Sacco and Vanzetti: A Tragedia dell’arte

(Photo credit to Rebecca Gudelunas Photography.)

A part of my very thorough theatre education definitely included Commedia dell’arte, a form of Italian comedic theatre that was popular between the 16th and 18th centuries.  It was basically defined by set characters, such as Harlequin or Pantalone, and the masks that they wore.  It’s super interesting, and was very well known and well formulated, and although you don’t see a lot of it in modern theatre (at least, not to my knowledge), it’s an important part of theatre history.  It’s influenced a lot of modern theatre, such as in the Pantomime form, but in my experience, there’s not a lot of completely accurate Commedia dell’arte shows out there.

The wonderful thing is that they do exist in the modern world.  And although Sacco and Vanzetti: A Tragedia dell’arte definitely has a major modern spin on it, it was absolutely rooted in tradition.  In this hour and a half long play, we saw so many beautiful masks for each character.  And I’ve got to say, the idea of tragedia for a play that was, actually quite funny, really set the mood for the whole thing.  It was absolutely brilliant from start to finish, boasting all types of humor, and even more serious moments.

Sacco and Vanzetti was based on the real life story of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants who were wrongly executed in 1927.  Their names were cleared decades later, but their trial and the controversy surrounding it were pretty shady.  The writer of this play, John Bellomo, took this story and seriously ran with it.  When you think about what’s going on in the world right now, I think stories like this really need to be back in the open.  Sacco and Vanzetti were wrongfully accused, and the general consensus is that it was because of their race and beliefs.  In this case, the past should be an important warning.

I think that’s one of the things I loved the most about Sacco and Vanzetti.  For such a serious matter, Bellomo managed to adapt this in a much more easy to swallow way.  And even though we laughed through it, I think anyone watching this play could see the nuggets of truth that follow through into our modern age.  Despite the whole story truly being a tragedy, I think it would be pretty hard to walk away from this play and not think about it in a modern framework.

It was so much more than just basic storytelling, though.  Like I said, the masks were gorgeous, and perfectly tailored to the character that wore them.  Masks were so important in Commedia dell’arte, and I loved that they really used some classic designs in them.  And it wasn’t just the masks that went back to Commedia dell’arte.  There were a lot of tropes and themes from the style of theatre that they brought into Sacco and Vanzetti.  This was a lot of fun for me, as a theatre geek who has studied this style of theatre, and has always loved it.  There were so many times I got to elbow my mom and whisper, “This is a classic Commedia dell’arte joke!”

And just when you thought they couldn’t go any further, they totally do.  We get to see an absolutely incredible use of puppets, notably through the trial scenes.  The jury was made up of one person controlling two rows of puppets.  It was so well done!  She definitely had great mastery of theses puppets, as their bodies moved and their eyes moved.  I feel like we don’t get enough puppetry, especially in adult theatre, but this was the absolute perfect use of it.

Something really interesting that was really beautiful to me was when the masks came off.  Sacco and Vanzetti both had multiple monologues where they removed their masks.  These were, obviously, some more serious parts of the play.  The monologues were really beautiful, and the whole idea of seeing these characters unmasked and saying these things was really moving.  I loved these moments in Sacco and Vanzetti just as much as I loved the humor that ran throughout the show.  I think it really proved a point, just thinking about the history of the play, and the way the play was told itself.

Walking away from Sacco and Vanzetti, we really thought about how pertinent this play is in modern times.  It was sort of like taking something classic and making it accessible for modern audiences.  But so many of the issues that come up in this play (and the history it’s based in) are issues that we see everywhere, on a day to day basis.  Sacco and Vanzetti managed to take a very tragic and disturbing piece of history, turn it into a comedy, and maintain its integrity.  We got to see the masks, as well as what was under the mask.  Sometimes, there’s just no way of hiding things, something every audience learns with this show.