The Sicilian puppet theater, between tradition and magic

Puppet theater is the traditional Sicilian marionette show. Even today it is still possible to visit it, unearthing the places where the magic of this show is hidden from the eyes of less attentive visitors.

Since 2008, the Opera dei Pupi has been inscribed on the UNESCO’s List of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

The stories told

The narratives, performed by the puppets who in turn are animated by the puppeteers, are taken from the epic-chivalric literature of the 11th century with particular reference to the Carolingian cycle. Thus, we can experience the stories of the chanson de geste in which heroes fight, even at the cost of their own lives, to defend their dame or the ideals of a community. There are widespread representations of Orlando Innamorato (by Matteo Maria Boiardo) featuring Orlando, the best paladin of France, who fights everything and everyone to win his beloved Angelica, even going against his own cousin Rinaldo, and those of Orlando Furioso (by Ludovico Ariosto), which instead have the figure of Angelica as the central focus of the love affair as she tries to flee from the many suitors.

The Spread and Characteristics of Puppet Theater in Sicily

Puppet theater spread in Sicily in the early 19th century and slowly gained more popularity among the Sicilian working classes.

The theaters through which these fantastic stories were told were usually family-run enterprises that either built and painted the puppets themselves or relied on traditional local artisans.

The two Sicilian schools most representative of the puppet-making tradition are those of Palermo and Catania, which each have their own characteristics:

• The Palermo school (the one that includes the province of Palermo, Agrigento and Trapani) makes puppets about 80 centimeters high that are moved by the puppeteers from the side of the stage;
• The Catania school makes puppets about 120-130 centimeters in height that are maneuvered by the puppeteers from above, thanks to a bridge positioned behind the back stage of the small performance stage. In addition, because of the difficult maneuverability given the weight of the puppets, the Catanese theater requires a larger staff of puppeteers and usually those who give voice to the characters in the narrative depicted are not the same ones who move the puppets but, are positioned sideways so as to observe the stage.

More generally, what distinguishes a Sicilian pupo from an ordinary marionette is the structure through which it can be maneuvered. In fact, eighteenth-century puppets were maneuvered from above by means of a metal rod connected to the head through a joint and by several wires capable of moving arms and legs. Later, in the first half of the nineteenth century, an artisan whose name is unknown to us patented tricks and modifications that transformed the concept of the marionette into that of the pupo: he modified the mechanism of the metal rod by no longer making it connected to the head by means of the joint, but by passing it inside the pupo, and he replaced the thin wire that controlled the right arm with a sturdy metal rod that later became the defining characteristic of the Sicilian pupo.

The transformations allowed for greater mobility of the puppets with quicker and more decisive movements essential to tell the story of the many fights present in the chivalric tradition.

The Puppet Theater of Syracuse

Walking through the alleyways of the island of Ortigia, the oldest part of Syracuse, it is possible to witness performances that endure in the face of the modernity of changing times. The place that hosts these shows is The Puppet Theater of Syracuse (Alfeo Theater), a place that has seen several generations of puppeteers pass by: from the beginning of this Sicilian tradition with the Puzzo family, passing then to the Vaccaro brothers and then continuing with the arrival of the Mauceri family.

Currently, the Puppet Theater of Syracuse is under the management of the association “La compagnia dei pupari Vaccaro-Mauceri,” which represents the link between the renewing spirit of the Vaccaro brothers and the tradition revived by the Mauceri family.

The theater offers throughout the year a varied proposal of performances all taken from the chivalric tradition of Orlando.

It becomes a magical experience to watch the telling of these stories in Italian interspersed with expressions typical of the Sicilian dialect.

It is also possible to visit the Museum of Puppets not far from the Alfeo Theater, a place through which the viewer can learn about the cultural and technical aspects of the puppeteer’s craft. In fact, on display inside the museum are puppets, marionettes, props and scenic material that are protagonists of the Vaccaro brothers’ tradition.