Harlequinade Harlequinade Harlequinade is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the "Oxford English Dictionary" as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the Commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon (evolved from the character Pantalone),
Pierrot the introduction of the "commedia dell'arte" characters into parodic metatheater. (Pierrot is a member of the audience watching the play.) The penetration of Pierrot and his companions of the "commedia" into Spain is documented in a painting by Goya, "Itinerant Actors" (1793). It foreshadows the work of such Spanish successors as Picasso and Fernand Pelez, both of whom also showed strong sympathy with the lives of traveling saltimbancos. When, in 1762, a great fire destroyed the Foire Saint-Germain and the new Comédie-Italienne claimed the fairs’ stage-offerings (now known collectively as the Opéra-Comique) as their own, new enterprises began to attract