Tag: harlequin

Commedia 101: An introduction to improvised theatre

Commedia 101: An introduction to improvised theatre

Recently I was interviewed by a high school student who is studying the Commedia dell’Arte about how I have used this form of improvised theatre in my book. His questions were really astute and they got me thinking. I thought I’d follow up by putting my answers online. But I should probably start with my background in improvised acting.

Theatre sports and murder (or ‘theatre sports is murder’?)

Playing Madame Anastasia, a mysterious psychic.

A long time ago, in a city far, far away, I was part of a university theatre sports team. We called ourselves The Famous Five. Each of us took on the identity of one of Enid Blyton’s popular characters. I was George, the tomboy. Since theatre sports teams only have four members, Timmy the dog was actually a stuffed toy that I dragged around behind me on a lead. If I needed to dive into an active piece of improvised madness, I would drop the lead and say ‘sit’. Timmy always obeyed, and it invariably got a laugh. We were very fortunate to train with Belvoir Street Theatre, who had brought theatre sports to Australia. Eventually we ended up competing in the intervarsity competitions. Unfortunately we didn’t win. I think it’s because Timmy froze under pressure.

A few years later, in Melbourne, I did training in theatre games. These games, invented by Viola Spolin, have a set structure, but the content is left open to the inventiveness or lunacy of the actors. It was Spolin’s games that were adapted to create competitive theatre sports.

Improvisation is very much like a muscle. The more you do it, the better you get. As someone with chronic social anxiety, I was never going to be great at it, but because I’m very imaginative I could pull some interesting ideas out now and then. Part of the appeal was being able to take on characters very different to myself.

Fly forward more years, and I’m in the cast of Murder on the Puffing Billy Express. This is an improvised dinner murder mystery that is still running today. Performed on the Puffing Billy steam train in the Dandenong Ranges, it remains very popular. (Click here for more details.) I did this for five years. The scenario involved a 1920s party, with everyone on the train as partygoers. The entree was murder, then dinner included a lavish serving of clues. After dessert the audience would (hopefully) be in a position to solve the mystery. Character was key to the improvisation. We never knew what the audience might throw at us, but we knew how our character would act.

Writing about improvised theatre

What my improvisation experiences and the Commedia dell’Arte had in common was the use of structure. In theatre games this took the form of rules. For example, in ‘Death in a Minute’ a character must die at the end of the minute, funnily enough. For Murder on Puffing Billy it was defined characters and a general shape around what information needed to be introduced when. In the case of the Commedia, the structure comes from defined scenarios. In Harlequin’s Riddle the scenarios are given to the actors before they perform. Mina, my protaganist, has to learn these story outlines because they give the general shape of the performance. Within that shape she and the other actors can add speeches and physical action.  Mina’s discovery about where these story outlines have come from is a key plot point in the first book. In the real Commedia things are rather more mundane.

How scenarios worked

The Commedia has one-act and three-act performances. Whether short or long, scenes contain a proposition, then development, and finally a solution. One act scenes focus on a single theme. Usually this is love, money or vengeance. Longer performances are more complex. In my novels, to clearly distinguish between shorter and longer types, I use the name canovaccio for a one-act scene, and scenario for a longer one.

A plot summary is pinned up backstage so the actors can remember what to do. Basically this is ‘who does what when’. It contains an outline of scene content, the characters in that scene, the actions they do, and some hints for dialogue. For longer performances, there is a list of all the scenes. When the actors onstage change, that indicates a new scene to the audience.

Do we have records of scenarios?

As John Rudlin notes in his actor’s guide to the Commedia, it is very difficult to notate improvisation. I doubt anyone could have come away from one of our Murder performances and created a detailed account of the events of the evening. There are written reports of Commedia performances, such as one by Massimo Trojano from 1568. But any oral tradition loses something in the writing. And what had meaning at that time may not translate to a modern audience without the cultural and historical context. On a recent visit to Japan I learned that the tea ceremony that geisha perform has many levels of meaning attached to it. But anyone not raised on Japanese folk stories will not recognise the clues that hint at the secret meanings.

In the Commedia, a similar example is that characters are based on regional stereotypes. Anyone not raised in Italy is like to miss the nuances of this. Another reason why we don’t have clear records of scenarios is that many Commedia troupes were families who kept their performance techniques as closely guarded professional secrets.

What this meant in writing Commedia scenes in my book was that I used the same technique I had used as a performer. I improvised! I would identify characters and plots, then let the scenes shape themselves on the page. There was an added complication in that sometimes I wanted the scenes to hint at or reflect what was happening in the story. But essentially I allowed myself the freedom to let these scenes take on their own life. Perhaps if I had written these scenes on a different day they would have looked very different.

Creating Harlequin: Developing a Book Cover

Creating Harlequin: Developing a Book Cover

The book cover for Harlequin’s Riddle receives a lot of compliments. I’ve had people tell me they read the e book first, then had to go and buy a paper copy because they wanted the cover on their bookshelf. It’s a stunning image. But how did it come about? In this post I’ll take you on the journey of development that led to the cover. I don’t think it typically works this way, but this is Harlequin’s story…

Step One: Approaching an Artist

By the middle of 2016 Harlequin’s Riddle had been rejected by all the ‘big’ Australian publishers that I could get access to (which wasn’t many since I didn’t have an agent). Although I had received personal, detailed feedback from a few, which is unusual, it was ‘close, but not close enough’. I decided I’d look at self-publishing. To do that I’d need a cover, and I had come across the work of an incredible artist called Nadia Turner who lived close to me, and who painted gypsy wagons and pictures that had a real storytelling feel blended with folkloric elements. I already owned one of her prints because I loved her art so much, and I thought her style and themes would suit my book perfectly, so I made contact with her. She agreed to read Harlequin’s Riddle. Fortunately for me, she felt inspired by it and agreed to do the cover. I did a HUGE happy dance, I can tell you. We negotiated cost and timeframes, and talked about possibilities for images. We both agreed that book one had to feature Harlequin.

Step Two: Choosing a Design

Nadia came back to me with pencil sketches for several different designs. I thought they were all marvellous, but there was one that stood out. These are the designs I didn’t choose (below). I loved them all but felt they weren’t quite right. In the first one, Harlequin was a bit too noble. He’s a trickster who causes a few problems now and then (no spoilers…) so he needed a bit more ‘edge’ to him. A similar image (the one I ended up choosing) also had him on the other side of the cover, with the wagons and castle off to the left, so they would show on the back of the book. This felt like a better reflection of the long journey the travelling players take. The second cover has a glorious mask and beautiful embellishments, but wouldn’t show well as a thumbnail sketch on Amazon. The final one is striking, but doesn’t give a sense of story – and story telling is key to Mina’s abilities.

 

Interlude: Finding a Publisher

Once I had chosen the design, Nadia went off to do a colour rough, so we could work out the best colour palette. Around the same time my writing angel, Wendy Dunn, encouraged me to try a few small publishers, so I sent Harlequin to Odyssey books, and finally received that wonderful email all writers dream of: “we love it and want to publish it”. Odyssey is well known for having stunning covers that sit alongside the best of the big publishers, so I was a little bit nervous to say to my publisher – by the way, I’ve got this book cover design…

Step Three: The Colour Rough

While I was building up my courage to mention the book cover artwork to my brand new publisher, Nadia got back to me with the colour ‘rough’. As far as I was concerned there was nothing ‘rough’ about it. I thought the colours were perfect – not too bright, a beautiful tonal palette. My husband, who does a lot of photoshopping for me, will tell you I’m pretty fussy when it comes to design, but in this case all I asked for was a little more gold to lift the brown. As a result, the flowers now have gold centres, and Harlequin’s cloak pin is outlined in gold.  I also asked for the scroll design to be separate. That way I had the option of using or not using it.

Step Four: A Final Image… and the Design Process Begins…

When Nadia told me the painting was done it was like a whole bunch of Christmases all coming at once. When I picked it up it was sandwiched between boards and taped up, and I had a long way to travel, so I didn’t untape it. But I was twitching to have a look. That was one of the longest train journeys I’ve ever taken! Finally I got to open it up and I was SO thrilled with the final image. Fortunately, to my huge relief, I showed the image to my publisher and she loved it to.

Step Five: The Words

My husband, Jamie, is a whiz in Photoshop so my publisher agreed that he would do the lettering. By this stage, looking at the final image, we both thought the scroll wasn’t necessary. It would cover up the artwork and wouldn’t be able to fit much anyway. Book cover titles and author names need to be easy to read. So the scroll went. I hunted around for fonts for the title and found one called Fairy Dust. We got permission from the font designer to use it, then played around with placement, colour and size. I pretty much drove my husband mad at this stage. We discovered that Harlequin was a little too close to the top of the image to fit the word ‘Harlequin’ comfortably, so Jamie photoshopped some extra sky in with Nadia’s permission. Finally, after many cups of tea and a great deal of ‘no, a little more to the right’, ‘can you make it two points larger?’, and ‘can you add a drop shadow?’, we had a book cover. I sent it to Odyssey for final tweaks – my publisher did the back cover blurb and interior design, including stunning embellishments. In a master stroke, she chose to print the books on matte stock.

Afterword: My Precious….

It was beyond exciting to receive my author copies and to see the final cover on a real book. I was thrilled to be able to give Nadia a copy.

I’ve been told an author should buy themselves a special gift to commemorate publication day. What I did was to frame the original artwork. Now, as I sit and write, I can look up and see Harlequin, the wagons and Mina’s journey, which lies at the heart of Harlequin’s Riddle.

Want to see more of Nadia’s amazing artwork? Go to Wayward Harper. Or to by prints, necklaces and other Wayward Harper goodies, visit Leaf Studios in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges.

Want to be one of the first people to see the cover for the second book? Sign up to my quarterly email newsletter (below) for a sneak peak…

What is the Commedia dell’Arte?

What is the Commedia dell’Arte?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know about Harlequin, Columbine and Pierrot so it always comes as a surprise to me when people look blank when I say ‘Harlequin’s Riddle is about the Commedia dell’Arte’. I’m not clear when I first became aware of these wonderful characters, but it was probably when my great-aunt gave me a tin with Pierrot on the lid. Inside was a facewasher and two soaps, also with different Pierrot images. Anyone who grew up in the 70s is probably very familiar with the classic images by Mira Fujita. The Pierrot in them is feminised, the face expressive. These designs were everywhere: on posters, on toiletries, on notebook covers. And Pierrot is the perfect icon for teenage girls – too sensitive for the world, and always yearning for something just out of reach (the beautiful Columbine).

Fujita’s images may be the reason that Pierrot is the most remembered of the Commedia characters today, but in fact he was a late addition to the line-up, and a minor character usually played by the youngest son, since player troupes were often families.  Harlequin too has survived, perhaps because tricksters have enormous appeal – just look at the current wave of interest in Loki in the Avengers movies.  Other characters are less well known now. But in their time they were adored by the public for whom they performed.

The Commedia dell’Arte is essentially improvised theatre that was usually performed in public spaces, in contrast to the Commedia Erudita, which was scripted and performed on private indoor stages. It appeared in Italy in the mid to late 1500s and its features, including slapstick humour and music, probably developed in order to compete with the noise of the marketplace. Those who look at the history of the Commedia suggest it grew from the antics of charlatans trying to sell their wares through any means possible.

Although Commedia performances were improvised, they had a clear framework from which performances grew. There were core characters, including the old men, Pantalone and Il Dottore, the lovers, the servants (known as zanni), Il Capitano (the Captain) and Columbina. Then there were secondary characters such as Pulcinella (later Pierrot), Scaramuccia and others. Harlequin, or Arlecchino as he was originally known, was one of the servants.

Each character was distinguished by a particular costume, status, posture and walk and particularly by their mask. This meant that when they appeared on stage the audience knew immediately who they were, and the function they would serve in the story. There were also set scenarios, or outlines of the events to be performed. Then, within the scenes, characters had set passages that they might recite, a repertoire of sight-gags the audience would expect from them, and particular ways of interacting with other characters. This means the improvisation actually occurred within very specific boundaries.  Much as Hollywood movies now follow certain tropes and patterns, Commedia audiences expected to see familiar characters, events and actions.

As with any popular form of entertainment, Commedia has changed over the centuries since its birth. Whilst there are still troupes today who try to maintain its original framework and characters, its influence can be seen in Punch and Judy shows, Cirque de Soleil and even musical theatre, which grew from the Commedia-like vaudeville performances of the early 20th Century. And, even removed from their Commedia roots, characters like Harlequin, the trickster, Pierrot, the sensitive, and Columbina, the unattainable beauty, still resonate with modern sensibilities.  For me, these enduring characters, and the magic that can emerge from improvised theatre, sparked my imagination, offering a world of possibilities that I explore in Harlequin’s Riddle.

 

Flow as a Doorway to Magic

Flow as a Doorway to Magic

Harlequin’s Riddle is not your typical fantasy. There’s actually not a droplet of magic in it. Mina, the central character, doesn’t learn magic. There is no speaking of spells, hand waving or use of wands anywhere in any of the books.  There are some fantastic books out there that use this sort of overt magic. But I went in a different direction. What interests me is thinking about what magic already exists in the world. We forget how incredible life is, taking for granted all the wondrous things that happen every day. This is especially true for people. Their minds are complex, their lives are fascinating and their achievements can be staggering.

I’m particularly interested in creativity, and how that shapes people. Or, as becomes evident in my book, how people use their creative abilities to shape the world. Art, in whatever form, can change the way we think about things. It can take us out of the moment, transporting us so completely that we forget who we are. It can help us to empathise and connect with others, or heal long-held hurts.

About Flow

In my explorations in creativity over the years I’ve noticed a recurring theme, which is that when people do their creative practice, whatever that might be, they go into a different state, or mindset. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychology professor, calls this state ‘flow’. In this state creators become completely absorbed in whatever they are doing. The requirements of the real world (food, ego etc.) fall away in place of a sense of fulfilment. This state can be very productive. Csiszentmihalyi also says the “whole being is involved”.

Flow and Writing

Many writers have had the experience of working on a piece, and having some sort of inexplicable or unusual experience, such as a character ‘coming to life’ and taking control of the story. Or writing about a place they’ve never been to, only to discover when they get there or see photos of it that they’ve described things with an uncanny accuracy. This is what fascinates me about flow – what if it is an opportunity to tap into a different mental state that links you in some way to something bigger than yourself? This was an idea I wanted to play with in my book.

Flow in Tarya

In Harlequin’s Riddle I take this idea of flow as a starting point to the fantastical elements of the story. Rather than a doorway to a different mental state, creativity becomes a literal doorway – to a place called Tarya. It is a place that sits beside the real world. There are spiritual aspects to Tarya, but it is not just a separate realm, like heaven. Events that happen in Tarya can have an effect on the real world. Mina, the central character of the book, discovers she is able to reach Tarya when she tells stories. But more importantly, she is able to bring aspects of her stories into being for her audience.

Writers are endlessly fascinated by the writing process. Sometimes it can definitely feel like it is magic. Having a heroine who can do interesting things with her stories is so much fun as a writer. I’d like to think there’s a little bit of me in Mina – or a little bit of Mina in me. But she may have other ideas…

If you’d like to learn more about Mina’s abilities, sign up to my email list (see the bottom of the page) and I’ll send you a free short story that tells you Mina’s back story.