Gilles (stock character) disparate Foire genres—puppet shows, comic operas, and every imaginable permutation of both mute and spoken theater—his character began inevitably to coarsen. It is therefore not surprising that Colombine should call Pierrot a "Gille" in Alexis Piron's "L'Ane d'Or" (The Golden Ass, 1725) or that a police report detailing the suspicious goings-on in Lesage's prologue to "Arlequin, valet de Merlin" (Harlequin, Merlin's Valet, 1718) should refer to Pierrot indiscriminately as "Pierrot" or as "Gilles". (It should also not be surprising that, when the illustrious Pierrot Hamoche was forbidden, in 1721, to play "opéras-comiques", impelling Lesage and Dorneval to lay his Pierrot
Commedia dell'arte masks Commedia dell'arte masks Commedia dell'Arte masks are one of the biggest classifiers for each character. Every mask goes with a specific character based on the way it looks. Masks were originally all made of leather, but now more commonly made of neoprene. The Commedia masks must show emotion and intelligence as they are covering the face which is the main place emotion can be seen on someone. Masks should be an extension of an actor and their costume, hair and accessories. A mask creates a completely different face for the person that is wearing it. Mask, in Commedia dell'Arte speaks