“The Kids’ Theatre” is the fifth episode of the “The Great Italian Journey”,
Great Lengths 2020 communication campaign, dedicated to Goethe’s Italian
travel diary.
This story celebrates the cheerful, playful side of Dolce Vita, that the two
female foreign visitors discover by approaching a unique artistic expression,
very peculiar of Palermo: the kids’ theatre, recognized by UNESCO as a
masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.
The puppet show has always been a fun way to deliver education to
both children and adults, way before the diffusion of the public school. It starts in the mid nineteenth century, with stories of bandits and saints, Shakespearean dramas and above all the very popular
events of the paladins of France told by Ludovico Ariosto in his epic poem
“Orlando Furioso”.
Mixing realism and fantasy, tragedy and comedy, the kids’ theatre, known in Italian as “Opera dei Pupi” convey the values of Sicilian people, such as chivalry, sense of honor, the defense of the weak and the priority of boundless love.
Besides their literary aspects, this theatre means a precious, rare,
endangered and extremely skilled craftsmanship. Puppets are actually still
made manually: forging their metal armor requires a month of work for each
puppet.
Every puppet, or pupo, is a wooden unique piece, different
from any other, that can also be made on commission for a value of over 1000€ each.
In Palermo the work of the puppets is linked to the names of various
families. The theatre that hosted Great Length’s production is Franco
Cuticchio’s one, now a the third generation of puppeteers (Franco is also
displayed in the video working at a new pupo).
The protagonist of this story is Agatha, a model and actress with an
outstanding personality, who enters the micro stage herself to
start making jokes with the puppet and playing the accordion, the music
instrument that is still used for the shows’ live soundtrack.
Her casual, fresh short curly look with a bang is easy, fun and practical. It
perfectly shows a less obvious use of extensions: not applied to give length
to hair but to build a full but still natural volume, boosted especially on the
top of the head. Naturalness is also key to Agatha’s hair color choice, a
warm chocolate shade, deep and intense, made possible with the application of GL Pre-Bonded in color 03, length 12”.
