I NEED THIS BOOK

“IL MONDOLOGO DI ARLECCHINO”
by Claudia Contin
(214 pages – dimensions cm 12×17 – with black and white pictures – colour cover)

The volume is an intriguing investigation and a useful guide to get to know in depth (and in a way that is anything but folkloristic) the famous stock comic character of Harlequin.
The “Mondologo di Arlecchino” investigates in a new and original way that “mosaic” of writings and fragments that surrounds the perhaps most complex and variegated stock comic character of the Commedia dell’Arte. The cues traceable in the “scattered life” of the character of Harlequin in the Italian and European theatre of the past centuries from the XVIth to the XIXth , are first accurately dealt with in an essay (rich of philological and bibliographic indications) able to recall the big issues of the World of Harlequin, then they are reintepreted, revised and reinvented in a real script in which Harlequin speaks in the first person (and with the colourful puzzle of his multi-dialect language) of his extraordinary and upside down outlook on the World.
A”full relief” Harlequin appears in it, who has gone through centuries and places, gathering on his ancient archetype the experiences of the various epochs but also able to meet our contemporary issues and to invent new jokes for us. A Wandering Harlequin, alive and still able to “make theatre” and thus to hand down his “theatrical journey” also to the future.

The text is accompanied by a series of 33 photos taken from the homonymous performance that the author has been staging for over a decade as renowned interpreter of Harlequin in Italy and abroad.
The volume also includes:

An introduction by Alessandro Gentili that contextualizes the “Mondologo di Arlecchino” within the contemporary researches on the actor’s work.
An afterword by Ferruccio Merisi which, by recalling the “Director’s memoirs” of the performance “il Mondologo di Arlecchino” opens intriguing reflections on the most contemporary requirements in terms of spatial staging, actor-audience relationship, definition of the simultaneous scores of body-voice-look for the actor… in the Commedia dell’Arte and not only.

VOLUME INDEX

INTRODUCTION by Alessandro Gentili
PREAMBLE AND “CANOVACCIO” by Claudia Contin
The main tale
Arguments
Harlequin Servant of the Devil
Harlequin Wild Jester
Harlequin, the Marionette, the Stick
The Hunger issue
The Love issue
Harlequin’s misogyny
The Charlatan, the Wizard, the Bagatto (a sort of charlatan vendor), the Healer
An Harlequin dedicated to the Menocchio Miller
The Carnival and the revolution of the “World upside down”
Notes
IL MONDOLOGO DI ARLECCHINO by Claudia Contin
First Scene
Second Scene
Third Scene
Fourth Scene
Fifth Scene
Final Scene
APPENDIX TO IL MONDOLOGO DI ARLECCHINO by Claudia Contin
About Harlequin’s horns
About Harlequin’s conception of the world
About Harlequin’s recipes against love
About Harlequin Bagatto defending himself in public
About Harlequin’s philosophy of laughing
About Harlequin’s dislike for latin and women
About loving Harlequin’s studies
About Harlequin’s declarations of love
Notes
MEMOIRS OF A DIRECTOR by Ferruccio Merisi

http://www.hellequin.it/MSIE/English/bblIlMondologo.htm