Commedia dell'arte was an essential ingredient of the revolution in Russian art in the early twentieth century. During this colourful and creative period artists sought inspiration in surprising places ? icon painting, primitive art, and (in the theatre) circus, music-hall, and commedia dell'arte. The devices and motifs of Italian improvisational theatre played a central role in overcoming theatrical realism and naturalism and formed a basis for a new and expressive theatricality.

Douglas Clayton examines the tradition of commedia dell'arte as the Russian modernists inherited it, from its origins in Italian street theatre through its various transformations: in Italy (Gozzi and Goldini's plays); in France (the development of Pierrot and the restructuring of the plot); and in Germany (Tieck's and Hoffmann's metatheatre). He also analyses crucial texts by Gozzi, Lothar, Benavente, and Schnitzler that came to play a central role in the Russian theatre. Tracing the history of commedia dell'arte on the Russian stage, he demonstrates that the introduction of the tradition was theory-driven and discusses several milestone productions in the pre- and post-revolutionary period. Clayton examines the impact of commedia dell'arte, russified as the new theatrical genre of balagan, on both popular and lesser-known Russian playwrights, and, in conclusion, explores the significance of the commedia dell'arte as a theoretical underpinning for Sergei Eisenstein's theories of theatre and film.