commedia dell'arte

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Popular form of Italian improvised comic drama in the 16th and 17th centuries, performed by trained troupes of actors and involving stock characters and situations. It exerted considerable influence on writers such as Carlo Goldoni, and Molière, and on the genres of pantomime, harlequinade, and the Punch and Judy show. It laid the foundation for a tradition of mime, strong in France, that continued with the modern mime of Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau. Overtly subversive in plot, commedia deals with servants tricking and swindling their foolish masters.

The Italian left-wing writer and performer Dario Fo has described his own debt to the commedia and its satirical content.

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