How and Why Commedia dell’Arte is Perfect for Purim Spiel
And some speculations on the nature of Jewish humor
Last Monday night my Commedia dell’Arte teacher said that according to Orthodox Jewish wisdom, when the messiah comes, none of the Jewish holidays will be needed or celebrated anymore, except one. Purim.
News to me!
Where would all that somber Jewish guilt be atoned for if there was no Yom Kippur to rub it in our faces? No other holidays, really? Just Purim.
Which feels like a very minor holiday. Along with Chanukah, mainly something for the kids, right?
But, my teacher explained, it was because of the raucous joy.
Raucous joy? Not something I usually associate with Jewish religion and culture. If we’re not burning in the ovens of the Holocaust, then we’re annexing Palestinean homelands, right?
Neither side of the power dynamic is particularly funny.
Why then are we Jews so heavily represented in comedy?
According to Wikipedia, beginning with vaudeville and continuing through radio, stand-up, film, and television, a disproportionately high percentage of American, British, German, and Russian comedians have been Jewish. Time Magazine estimated in 1978 that 80 percent of professional American comics were Jewish.
Is that how we coped with all that anti-semitism?
Maybe it was a survival tactic. Self-efface with humor, get them laughing, and slip away? Live to laugh another day? After all, legend has it that the fool was one personage in the royal court who could speak unwelcome, unflattering truths to power. If a knight or duke tried it, heads would roll.
From the Middle Ages, if not earlier, and continuing on, Jewish humor had these two themes —self-effacement and the subtle undermining of authority.
Back even in the days of the Roman Empire, theological satire became a way of clandestinely opposing the Christianization of Europe. Ever since, Jewish humor has run the gamut from slapstick and physical comedy to the wordplay, irony, and satirical wit used to mock figures and institutions of authority.
On the physical humor side, we have the Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Jerry Lewis, and Fanny Brice. On the challenge authority side, we have Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. In between, we have a range of talent including Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Norman Lear, Mel Brooks, Gilda Radner, Woody Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld — just to name a few.
Lots more could be said about these comedy legends here, but let’s take a moment to honor their contributions to humanity’s need to laugh at life, at oneself, or just to keep from crying.
The confluence of Commedia and the Purim Spiel
What’s Purim Spiel?
Spiel is Yiddish for play. Purim celebrations can be wild and raucous, bawdy and carnivalesque, with the story of Esther made dramatic in some fashion.
If nothing else, a reading of the story where kids rattle their noisemakers every time the villain Haman’s name is mentioned. But often it’s fully dramatized with actors playing the parts, pulling out all the comedic stops.
According to Wikipedia, the Purim Spiel’s considered the “only genuine folk theater that has survived a thousand years in European culture.” Integrating texts, theater, music, dance, songs, mimes, and costumes, the Purim spiel is considered to be the origin of Yiddish theatre. The descriptive term “Purim spiel” became widely used among Ashkenazi Jews as early as the mid-1500s.
That’s when Commedia dell’Arte came on the scene with its stock characters using slapstick. In fact, they invented it. There actually is a clapper stick that makes a loud sound used when characters mime slapping each other. No one gets hurt, but the sound makes it seem real.
It’s called a slapstick
But slapstick came to mean more than that prop. It refers to the broad physical comedy antics of fumbling bumbling characters like country- bumpkin, Zanni, the pompous El Doctore, and braggadocious El Capitan.
In Commedia, the servents, Zanni, Arlequino (Harlequin), and Columbina end up outsmarting their masters. Masters such as the miserly prototype of Scrooge, Pantalone, and the puffed-up know-nothing, Il Dottore.
Offsetting these antics are the lovers. Star-crossed, cross-eyed, and more in love with being in love than in love with their actual paramours, they conspire with the servants to outwit their parent masters.
These are Commedia’s basic tropes
And guess what? They’re easily adaptable to the Purin Spiel. Did Jewish players appropriate Commedia? Or were they already heavily ensconced in the word of Commedia?
Either way, it was and continues to be a perfect fit. To this day, folks putting on Purim Spiels borrow heavily from Commedia’s antics — slapstick and physical comedy, poking fun at royals, and even the wearing of masks.
So we may have King Ahashverosh portrayed as Il Dottore. Easter might be the lover, but she could just as easily be the crafty, conniving Columbina. And Haman? Why the pompous ass, Il Capitan himself.
I have to decide who I want to portray in my class. Usually, I’m Zanni. By far my favorite–earthy, ignorant, and somewhat gross, he’s managed to capture my heart.
But we’re instructed to stretch our repertoire.
Hmmm. Let me see. My body’s already starting to take on Pantalone’s hunch. So let this little old lady play the miserly, yet lusty old man with the gravelly voice and the turned-out feet. Kinda like Arte Johnson’s dirty old man on Laugh-in. Remember him?
While it’s not full-on Commedia style, the Purim Spiel below borrows from contemporary musicals while poking fun at Zoom rooms and the pandemic. Something to enjoy while waiting for the messiah!
Marilyn Flower writes humor to laugh the changes she wants to see and make. She’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development and Bucket Listers, Get Your Brave On. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!