_My plan of campaign for assailing Goldoni and Chiari through the
militia of actors I had chosen.--The four Fiabe: Il Corvo, Il Re Cervo,
La Turandotte, I Pitocchi Fortunati._
In the long course of my observations upon human nature and the
different sorts of men, I had not as yet enjoyed an opportunity of
studying the race of actors. I was curious to do so, and the time had
come.
With the view of attacking my two poet adversaries in the theatre, I
made choice of the comic troupe of Sacchi, the famous Truffaldino.[26]
It was composed for the most part of close relatives, and bore the
reputation of being better behaved and more honest than any others.
Professionally, they sustained our old national comedy of improvisation
with the greatest spirit. This type of drama, as I have said above,
Goldoni and Chiari, under the mask of zeal for culture, but really with
an eager eye to gain, had set themselves to ruin and abolish.
Antonio Sacchi, Agostino Fiorelli, Atanagio Zannoni, and Cesare Derbes,
all of them excellent players in their several lines, represented the
four masks, Truffaldino, Tartaglia, Brighella, and Pantalone. Each of
these men could boast of perfect practice in their art, readiness of
wit, grace, fertility of ideas, variety of sallies, bye-play, drollery,
naturalness, and some philosophy. The soubrette of the company, Andriana
Sacchi-Zannoni, possessed the same qualities. Its other members, at the
time when I took up their cause, were old men and women, persons of good
parts but unattractive physique, lifeless sticks, and inexperienced
children. Some time earlier, the troupe had been extremely well-to-do
and popular in Italy. But the two playwrights in question, after having
lived in partnership with them, had turned round and taken the bread out
of their mouths. Sacchi, in these circumstances, withdrew his company to
the Court of Portugal, where they prospered, until a far more formidable
enemy than a brace of poets assailed them. The terrible earthquake of
Lisbon put a stop to all amusements in that capital; and our poor
players, having lost their occupation, returned to Venice after an
absence of some four years, and encamped in the theatre of San Samuele.
Upon their arrival, they met with a temporary success. Many amateurs of
the old drama, who were bored to death with Martellian verses and such
plays as the _Filosofi Inglesi_, _Pamelas_, _Pastorelle Fedeli_,
_Plautuses_, _Molieres_, _Terences_, and _Torquato Tassos_, then in
vogue, hailed them with enthusiasm. During the first year the four masks
and the soubrette, with some other actors of merit in the extempore
style, took the wind out of Goldoni's and Chiari's sails. Little by
little, however, the novelties poured forth by these two fertile
writers, who kept on treating the clever fellows as contemptible
mountebanks and insipid buffoons, prevailed, and reduced them to almost
total neglect.
It seemed to me that I should be able to indulge my humour for laughter
if I made myself the colonel of this regiment. I also hoped to score a
victory for the insulted Granelleschi by drawing crowds to Sacchi's
theatre with my dramatic allegories based on nursery-tales. The fable of
_L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_ made a good beginning. My adversaries
were driven mad by the revolt it caused among playgoers, by its parodies
and hidden meanings, which the newspapers industriously explained,
describing many things which I had never put there. They attempted to
hoot it down by clumsy abuse, affecting at the same time disgust and
contempt for its literary triviality. Forgetting that it had been
appreciated and enjoyed by people of good birth and culture, they called
it a mere buffoonery to catch the vulgar. Its popularity they attributed
to the co-operation of the four talented masks, whom they had sought to
extirpate, and to the effect of the transformation scenes which it
contained, ignoring the real spirit and intention of this comic sketch
in a new style.
Laughing at their empty malice, I publicly maintained that art in the
construction of a piece, well-managed conduct of its action, propriety
of rhetoric and harmony of diction, were sufficient to invest a puerile
fantastic motive, if taken seriously, with the illusion of reality, and
to arrest the attention of the whole human race--excepting perhaps some
thirty confirmed enemies, who would be sure, when my contention had been
proved before their eyes and ears, to accuse a hundred thousand men of
ignorance, and to renounce their sex rather than admit the truth.
This proposition was met with new gibes; and I found myself committed to
make good my bold assertion. The fable of _Il Corvo_, extracted from a
Neapolitan story-book, _Cunto delle cunte, trattenemiento pe le
piccierelle_, and treated by me in the tone of lofty tragedy, wrought
the miracle. I must add that I assigned some humorous passages to the
four masks, whom I wished to keep upon the stage for the benefit of
hypochondriacs, and in contempt of misunderstood and falsely applied
rules from Aristotle.
The success of _Il Corvo_ was complete. The public wept and laughed at
my bidding. Multitudes flocked to hear this old wives' tale, as though
it had been solemn history. The play had a long run; and the two poets
were seriously damaged in their interests, while the newspapers
applauded and extolled the allegory as a splendid example of fraternal
affection.
I wished to strike while the iron was hot. Accordingly, my third fable,
the _Re Cervo_, appeared with similar results of popularity and
sympathetic criticism. A thousand beauties were discovered, which I, who
wrote it, had not seen. Folk regarded its allegory as a mirror for those
monarchs who allow themselves to be blinded by their confidence in
Ministers, and are in consequence transformed into the semblance of
monsters. Meanwhile, my opponents persisted in ascribing the great
success of these three pieces to stage decorations and the marvellous
effect of magic metamorphoses, neglecting the writer's art and science,
the charm of his verse, and his adroit employment of rhetoric, morality,
and allegory. This impelled me to produce two more fables, _Turandotte_
and _I Pitocchi Fortunati_, in which magic marvels were conspicuous by
their absence, while the literary art and science remained the same. A
like success clinched my argument, without, however, disarming my
antagonists.
I had formed the habit of conversing with my family of players in our
hours of leisure; and very racy did I find the recreation of their
society. In a short space of time I learned to understand and see into
the characters and talents of my soldiers, with insight so perfect that
all the parts I wrote for them and fitted, so to speak, upon their
mental frames, were represented on the stage as though they issued
naturally from their hearts and tempers. This added hugely to the
attraction of the spectacle. The gift of writing for particular actors,
which does not seem to be possessed or put in use by every dramatist, is
almost indispensable while dealing with the comic troupes of Italy. The
moderate payments which are customary in our theatres prevent these
people from engaging so large a number of actors and actresses as to be
able to select the proper representatives of all the varied characters
in nature. To the accident of my possessing this gift, and the ability
with which I exercised it, must be ascribed a large part of my success.
Goldoni alone devoted himself with patience to the study of the players
who put his premeditated pieces on the boards;[27] but I defy Goldoni
and all the writers for our stage to compose, as I did, parts differing
in character, containing jokes, witticisms, drolleries, moral satire,
and discourses in soliloquy or dialogue, adapted to the native genius of
my Truffaldino, Tartaglia, Brighella, Pantaloni, and Servette, without
lapsing into languor and frigidity, and with the same result of
reiterated applause.
Other playwrights, who attempted to put written words into the mouth of
extempore actors, only made them unnatural; and obtained, as the reward
of their endeavours, the abuse and hisses of the public at the third
representation of their insipid pieces. It is possibly on this account
that they revenged themselves by assuming comic airs of grave and
serious criticism, treating our miracles of native fun and humour as
contemptible buffoons, all Italy as drunken and besotted, myself as the
bolsterer up of theatrical ineptitudes, and my prolusions in a new
dramatic style as crumbling relics of the old _Commedia dell'Arte_. So
far as the last accusation goes, everybody will allow that the Masks
which I supported as a _tour de force_ of art and for the recreation of
the public who rejoiced in them, play the least part in my scenic
compositions; my works, in fact, depend for their existence and survival
on the sound morality and manly passion, which formed their real
substratum, and which found expression on the lips of serious
actors.[28]
For the rest, the players whom I had taken under my wing looked up to me
as their tutelary genius. Whenever I appeared, they broke into
exclamations of delight, and let the whole world know that I was the
propitious planet of their resurrection. They professed themselves
indebted to me for benefits which could not be repaid, except by an
eternal gratitude.