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These are shows in which a single episode narrates the story of a hero, an incident, or an event. As early as the second half of the 19th century and continuing until the 1960s, these were staged to draw in new audiences. They encompassed tales of injustice, love, banditry, and saints. In the wake of these productions, the company has incorporated numerous shows into its repertoire that, however, deviate from traditional puppetry. They stem from a necessity for ongoing exploration, for a journey without end, for self-discovery.
The wonderful adventures of Guerrino aka Meschino
Young Guerrino is the son of royalty. As a result of a betrayal his father suffered, he is sold as a slave in Constantinople while still in swaddling clothes. The boy will grow up so loving and loyal that his adoptive parents when he grows up will return him to freedom. Guerrino’s main desire will be to know his origins and in order to know the truth, he will face the world until he enters the enchantment of the sorceress Alcina, overcoming spells, wonders, duels against giants and fantastic beings.
The script consists of concerted scenes with a well-defined dramaturgical structure, with dialogue that the characters improvise from time to time. A new text that focuses on the adventurous aspect of the events of poor Guerrino “knight of love” in search of his origins, but the rhythms and pacing are those of epic-chivalric theater.
Francis and the Sultan
In the summer of 1219, at the age of 37, Francis went with some companions to Damiata, Egypt, under the generous illusion that he could stop the ravages of the Fifth Crusade. The delegate of the Apostolic See, Cardinal Pelagius Galvan, who leads the siege at Damiata, treats him as reckless. Francis is convinced that in Islam it is necessary to go with the hand of the Gospel and not with the sword. Pelagius, on the other hand, goes on to repeat that Islam must be crushed precisely with the sword. Francis predicts to him, in the name of God, a shameful escape, which punctually occurs on August 29. In his divine obstinacy, he goes to the camp of the Saracens, determined to meet Sultan Melek El Kemel, who had unsuccessfully offered the Christians an honorable proposal for peace. The sultan will deeply appreciate Francis’ Christian faith driven to the risk of martyrdom.
Around this episode in the saint’s life, which reveals him as a forerunner of a concept of universal coexistence, revolve hearsay, myths, legends and historically ascertained facts, from the surfacing of the meaning of his mission, to the break with his family, proselytism, his relationship with Clare, the wolf of Gubbio, the work of re-evangelization of his order, dissent with the more worldly wing of the Church, and the mystery of the stigmata he received in the hermitage of La Verna.
The story is adapted to the listening of some commoners, in the Palermo of the first half of the 13th century, ravaged by social conflicts and repressed by Frederick II, committed to restoring imperial authority. Based on the sources, one imagines that two of Francis’ confreres arrive in the area of Palermo’s ancient port on the evening of Sept. 13, 1224, the eve of the arcane day on which Francis would receive the stigmata. Prompted by popular curiosity, they narrate the Saint’s life. The performance, in addition to giving an idea of the spread of Franciscanism in Sicily, enhances with the language of the masks and that of the combatants, the expressive potential of puppet opera.
Iliad or be it the redemption of Priam
Perhaps the beginning of a great new cycle of puppet opera that Mimmo Cuticchio, going against the current, defying the announced death of this genre, ventures on the threshold of the third millennium.
“The Iliad or be it the Redemption of Priam” is a reading of the poem charged with tragic sentiment and deep sadness.
The maternal affection of Thetis, the nocturnal breathing of Agamemnon, the dreamy apparition of Nestor, the sorrowful weeping of Achilles for the death of his friend Patroclus, are extraordinary moments, where even the heroes, Hector and Achilles are aimed at combining epic tale and chivalric poem. There is no shortage of battles between Achaeans and Trojans, with associated severed heads and bodies in two: but this time they do not trigger smiles as in normal puppet fights, but drama. And the searing tension is already at the beginning, in the snappy and dynamic cunto of Mimmo Cuticchio, a voice that does not allow moments of respite in the sculptural plasticity of his storytelling.
The show is part of what used to be “special evenings” for the puppeteer, in which the entire story was told in a single episode.
The scenes and puppets are new, created for this project, the music made with the traditional top hat piano.
Aladdin of all colors
The idea of staging the marvelous story of Aladdin, the Genie of the Lamp and Africa’s most powerful magician, was nurtured by Mimmo Cuticchio several years ago, right after Infanzia d’Orlando, a show that the puppeteer and cuntist staged with his son Giacomo, who was just seven years old at the time. Giacomino-Orlandino was to become this time Giacomino-Aladino, a continuation of a play begun between father and son in the warmth of affection and home. But while the text was being studied, the cartoon Aladin was arriving in movie theaters, and we did not want to give the idea that our production was the result of the interest the film had aroused in the general public. So we postponed the project. In the meantime, from project to project, time passed and the idea was shelved, also in view of the fact that little Giacomo, as happens to all children of that age, in a few years had grown so tall that he already seemed to be an adult.
Today Mimmo Cuticchio again manifests the desire to create a show about Aladdin, structured as a fairy tale dedicated essentially to children but which, in the enchantment of puppet theater, aims to live on the passionate participation of audiences of all ages.
The show, conceived and directed by Mimmo Cuticchio, unites with simplicity and naturalness, through “the word,” Western and Eastern cultures as part of a broader project of universal coexistence and tolerance, which started many years ago with the show Francis and the Sultan by Cuticchio and Licata, where the two authors contrasted the Crusades with the Franciscan culture, which replaces the sword with the Gospel and aggression with acceptance.
In Aladdin of All Colors the focus is always on coexistence and tolerance, focusing on the childhood project as a value. Too often both the material and spiritual needs of children are underestimated, and in the needs of adults is consumed the oblivion of the little ones.
Certainly, ours is only a performance, a kind of illusion and necessary utopia, in which the aspiration – for us inalienable – to the substance of things is proclaimed.
The staging is based on the discovery of the little theater as a magic box: the alternation of scenes and lights, the addition of music, unlike the traditional show, give the whole and the dramaturgy of the story a topical touch.
Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves
This is the new production that focuses attention on the different and finds meaning in the temper of the events that are disrupting the world order. Without forcing in the direction of the rhetoric of the most recent events, this production identifies as central the element of the “Stranger,” an archetypal rhetorical figure already a protagonist of the classical theatrical tradition but also of our past and our future as migrants of today and yesterday albeit with different conditions and motivations. The foreigner, is not necessarily from another country or state, the foreigner is present among the very natives of our cities, especially in Palermo where “enclaves” of deep marginalization survive, especially cultural as well as social.