From The Innamorati: The Libertini Create New Work in the Midst of Feasting

Commedia dell'Arte troupes crisscrossing the country to perform are often at the mercy of events they have no control over, like difficult audience members and bad weather. In the midst of rain and misery, the kindness of an unexpected patron in a small village becomes a welcomed gift. Food, wine, and local stories fuel the imaginations of the actors.

The actors of the Libertini huddled beneath the archway of a narrow street leading into Camogli's triangular piazza. Slanting sheets of rain splashed down on its black and white patterned stones; a church built on the seaward side sheltered it from the worst of the storm. Next to the church, the fishing boats tied to the harbor wall bounced in the rough sea. All along the landward side of the piazza, a street of tall row houses had closed their shutters against the wind and driving rain. There was no one abroad in the streets of Camogli, not even the usual stray cat.

In the archway, the Commedians stared glumly at the rain. The women held their skirts gathered in their hands to keep the hems from dragging in the water that sluiced down the shining black cobblestones. The baby Rosella fussed, her cheeks bright red in the chill. The men, leaning against the wall, wrapped their short capes around them, the feathers of their costume hats drooping with the damp. Alberto was alternately swearing at himself, swearing at God, and swearing at the bad luck that had brought this wretched storm on the day of their first performance.

They had entered Camogli in the early morning, when the sky was burning with red clouds to match the intensity of Alberto's temper. He was seething over the loss of the Arlecchino mask. Fabrizio had confessed in stammers to accidentally dropping it into the sea. Dropping it into the sea! It could portend disaster for the whole troupe. Silvia fingered her little gold cross nervously, Bruno and Gianni made secret gestures to ward off bad luck, Matteo sulked, Flavio chewed his nails, and Antonio tucked a blue Turkish bead on a string underneath his doublet to protect himself from evil. The damn fool, Fabrizio, just made it worse by stuttering worthless apologies to anyone with the patience to listen.

Once they had arrived in Camogli, Isabella urged Alberto to set up the show early and begin with some short pieces to advertise the evening performance. "Give them something to do so they don't fret," she advised. "Applause is the best cure!"

They set up the wagon and the trestle stage on top. From the trestle they had hung bright yellow drop cloths to form background walls. Fiammetta played her mandolin and Silvia danced a salterello to attract the villagers. As a crowd gathered, Arlecchino and Pulcinella made their appearance amid snickers and light applause. The two masks were arguing over a piece of cake that Arlecchino was happily eating but Pulcinella wanted. When Arlecchino refused to share even a morsel with his companion, Pulcinella decided to trick Arlecchino into believing he was very ill. Before long poor Arlecchino was staggering and moaning while Pulcinella expounded on his pallor. When Pulcinella at last declared him dead, Arlecchino obediently lay down and surrendered the cake to his greedy tormentor. It was left to Colombina to convince her beloved Arlecchino that he wasn't dead after all. Everything was going well. The crowd was small but enthusiastic, standing attentively before the stage, their tasks temporarily forgotten as everyone watched the performance. Alberto knew that if the troupe could hook them now, the audience would return in the evening to see the full performance and pay out a few of their hard-sweated coins. The crowd had just begun to loosen up when a thick bank of dark grey clouds settled heavily above the piazza.

The wind shifted, gusting off the ocean and billowing the background cloth like an untrimmed sail. The villagers turned a worried eye toward the horizon, their attention divided between the players, the rising sea, and the dark clouds. A ragged shepherdess came trotting through the piazza with a herd of bleating goats and, one by one, the villagers hurried away to secure the ties on their boats and the shutters on the windows, to pull barrels, stray chairs, and tables sitting out of doors into safety. In the end there was only the shepherdess, her weathered face staring at the actors in stupefied wonder.

She jerked Arlecchino's shoe, trying to get his attention. Arlecchino bent low and bawled out how miserable he had been when he was dead and unable to eat his cake. The hulking woman touched his masked face with dirty, chapped fingers. Without warning she grabbed Arlecchino by the nose and pulled hard against the head straps. Arlecchino yelped and moved forward, arms waving frantically for help, while the shepherdess handled his masked face. Just in time, Pulcinella jumped forward, and, with a great deal of cape swishing, loud extemporaneous poetry, and artful hand waving, finally convinced the shepherdess to let go of Arlecchino's face.

As Arlecchino had scampered back to the safety of Colombina's skirts, the dark sky broke with a hard patter of rain. Gathering up props, instruments, and masks, the Commedians had made a run for the covered archway. Within moments, the stage was flooded with the down-pour. Beneath a jacaranda tree, the horses bowed their heads under their soggy manes while thunder rumbled and lightning sizzled between thick clouds. The odd shepherdess, cowed by the fury above, bolted after her scampering goats.

And in the archway they remained, Alberto thought miserably, while the day slipped away. Isabella leaned on his arm and sneezed daintily. Alberto pulled on the fine hairs of his beard. All because that stupid fool of a stuttering actor—no!, Alberto refused to entertain the notion of calling Fabrizio an actor because that stupid fool had lost a powerful mask. Nothing but bad luck would follow them now. Unless of course they could find a way to toss the wretch into the ocean.

"Look, I think it's stopping!" Flavio said through gritted teeth.

"Madonna Santa," Silvia trilled. She leaned her head out from beneath the protection of the archway and peered up at the sky. "I can see patches of blue beyond the tops of those hills."

"Ah, at last," said Isabella gently, patting her husband's arm. "Stop insulting your beard, Alberto. The road is always like this, amore mio. Good and bad together."

Alberto let go of his beard, but his anger remained.

Shutters banged open on the second floor of a green and yellow row house, and a man with a bald pate fringed with grey hair stuck his head out the window. He clapped his hands as if surprised to discover them all standing like wet geese beneath the archway.

"Come, come," he called, and motioned to a tightly shut green door below him. "Come and warm yourselves! What are you doing in the rain? Hurry, come inside!"

The actors needed no further encouragement but crossed the piazza quickly, Alberto pausing to offer an apologetic prayer at the church for having cursed God for the rain. After all it wasn't His fault. It was that fool Fabrizio's fault.

The door creaked open to reveal the common room of a small inn with a huge hearth nestled in the corner. An orange tomcat sauntered out and sat on his haunches, the yellow eyes following them curiously. At the doorway, Matteo leaned down and gave the cat a quick rub under the chin. The cat stretched his fore paws on the actor's leg and purred. Fabrizio came in behind Matteo and went to pet the cat as well, but the creature hissed, twisted its spine, and struck out with its claws.

"Merda!" Fabrizio cried, and withdrew his bleeding hand to the safety of his chest.

Matteo didn't say anything but cast Fabrizio a smug look.

Once inside, the troupe found the room warm and deliciously fragrant with the scent of food and wood smoke. They stood near the hearth, peeling off wet capes and cloaks and hanging them to dry on pegs near the fire. Steam rose from the rain-soaked garments and sighs issued from the actors, holding out their chilled fingers to the fire.

"I thought for certain you had gone into the church for shelter," the balding man was saying. His black eyes glistened beneath the pale tufted eyebrows. "I saw you just before the storm hit, when Erminia was giving Arlecchino a twist of the nose. But when the rain came and the lightning, I'm afraid I was distracted. If I had known ..."

"Signore, you can not imagine how grateful we are for your hospitality at this moment," Alberto said. "Perhaps you would let us know the name of our rescuer?"

"I am Giovanni Arrighi. This is my inn. I'm not originally from here. I am fiorentino," he said with some pride. "But you know how the politics in that city go." His fingers scraped beneath his chin in a gesture of disgust. "Once I was a well-known wool trader, but I supported the wrong man in the Signoria and then, of course, there was the war. So, for now, I am here."

"Signore Arrighi, we cannot thank you enough. Please let us introduce ourselves," Alberto began.

"Oh, no need!" Giovanni said happily. "You are the Libertini. I have seen your troupe perform before, at Carnevale in Venice." He bowed low to Isabella, a hand over his heart. "You are the exquisite Isabella. Signora, there is no finer Innamorata on stage than you. Your beauty and intelligence... che brava." He straightened and faced Alberto again. "And you, of course, are Il Maestro, Alberto Torelli. Even without Pantelone's mask and black cape, I'd recognize that voice!"

"How fortunate to find a true patron of the arts here in Liguria," Giuliana said, shaking the water from her hair.

"Signora Giuliana di Brescia, it is I who am fortunate," Giovanni said, giving the surprised Giuliana a bow as well. "Indeed, I am familiar with your performances on stage too. The fame of your clever Colombina precedes you."

"You are too kind, Signore," Giuliana murmured with a smile. Rain dripped off the hem of her soaked dress and puddled around her feet.

"Please, all of you sit and be my guests. Our fare is simple but I think you will find the ravioli excellent, the pesto full of garlic, and the zuppa di pesce quite fresh. Later, when everything has dried out, I will call a couple of boys to help set up your stage again. You can't imagine how it pleases me to have some real theater in this dreary village! But first we must have some wine." Giovanni shouted to a boy leaning against the kitchen door. "Forget that Ligurian horse piss behind the bar, Marco. Bring up the Montalcinos and Albanas! This is a special occasion."

The boy snapped to attention and disappeared through a door, reappearing laden with dust-covered bottles of red and pale gold wine. Giovanni shouted to the serving girls, who began to bring bowls filled with steaming soup in which red-shelled scampi and chunks of white turbot competed for space. Then came platters full of warm flat bread, crusted with salt and shiny with olive oil. Giovanni uncorked the white wine and began pouring, talking as he poured. The Commedians listened respectfully but their eyes were fixed on the wine swirling into the glasses and the hot soup steaming beneath their noses.

"Buon appetito!" offered their host, and those actors not diving their spoons into the soup tore off pieces of the warm flat bread and stuffed them into their mouths.

For the next few hours, while it drizzled outside, the Commedians dined inside, growing warm and sated with food and wine. In the course of the meal, they conversed with their host on almost every subject, from the quality, or lack thereof, of Ligurian wines, to the perfection of Toscana pecorino cheese, Petrarch's poetry, the complex politics of Florence and the even more complex politics of Milan and France and Spain. They shared gossip about the great houses: the Sforza, the Medici, the Gonzagas, the Borgias.

Finally, they gossiped about the village of Camogli. For although the scandals of the village were not much beside the scandals of the noble houses, local gossip would provide the finishing details of their performance that night. The success of a performance lay in personalizing the drama, in taking the universal masks of Arlecchino and Pulcinella and placing them onto recognizable local characters: the farmer too cheap to pay a decent dowry for his daughter, the randy old widower chasing young girls, the beautiful and now rich widow receiving condolence calls from the men of the village. Even the village bully might see himself in the performance of II Capitano, and become during the life of the performance not a person to be feared by the crowd, but mocked.

Giovanni told the Commedians much about the village: which wives were adulterous, which husbands sniffed around the skirts of the maids, who hid their gold under the straw, and who watered their wine before bringing it to market. He also spoke of the new married couple whose joyous cries woke the village every night for a month, and the golden-haired child who once prophesied a bumper harvest of fish. Each actor listened thoughtfully, turning over in his and her mind the subtle changes they would make to their performances to bring it alive to the audience.

"What about that shepherdess? The one who nearly pulled off Arlecchino's mask?" Alberto asked.

"Ah, Erminia," Giovanni began, and belched quietly, his cheeks glowing bright pink from heat and wine."She's a sad story, really. Like me, she doesn't belong to this village."

"Where does she come from?" asked Fiammetta, feeding a piece of bread to Rosella.

"No one knows. I've been told she appeared one day after a violent storm, washed up on the rocks. She was a little girl, maybe eight, but it's hard to say for certain since she was tall even then. That was almost ten years ago."

"But can't she remember her family, or where she came from?" Bruno asked.

"Even if she did know, she couldn't tell us. She's mute."

"Is she deaf?" Alberto asked, loosening the strings of his doublet.

"No. She answers to her name and the call of the goats. But she's never spoken a word or even cried out that I've heard. She is an imbecile, just smart enough to herd the goats and stay out of the way of a beating."

"Poveretta. She's so ugly," Silvia said, twisting a black curl around her finger.

"Except for her eyes," Matteo said. "I saw them when she grabbed my mask. A man could get lost in their color—clear blue, like Venetian glass."

"A mermaid, cast up from the sea," Giuliana joked, and playfully kicked the young man under the table. He blushed and looked away with a shrug.

"But mermaids are supposed to be beautiful," Silvia said.

"Perhaps they don't look so inviting on land," Giuliana suggested. "Like a silver mackerel that turns putrid two days later on the fishmonger's slab."

Giovanni laughed. "Erminia is a poor soul, but good to the goats. Be kind to her, my friends, if you use her in your show tonight. She has seen little enough kindness in her years here."

Isabella put her hand over Giovanni's and gave him a radiant smile. "My dear Giovanni, we will treat her with the utmost respect. Her plight suggests an interesting little drama to me. Let us pretend that she is a mermaid, disguised as a shepherdess as she searches on land for the man she loves—"

"Lelio, of course," Antonio put in. "She has seen his face as he peered over the sides of his ship bound for Genoa."

"No doubt returning from France, where his father II Dottore sent him to stay out of trouble!" Fiammetta added.

"Only one night they had," Giuliana said, her hands clasped over her heart. "Whispering the lover's duet—she floating on the foamy surface of the waves, he leaning over the railing to see her face and ... well her breasts, of course, naked in the moonlight."

Flavio held up his finger. "But his father, II Dottore, is planning to marry Lelio off to Isabella, who is in love with someone else."

"Who will play the shepherdess?" Alberto asked.

"Let me, Papa," Silvia answered.

"You don't mind being ugly for awhile?"

"It's a disguise. A mask, like the men wear. But when it is removed, the pearl beneath will be revealed," she answered. "Take off Arlecchino's mask and poof ... he disappears completely."

"Va bene," Alberto said, with a proud nod of his head.

"C-can I h-h-have a r-role?" Fabrizio asked. "I c-could be a s-s-ervant or Isabella's o-o-ther lover?"

Alberto turned a cold eye on the young man. "You will stay out of sight."

In the tense silence that followed, Isabella's eyes quietly beseeched Alberto to be lenient. "Boh." Alberto exhaled. "I'm angry today. Tomorrow it will be over. But for now, it would be best if you took yourself to the shore, stuffed your mouth with stones, and shouted your lines to the sea. Maybe it'll help get rid of that stutter. Then ask me tomorrow on the road and we will see."

Fabrizio's face flushed scarlet to the tips of his ears. He kept his mouth tightly closed and nodded.

"Ah look, the sun at last," Giovanni announced, pointing to the gold rectangle of light creeping into the open doorway. "It will be a beautiful evening after all!"

The troupe left their places at the table, groaning as they stood, their arms cradling their full stomachs. They crowded in the doorway smiling at the late afternoon sun beaming down on the wet stones of the piazza. The air was clean, salty, and pine-scented. The last of the storm clouds were a grey ridge on the far horizon. Birds called in the jacaranda tree. The loud bang of shutters being thrown open broke the quiet calm of the piazza.

'Allora," Alberto said, and clapped his hands together. "To work. We'll give them a great show tonight!"

The Commedians spilled out into the piazza and, with the help of two boys from Giovanni's inn, they went about resetting the soggy stage. Only Fabrizio hung back by the door of the inn, his hands balled into fists. He knew he should set aside his anger and go and help. But he just couldn't bring himself to join the actors. They were going to perform tonight and he was going to the sea to mumble lines with a mouthful of stones. Giuliana glanced up at him from the trunks where she was pulling out costumes. She gave him a wistful smile and a light shrug.

Fabrizio was angry at her, too. If she hadn't distracted him with her scent, her mouth, her body, he might have managed to keep his hands on the mask instead of dropping it into the sea to grapple with her. "Merda," he swore, and started walking across the piazza, past the church, and under the archway where the road led to the sea.

He could already taste the stones, their hard round shapes crowding into his mouth, and the words oozing between them like mortar. He had tried the trick before. It had helped his diction, which, when he could speak without stuttering, was flawless. But Alberto was wrong. A mouthful of stones would do nothing to correct the stutter. The solution to that curse lay somewhere else and Fabrizio was damned if he knew where to look for it. At least, it wasn't to be found in Giuliana's arms.