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Puppet theatre in Italy

2018; UNIVERSIDADE DO OESTE DE SANTA CATARINA; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5965/2595034701022006053

2595-0347

John McCormick,

Theatre and Performance Studies

Many puppet traditions can be traced back to Italy.For geographical, social, historical and political reasons Italy includes some of the poorest regions of Europe.Emigration has always been endemic.Amongst those leaving Italy, whether on a seasonal or more permanent basis, were entertainers.The actors of the Commedia dell'Arte found they could earn more money abroad, whether in France, Spain, England, the German states or even Russia.Some of these brought puppets with them.By the mid seventeenth century puppet showmen with their companies were travelling with marionette performances and these were often called after the main figure, Pulcinella.Glove puppet players belonged more to the ranks of street entertainers, and travelled with a rudimentary stage and a few puppets.The most famous of these was Giovanni Piccini of Piacenza, who probably reached England around 1780 and became the "father" of the English Punch and Judy show.By the nineteenth century, showmen were crossing the Atlantic Ocean with increasing frequency, particularly visiting South America.In Classical times there are plenty of references to show that puppets were familiar to people in Italy.It is highly likely that medieval clerics used marionettes as a means of teaching the scriptures, but that, like the mystery plays, these passed rapidly into the hands of popular entertainers and soon became secularised.There is also evidence of simple street glove-puppet shows.Until unification in 1861, Italy was a series of states, most ruled or 4 4 4 4 4 MÓIN-MÓINRevista de Estudos sobre Teatro de Formas Animadas controlled by different foreign powers, and even the development of a single Italian language spoken by the entire population is a comparatively recent phenomenon.Just as there was a myriad of dialects (reflected constantly on the puppet stage), there was a number of different puppet traditions.By the sixteenth century puppets began to appear, especially in Naples, as an adjunct to the activities of charlatans.A performance of a short farce with puppets, almost inevitably including a fight between the figures, battering each other with sticks, was employed as a lively means of attracting a crowd who might then be persuaded to buy whatever medicines or potions the charlatan was offering.A special squeaky voice has been associated with glove puppets (and sometimes marionettes) from an early time.Paolo Minucci in his 1688 commentary on Lorenzo Lippi's parody of the Gerusalemme Liberata, Malmantile racquistato speaks of 'un certo fischio' to make puppets speak.This is the 'pivetta' or swazzle, still much in use today with both Pulcinella and Punch performers, a small device placed in the mouth that works to a similar principle to the reed of a musical instrument and deforms the voice when the performer speaks through it.Marionettes were associated with music and dancing from the start, perhaps because, as jointed figures they can be associated with jigging dolls.Unlike the jigging doll, the marionette is directly controlled from above by means of a rod attached to the head and a couple of strings to work the hands.Possibly the first mention of marionettes in Italy is in Girolamo Cardano's treatise De rerum varietate of 1557: For I saw many others that were moved with several strings, and these were sometime tense and sometimes slackened, but there is nothing strange about that.Moreover this was interesting because the dances and movements went in time to the music. 11 Much information about puppet activity in Rome is provided by the seventeenth-century theologian, Gian Domenico Ottonelli, in his treatise Della christiana moderazione del theatro.Libro detto l' ammonizione a' recitanti, per avvisare ogni Christiano a moderarsi da gli eccessi nel recitare. 12He describes a glove-puppet stage and its figures:11 Book XII 'De artificiis humilioribus', ch.LXIII.The first part of the paragraph describes two Sicilians with their planchette puppets.