, but without dialogue, although clearly in performance, text was improvised around most of them. The arte (guild or profession) in commedia dell’arte is often interpreted as “craft” or “skill” and associated with “the craft of improvisation” (its full name in 16th-century Italy was commedia dell’arte all improvviso). Although commedia text was developed through improvisation, debate remains on what percentage was invented during performance; the requirements of lazzi suggest a great deal of familiarity with both plot and key sentences.

Commedia's lazzi are invariably comic, their purpose being to divert and entertain, even amaze with physical skill. They often used topical satire to appeal to the widest audience; their comic scenarios involved familiar situations, usually ones in the public eye, and involved easily recognizable character traits. Many echo long-established elements of Roman comedies, for example, Plautine satire of types, class/status, and cunning survival skills, together with laughable human qualities such as greed, envy, and weakness in the face of temptation. Such elements have been numerously identified in Shakespeare's plays and in the plays of many others.

Traditional lazzi situations require considerable physicality and depend on acrobatic skills, using symbolic or exaggerated props such as the huge enema-syringe illustrated in Pierre Louis Duchartre's The Italian Comedy (1924/1966, p. 336) from the Corsini manuscript of 1610. Often elaborate and involving several performers, most lazzi would have been learned by all (usually 10) members of the company. As in any comic routine, spontaneity prevails in improvising amusement, although with pre-agreed cues, both verbal and physical, signaling start, transition, or end of the lazzo. One can presume that as long as an audience's laughter continued, the lazzo was further explored.

There is no complete list of lazzi from commedia's most popular period, 1550–1750, although some 300 to 400 appear to have been commonly used, and the same lazzi titles are often found in records of various companies. Mel Gordon (1983) categorized 250 traditional lazzi under 12 headings (12 to 19 in each): Acrobatic and Mimic Lazzi (e.g. Lazzi of the Ladder, of the Statue); Comic Violence/Sadistic Behavior (floggings, beatings, tooth extraction, circumcision); Food Lazzi (from the famous “fly eating” of the stock characters Arlecchino and Truffaldino, to complete feasts, as in Carlo Goldoni's later plays); Stage Properties (where action necessitates specific props); Sexual/Scatological (Lazzi of the Enema, chamber pots, “erecting” swords); Social/Class Rebellion (for plots that commonly delighted audiences by taking the side of the underdog); Stupidity/Inappropriate Behavior (ignorance, memory lapses); Transformation (essentially major changes of character brought about by a new and often contradictory emotion, mocking the inconsistency of human nature); Word Play (puns, dialects, malapropisms, insults); Trickery (basic to all lazzi, but here Gordon groups the more elaborate deceptions); Illogical Lazzi (where the comedy departs totally from plot and arises from absurdities and pure silliness). There is another category that illuminates the actor-audience relationship, as many lazzi played with the double reality of stage and life: breaking illusions, objectifying character/actions, and developing comedy through topical interchange with audience members.

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