Diversions in Sicily

by Henry Festing Jones

Last time I was at Castellinaria there came to the town for a week a company of Sicilian actors. I was afraid the dialect would be beyond me, but Peppino assured me that it would matter very little if it were, because I should understand the gestures, and he promised to come with me and give me any explanation I wanted. So we went to the theatre the first evening. He was right about the gestures which were wonderfully expressive and, as for the dialect, it may have been because he interpreted the long speeches that I found the first two acts of La Morte Civile rather dull. He admitted that it was so, but things would improve as soon as Giovanni appeared.

In the third act a haggard, hunted creature, in a peasant’s dress which he had borrowed

or stolen, wandered in among the actors; Peppino whispered that he had escaped from prison. I could not take my eyes off him; every movement, every attitude, every gesture was full of beauty, nobility and significance, and his voice was a halo of romance. I thought no more about leaving the theatre. The part has been played by many famous actors, but the long account of how and why he killed his man can never have been more finely delivered. I saw him do the deed. I saw him turn and gaze upon the body while he wiped the blood off the knife and wrung it from his hands. He sat on a chair during the whole speech and I was surprised into believing I understood every word, whereas I understood none, for it was all in the dialect of Catania and Peppino, who was as much carried away as I was, forgot to interpret. And when, still sitting on his chair, he came to his escape from prison, he seemed to lift the roof off the theatre and to fill the place with freedom and fresh air.

Peppino, before his uncle died, thought of going on the stage and passed a year with Giovanni and his company in Catania and on tour, he therefore knew him quite well and

at the end of the play took me round to his dressing-room. It was Carlo Magno in his palace receiving a couple of friendly sovereigns, though we were none of us dressed for our parts. I told him that he was the greatest dramatic artist I had ever seen and that he had given me a new standard whereby to judge of acting. I said that when he first appeared I thought he really was an escaped convict who had lost his way in the streets and come on the stage for shelter, and that he was going to interrupt the play, as the theatre cat sometimes does. Suddenly, in a flash, I saw what was before me in two senses at once, and knew that it must be Giovanni acting, and the sorrow for the poor hunted wretch was turned to joy at seeing a man do something supremely well. He was as pleased as a boy with a new half-sovereign, particularly when I compared him to the theatre cat, and said, with charming simplicity—

“Thank you. Yes; that is because of the realism; that is my art.”

Peppino and I sat up late that night talking about him. He was then about thirty-five, with a large repertoire and a reputation extending through Europe and

America. When he was about fourteen his father, who owned and worked the most famous marionette theatre in Catania, died suddenly, leaving the family unprovided for. He took over the business and kept his mother, his sister and his young brother. He spoke for the men figures himself, and his sister for the women. He says that in this way he learned his art, but other men have had similar training without arriving at such mastery. He has a passion for doing things thoroughly, and so thoroughly well did he manage his theatre that Catania was delighted with him. Three or four years after his father’s death, one of the celebrated Italian actors came to the town and they gave him a private performance of the Cavalleria Rusticana. The celebrated actor advised him not to waste his time with marionettes, but to act himself. The theatre was barely large enough, only six or seven paces across, but it could be made to do, and he followed the advice, giving, at first, in the Catanian dialect, plays of which nothing was written except, perhaps, a sketch of the plot. Formerly, when reading was a rarer accomplishment than it is now, it would have been of little use to write the words.

These plays are full of violence and vendetta, jealousy, murder and the elementary passions. The audience are uneducated, simple people who look for the same thing over and over again, as children love the same story and resent any radical change. This makes it easier to carry one through than it would be if subtleties or much novelty were to be attempted. I had seen some of these plays in Catania, and it may make matters clearer to give a short account of one; it was not until Peppino told me about them that I understood that the words were improvised.

In the first act Pietro Longo discovers that his sister has been betrayed, shoots her seducer and is taken by the police.