In the Pupi Theatre, the laboratory is a well-equipped room, essential to the construction of the Pupi (puppets), the painting of the backdrops, the posters, the whole iconographic component and the costumes.
For both the puppets and the paintings, the making technique has remained identical to that used by the first artisans: sculptors, carvers, tailors, painters, and metal embossers. The role played by these craftsmen remains decisive in defining the cultural territory of the Pupi Opera, which from the repertoire of the vastasate of the 1700s, with the farce puppets, flows into the Opra of the epic-chivalric tradition of the 1800s that has come down to us.
In group work everyone has his or her own role and specificity. In our Company, the creation of the puppets is the prerogative of Mimmo and Nino Cuticchio, custodians of traditional techniques, while the painting of the backdrops and posters and the execution of the costumes is the responsibility of Tania Giordano, who after her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, in 1997 attended the first three-year course of the “School for Puppeteers and Cuntisti” created by Mimmo Cuticchio, where she learned about the world of Opra and learned the “secrets” of the craft.
Puppet making has remained unchanged since the first half of the 19th century. The bodies and heads are carved in wood (beech and fir for the bodies, cypress for the heads). The body of the puppet, called the skeleton, consists of nine pieces (torso, thighs, legs, feet, hands or fist and hand). To make them, the puppeteer uses models that have been handed down for generations and which he gradually refines following his own style. The same applies to the making of armor, which is constructed from a number of models. On a sheet of metal (brass, nickel silver) all the pieces are drawn and then cut out.
In the preparation of the puppets destined to function as protagonists, alongside the expressiveness of the faces, the ornamental technique of the armor is important. Both refer to precise predetermined canons, which are used to identify the characters.
Each part of the armor is embossed and worked with special hammers (ball or wooden mallets), then furrowed by specific implements (hammer fin), guillocheted with peculiar insignia, and finally assembled through the use of iron wire, while some parts are soldered with tin. Women warriors can be recognized by the overhang of the breasts in the armor and by the locks of hair that, once the poultice is mounted, emerge from the helmet.