Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions

by Henry Festing Jones

I had to go into the country for the night, and so was obliged to miss the Resurrection as presented by the marionettes. I did not, however, much mind, because I had seen the Gloria in the cathedral, where the Christ over the altar was modelled much better than any figure in the theatre. Besides, I called on Gregorio in the course of the

day and had a talk with him and his son, Angiolino, who told me what is done on the last evening of the drama, and showed me the preparations. The first scene, representing the tomb, was nearly ready. After the curtain rises there is an earthquake, and Misandro comes to see whether the watching soldiers are doing their duty; he finds them asleep and wakes them. This is repeated, and the third time Misandro sees the tomb open with a loud noise and a bright light—“like the bolide,” said Angiolino. Christ rises, and Misandro, seeing the actual Resurrection, is convinced that Christ is the Son of God and not a magician; he goes to spend the rest of his life preaching the gospel among the heathen. I did not ask what music accompanies the miracle of the Resurrection; I confess I was afraid to do so after what I had heard accompanying the flight of the pen. If I had been consulted here I should have advised silence to suggest that no music could be found suitable for the tremendous mystery that was being accomplished. But I do not think such advice would have been accepted.

Then Herod is ill and commands Pilate to send Jesus to cure him. Pilate commands the priests to produce Jesus, reminding them that he had washed his hands; but each of the priests accuses the other of being responsible, and so they enter upon their eternal punishment of mutual recrimination.

Christ appears to the Magdalene, to Luke, to Matthew and to a contadino. He takes two of them to a tavern, where he breaks bread and vanishes. So they recognise him and go to tell the good news to the Madonna and the other holy women. Doubting Thomas is convinced. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them and they receive the gift of tongues. The last scene is the Ascension, and Christ as he is received into heaven speaks words of comfort to his mother, telling her it will not be long before she joins him.

The marionettes were behindhand with their Gloria, because the bolide having transferred Monday’s programme

to Tuesday had syncopated the succeeding performances into counterpoint of the fourth order, and everything that happened after that was one beat late. Had they moved concurrently with the Church, and reached the Resurrection on the Saturday, they would have repeated it on the Sunday to fill up the time till Easter Monday, when they were to return to Erminio della Stella d’Oro, a story of romance and chivalry invented by Angelo Grasso, the father of Gregorio and of Giovanni.

I asked Gregorio where he had found the particulars for Misandro and the remorse of Judas and for the dream of Pilate’s wife and the pen that flew away. He replied that he did not know where they came from, they are traditional in the theatre and had probably come out of the libraries. As to Judas and the angel preventing him from drowning himself in the well, I asked whether they have in Sicily the saying about a man being born to be hanged and whether any allusion was intended. Angiolino said they have such a saying, or something like it, but it had never occurred to him to suppose that any allusion was intended, it might be so, but he thought not.

The Christ that had been prepared for the Resurrection in the Teatro Sicilia was not the marionette that had been on the Cross; the stigmata were there, the spear wound was wanted in the scene with Thomas, and the people were free to take it as being the same figure with all the other marks of suffering removed, or they might think it was a different one, or they might come behind the scenes and find out for themselves as I did. Dwellers in another planet, if they watch the recurrence of the mystery of our spring, may think the flowers they saw sinking into the earth last autumn return again with the marks of decay removed, they cannot come behind our scenes and make sure; but we know that a new generation is born. The marionettes are not didactic; if the people choose to see in the Resurrection of Christ any one of Nature’s ageless mysteries they may do so; they may see the birth of the

younger generation, the blossoming of fresh flowers after winter, the awakening to a new day after sleep; or, if they prefer it, they may see the resurrection of their own dead bodies at the sound of the Last Trump—one of those mysteries in which, as my priest at Tindaro told me, Nature does not believe, and with which I need not concern myself.

I do not think they saw in it any of these meanings. At Ober-Ammergau the play is presented so that Mendelssohn need not have hesitated to advise the late Prince Consort to honour a performance with his presence. In the Teatro Sicilia other tastes have to be consulted. I think the audience looked on at the Passion of Christ as they are accustomed to look on at I Delitti del Caporale or Feudalismo or at the Story of the Paladins or Erminio della Stella d’Oro; if they suspected any symbolism or mystery, the melodrama with which they were saturated provided a context that determined the direction of the resolution. They saw wicked priests conspiring with a cowardly traitor and an overbearing bully to bring about the destruction of an innocent man. They saw the innocent man passing through misfortune and in the end triumphing over his enemies by means of a happy ending, which reminded them of the happy ending of a Machiavelli play, when the hero returns from prison and the bad people are punished. They saw a mother weeping for her son, but they saw no allusion to Ceres weeping for loss of Proserpine, although their Castrogiovanni was her Enna—just as Angiolino saw no reference to Judas having been born to be hanged, although they have the saying in Sicily, and he is the son of the house. I do not think they saw any significance in the fact that this mystery of the Death and Resurrection of the God is repeated every spring. I imagine that the point made by Joseph of Arimathæa in his speech for the defence, that the wonders done by Christ on earth were miracles and were not occasioned by magic, was lost upon them. It would take a long time to make one of them