ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the century Edward Gordon Craig, as he edited (and largely wrote under some sixty or so pseudonyms) his periodical The Mask, stated his hopes for the study of Commedia:
In the present number of The Mask we proceed with the story of the commedia dell’arte and of those men of genius, the great Improvisators, who brought it to its perfection….
The general reader must remember that what we are introducing to him was a phase of the dramatic art almost without parallel; that it appealed not only to the people but to the aristocracy; in short that it captured and held the Public…not merely a public…for three centuries.
The specialising reader will want to know the reason for this. …To us it seems quite evident that when that reason shall be clearly demonstrated to the actors and the artists of the theatre a new form of Acting and a new form of Drama will come into existence. 1
