CHAPTER III
MARIONETTISTS AT HOME
Alessandro Greco to the Author.
Marionette Theatre,
Piazza Nuova, Palermo,
4 June, 1909.My dear Enrico,
Since I last wrote to you there has been a continual to-do and no time for writing letters. What has been the to-do? Is it possible you have forgotten my telling you that I am studying to be a singer and that I take lessons every day? Now listen to this: Here in Palermo, a new opera was performed recently for the benefit of the victims of the earthquake at Messina. The story was taken from a great German romance and the music was composed by an Italian who is now in America. I was asked to sing as a supplementary tenor. We had a month of rehearsals and in the end the performance was splendidly successful. O my dear friend! If you had seen me on the stage! I was dressed as a warrior with a wig of curly hair and a pair of moustaches. I also received applause, and, when I appeared before the audience to bow my acknowledgments, I thought: “Oh, if only my dear friend were present, how he would be applauding me!” You will understand after that whether I have had any time to write to you; but now that things have calmed down a little and there is less going on I can write to you as much as you like.
As you know, I am always busy in the teatrino; the other evening we repeated Samson, that play which you once saw here. If you will believe me, I was thinking of you the whole time because I remembered that when we gave it two years ago you were present.
Just now in the Story of the Paladins, Orlando is throwing away his arms and running about naked in the woods, mad for love of Angelica; and soon we shall have the burning of Bizerta and the destruction of the Africans. This will finish in July and we shall then begin the Story of Guido Santo.
What have you done with that photograph of myself which I gave you and which you put into your cigarette-case? Is still there, or have you lost it? I have often promised to send you another but have not done so because when you come to Palermo in September I hope we shall be photographed together, you and I. Nevertheless I send you this one now, it was taken by an English lady who came to the teatrino last summer; you see me getting into a rage with a paladin, I am talking seriously to him and swearing at him because he will not let me dress him properly.
I will not prolong this letter, I do not wish to bore you; but I promise you that I will never fail to let you know of my doings and I count on you to tell me of yours.
Costantino, Sansone, Rinaldo, Rosina, Angelica, Ferraù, Pasquino, Onofrio and all the other marionettes embrace you and send you their kind regards.
I am and always shall be
Your affectionate friend
Alessandro Greco (Buffo).
On arriving at Palermo, I went to the teatrino at about ten at night; not seeing the buffo in his usual place keeping order at the door, I guessed he must be on the stage and, knowing the way, passed through the audience, dived under the proscenium, crept along a short passage, mounted a ladder and appeared among them unannounced. The father, the buffo and his brother, Gildo, were so much astonished that they dropped their marionettes all over the stage and shouted:
“When did you come?” “Why did you not write?” “Why did you not telegraph?”
Thereby spreading their astonishment among the audience, who saw no connection between these ejaculations and the exploits of Guido Santo. They soon
recovered themselves, however, picked up their paladins and managed to bring the performance to its conclusion, and we shut the theatre and proceeded upstairs to the house. On the way the buffo took me aside into his workshop to show me two inflammable Turkish pavilions which he was making; Ettorina in her madness was to fire them in a few days, one in the afternoon and the other at the evening repetition, as a conclusion to the spectacle. I inquired:
“Who was Ettorina, and why did she go mad?”
“I will tell you presently,” replied the buffo, “we must first go upstairs.”
As we went up I asked after the singing and he promised to take me to the house of his professor to hear him have a lesson. Papa and Gildo had preceded us and we found them with the young ladies, Carolina and Carmela, and the child, Nina, who is as much a buffa as her brother Alessandro is a buffo. In a moment, the air was thick with compliments.
Papa: And how well you are looking! So much fatter than last year.