The company started as a group of professionally trained actors, teachers and artists in 2006, but since 2010 continues as a partnership between Bonino and her stage-partner Ben-Jamin Newham.

“At the moment we are doing very well together, we are a perfect duo,” Bonino said.

“But the ambition is to eventually have a group of dedicated, professional actors that can perform Commedia.”

Bonino was born in Turin, Italy, where she attended acting school and received her diploma.

In Italy she worked with Walter Chiari, the Italian comedy actor “who is very popular in Australia”.

At the end of 1994, Bonino came to live in Australia, where the theatre company started up organically.

Bonino said that there was a lot of “learning along the way”, including an important period of workshopping with Antonio Fava “one of the biggest experts of Commedia dell’Arte in Italy”.

Fava, an internationally-renowned maestro of the art-form, visited Sydney on two occasions to assist the company in their training.

Later, Bonino returned to Italy to undertake a course with Fava and can now claim to be professionally certified in her practice.

So what is Commedia dell’Arte?

It’s a theatrical form characterised by improvised dialogue and a cast of colourful, stock characters, which emerged in northern Italy in the 16th century and rapidly gained popularity throughout Europe. 

Most of the characters are distinguished by masks.

In its golden age, plays of the Commedia dell’Arte were usually performed in open air by itinerant troupes of players.

Performances were based on a basic plot, often a familiar story, upon which the actors improvised their dialogue, with an emphasis on wit, physical outlandishness and humour.

“It was the beginning of the modern entertaining business,” Bonino said.

“Everyone talks about slapstick comedy – like Charlie Chaplin – without knowing that it comes from Commedia.”

The main component of the theatre style is its spontaneity.

“That’s what we do – we improvise,” Bonino said.

“We don’t have a script, which is quite unusual for a company to do something like this.

“It’s difficult.”

There are three main groups of characters involved in the scenarios: the vecchi (old men), who are the principal characters in the show, the zanni (servants), who are simultaneously ingenious and helpless comic characters, and finally, the innamorati (lovers), who are innocent and in love.

Bonino said that one of her favourite characters to play is Pantalone, one of the old men from Venice.

He is said to be “psychologically the richest character”, as well as “the richest man in Venice”, money-wise.

Having moved through many stages of life from servant, to officer, captain and now merchant, Pantalone is “an old man, but inside of him there is always that young, starving servant who is afraid to lose all of his fortune”.

Fools in Progress specialise in school workshops and performances, but also perform regularly for adults.

Bonino said that seeing the kids’ faces when Fools in Progress performs is one of the highlights of the job.

“The kids are immediately taken by it,” Bonino said, although she admitted that with teenagers it is harder; they can initially hold hesitation and dismay, but once the show begins, their attitude changes.

“The characters are so silly and behave in a way that is so unusual, that they love it... it’s just delirious,” Bonino exclaimed.

She added that she thinks that contemporary adult actors who have worked with Commedia dell’Arte are a cut above the rest.

“In my personal experience, working on stage and improvising with such perfectly created characters... gave me an incredible confidence on stage,” she said.

“Actors who learn Commedia are more creative and daring in their everyday profession.”