The Complete Idiot's Guide to Acting

Mick Napier

Improvise.: Scene from the Inside Out

In this book, Napier takes an irreverent, but constructive look at the art and practice of improvised scenes.

Duchartre, Pierre L. Ducharte

The Italian Comedy

The roots of the Italian commedia dell'arte stretch back to the Atellanae Fabulae, popular farces of ancient Rome. Modern descendants can be found in the antics of a comic like Charles Chaplin. But as an institution it was unique -- a perfected theater of improvisation where gifted actors created some of the most memorable characters the theatre has ever seen. It was from this enchanting world that Harlequin and Punch, the Doctor and the Captain, Pantaloon and Brighella emerged to reign over Europe for three centuries. Writers, composers, and painters have drawn inspiration from the commedia; its influence is obvious in the work of Lope de Vega, the English Elizabethan dramatists, Moliere, Callot, Watteau, Cezanne, and Picasso.One of the most important books written on this aspect of theatrical history is this famous study. Tracing the beginnings, growth, and influence of the commedia dell'arte, Duchartre describes the improvisations, staging, masks, scenarios, acting troupes, and characters that made up this special form of theater. Unfortunately, the English translation that appeared in 1929 has been out of print for decades, leaving scholars and theater lovers without a ...

William T. Vollmann

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf),

Writing with the extraordinary awareness and endless curiosity that has defined his oeuvre, Vollmann takes an in-depth look into the unusual Japanese craft of Noh theater, using the medium as a prism to reveal humanity's conception of beauty itself. b&w photos.