Character Name:

Vittoria

In Italian, the Lovers (of whom four- two would-be pairs - are usually needed for a full scenario) are called innamorati. The males have names such as Silvio, Fabrisio, Aurelio, Orazio, Ottavio, Ortensio, Lelio, Flavio, Leandro, Cinzio, Florindo, Lindoro, etc;The females: Isabella, Angelica, Eularia, Flaminia, Vittoria, Silvia, Lavinia, Ortensia, Aurelia, etc. - Rudlin

Status:

An adopted child, or an orphan for whatever the scenario requires. - Shane

High, but brought low by the hopelessness of their infatuation. - Rudlin

Costume:

In Commedia dell'Carte, she wears tattered rags and mixed colors much like a gypsy or street urchin. This character is sometimes a zanni as well as the innamorati class depending on what the scenario calls for. - Shane

See Inammorati

Origin (History):

The aristocracy of the Italian Renaissance courts amused themselves with a form they called commedia erudita based on the plays of Terence and Plautus, for example Calandria by Cardinal Bibbiena which, like Shakespeare's later Comedy of Errors, is based on Plautus' Menaechmi. As the professional improvised comedy looked to extend its range it seems to have borrowed the Lovers from the amateur form. - Rudlin

Physical Appearance:

Young and attractive - Rudlin

The commedia version of Hugo's 'Cosette' - Shane

Mask:

No actual mask, but heavy make-up. Mascara and beauty spots for both sexes. The make-up in fact becomes a mask enabling performers to play the role well into middle-age, or even beyond. - Giovan Battista Andreini, son of Francesco, played Lelio until he was 73. Vizard or loup could be worn for disguise, usually made of black velvet. This was a normal accoutrement for society ladies when walking to a rendezvous and could be half- or full- face. But since it has no expression it does not count as a mask in the Commedia sense, although it does provide plenty a plot potential, enabling, for example, Colombina to attend rendezvous in her mistress's place. - Rudlin

Stance:

Lack firm contact with the earth. Feet invariably in ballet positions, creating an inverted cone. Chest and heart heavy. They are full of breath, but then take little pants on top. Sometimes when situations become too much for them, they deflate totally. - Rudlin

Walk:

They do not walk so much as teeter, due to the instability of their base. First, the head leans the other way to the body sway. Then the arms have to be used, one above the other, as a counterweight. - Rudin

Poses:

See Innamorati

Movements:

Actors would use the same dancing masters as the well-to-do whom they were parodying in order to point up the ridiculousness of exaggerated deportment. Movement comes at the point of overbalance leading to a sideways rush towards a new focus, with the arms left trailing behind. Stop at the new point (usually the beloved or some token thereof) before (almost) touching it. The Lovers have little or no physical contact. When there is any, the minimum has maximum effect. - Rudlin

Gestures:

Often while holding a hankerchief or flower etc. in the leading hand. The arms never make identical shapes. Because of their vanity, they frequently look in a hand-mirror, only to become upset by any minor imperfection which is discovered. Even in extremis they are alwaysd looking to see if a ribbon or a sequin is out of place. A button found on the floor or a blemish in the coiffure equals disaster. - Rudlin

Speech:

Language: Tuscan, making great display of courtly words and baroque metaphors. Well read, knowing large extracts of poems by heart (especially Petrarch). They speak softly in musical sentences - in contrast with the zanni. Their sentences are often flamboyant, hyperbolical, full of amorous rhetoric. By the end of the 17th Century in Paris, the Lover spoken in French. - Rudlin.

Animal:

See Innamorati

Relationships:

They relate exclusively to themselves - they are in love with themselves being in love. The last person they actually relate to in the course of the action is often the beloved. When they do meet they have great difficulty in communicating with each other (usually because of nerves). And they related to their servants only in terms of pleading for help. The Lovers love each other, yet are more preoccupied with being seen as lovers, undergoing all the hardships of being in such a plight, than with actual fulfillment. Consequently they frequently scorn each other and feign mild hatred; they rebut, despair, reconcile, but eventually end up marrying in the way of true love when the game is up and they know they cannot play any more. After a quarrel, the male may try a serenade to win back favor. This will often be (dis)organized by Zanni: he employs musicians who are drunk or spends the money on something else and has to use tramps off the street. The result is total chaos, but in the end the serenade is beautifully played and sung because everyone miraculously turns out to be good at their job after all. - Rudlin

Relationship to Audience:

Extremely aware of being watched, playing to the audience for sympathy in their plight, occaissonally giving themselves away by flirting with a spectator. - Rudlin

Frequent Plot Function:

Indispensible. Without them and their inability to resolve their own problems, there would be no function for the zanni, no struggle between the ineffectuality of youth and the implacability of age. The Lovers are never alone on stage - they always have someone with them or spying on them. - Rudlin

Characteristics:

Three, like primary colors: fidelity, jealously and fickleness. They are vain, petuluant, spoilt, full of doubt and have very little patience. They have a masochistic enjoyment of enforced seperation because it enables them to dramatize their situation, lament, moan, send messages, etc. When the Lovers do meet they are almost always tongue-tied and need interpreters (i.e. a zanni and/or a servetta) who proceed to misinterpret their statements, either through stupidity (Zanni), malicious desire for revenge (Brighella) or calculated self-interest (Columbina). Their attention span is short like young children's. The fear that they might be nobodies keeps them hyper-animated. Their element is water: they are very wet creatures indeed. The females are more passion-wrought and energetic than their male counterparts. The lovers exist very much in their own world- and in their own world within that world. Self-obsessed and very selfish, they are more interested in what they are saying themselves and how it sounds than in what the beloved is saying. They are primarily in love with themselves, secondarily in love with love, and only consequentially in love with the beloved. What they learn, if anything, from the tribulations of the scenario is the need to reverse these priorities.They do, however, come off better than most other Commedia characters: there is no viciousness in them, and less to be reproached for - except vanity and vapidness, which, given their parents, they can hardly be blamed for. They represent the human portential for happiness. - Rudlin

If then true lovers have ever been crossed It stands as an edict in destiny.Then let us teach our trial patience,Because it is a customary cross,As due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs,Wishes, and tears - poor fancy's followers. Shakespeare

Lazzi:

See Innamorati

Commedia dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook by John Rudlin.  Routledge 1994

Commedia dell'arte: A Scene-Study Book by Bari Rolfe.  Personabooks 1977

The Commedia dell'Arte by Winifred Smith, New York, 1912

The Italian Comedy by Pierre Louis Ducharte.  Dover Publications, inc.  1966

Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell'Arte by Mel Gordon.  Performing Arts Journal Publications  1983

Scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte:  Flaminio Scala's Il Teatro Delle Favole Rappresentative translated by Henry F. Salerno Limelight Editions  1996

All other comments have come from growth and experience of the performers of Commedia dell'Carte