The Servant of Two Masters
Last night we went to see the Yale Rep’s wonderful production of Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters.
We saw the ART production years ago with Tommy Derrah as Truffaldino. That was a lot of fun because Andrei Belgrader‘s adaptation turned it into a musical. Servant is a classic comedy of errors which features appetites, false identities and lots of confusion. It features several of the stock characters from the commedia dell’arte, including Harlequin, Pantalone, Columbine, as well as the Doctor and the Captain.
Last night’s version was Constance Congdon‘s adaptation, which is a hews a bit more to the original than the ART one did. One nice thing about this version is that it leaves a lot of room for improvisation. This was typical back in play’s early days, and it does make for a lot of fun. It also seems to keep it fresh for the actors. There were a few times last night where one actor had to stop for a minute because they started laughing hysterically at something one of the others did.