ABSTRACT
We might wonder how Commedia dell’Arte came to the New World. Was it through the characters of Harlequin and Columbine in the nineteenth century pantos, or through Italian troupes that set off for gigs across the Atlantic, as so colorfully envisioned in Renoir’s The Golden Coach? Was it via the Golden Age of silent film comedies? Or did Commedia attach itself like a flea to the clothes of some Italian immigrant looking for a new life? Carlo Mazzone-Clementi was certainly an immigrant Paduan pilgrim in 1957. He was also a pioneer and a poet. With the spirit of a poet he spread seeds of Commedia dell’Arte in the New World. With the spirit of a pioneer he stayed on to tend those seeds. “No roots, no fruits.” (Mazzone-Clementi pers. comm. 1978) Author-teacher John Towsen wrote that Carlo “single-handedly brought commedia to the United States starting in 1958.” (Towsen 2011)
