and facial expression. In the Italian 16th- and 17th-centurycommedia dell’arte, the standard charactersPantaloneandArlecchino, each wearing his traditional costume and mask, appeared in play after play and were immediately recognized, so that an audience could anticipate the behaviour of the grasping...
of This World(1950), and the musical and motion pictureA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum(1963). Plautus’sstock charactertypes have similarly had a long line of successors: the braggart soldierMiles Gloriosus, for example, became theCapitanoof the Italiancommedia dell’arteand ...