Commedia Character Shorts- Il Dottore (Chapter 4)

Il Dottore!

Il Dottore is not a physician, he just has a university degree.  To hear him tell it, he probably has several of them. He and Pantalone function together as the old men trying to marry off their children and generally making a mess of it. Pantalone and Il Dottore are the alter ego of each other, Pantalone being the decadent wealthy merchant, and Il Dottore being the decadent erudite. 

They alternate between being each other's best friend and worst enemy and are often the victims of each other's biased advice, but their schemes and machinations always seem to end up in much the same fashion: backfiring on them.  Whereas Pantalone can always take solace in his money, Il Dottore is happy to wax philosophical and will always be ready with a high-sounding misquotation or an elegant malapropism to give closure to yet another misadventure.

The Doctor is a local, disruptive busybody who doesn't listen to anyone else from any of the fields that he claims to know about, which is many (medicine, law, literature, etc.). There is not a subject that he doesn't know everything about.  He is traditionally portrayed as having been educated either in Bologna (he is full of bologna!) which since the Renaissance had one of two of the most prestigious universities of Italy and Europe. He is often extremely rich, generally with "old" money, though the needs of the scenario might have things otherwise. He is extremely pompous, as quick-tempered as Pantalone, and loves the sound of his own voice, spouting nonsensical Latin and Greek in phrases that can go on, and on, and on, and on and onandonandonandonandon.......

• His mask is unique in that it is the only mask in commedia dell'arte to cover only the forehead and nose. It is sometimes black, or else flesh-toned with a red nose. He also reddens his cheeks.
• His costume usually includes a large stomach pad so he looks rather fat (fat = rich), always dresses in black, is well groomed, rich looking.
• Dottore's movement is often in a figure 8 pattern, with his weight back on his heels and his belly forward.  His gestures are as expansive as his knowledge appears to be.

Joel Thompson plays the pompous and hilariously long-winded Dottore in our Servant of Two Masters.



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