Fagiolino and the ladder

The traditional Emiliano-Romagnoli finger puppet show “Fagiolino e lo scaletto” is represented by the puppeteers Mauro and Andrea Monticelli of the Teatro del Drago Company of Ravenna.

It is a 1988 production that has achieved great success in Italy and has also been reported in some important international festivals for research in the field of tradition.

This show, with a very simple plot, was born from an old canvas by the puppeteer Angelo Cuccoli from Bologna (mid-19th century), with the original title “Fagiolino Barbiere dei Morti”.
With these introductory lines opens the story of Fagiolino who, full of debts as a game, is forced to give a sound bludgeon on the ciribiricoccola (as he uses to call the head) to all his creditors including Captain Tartaglia who came to arrest him.

The stampede brings him unfortunately to the Bosco degli Scaventi in the house of the old Petronilla and her terrible bearded brother, the brigand Sparafucile. Once he escaped from these two old thugs (who will then be beaten at the end of the show), here is Fagiolino’s great stroke of luck: the meeting with the Magician Norandino who will give him the opportunity to become rich and pay off all his debts. To become rich, the bean will have to suffer a lot; the terrifying encounter with the skeleton awaits him in the basement of his castle.
The test imposed on him by the Magician Norandino is to give the “walking dead man a good soap and beard” and then to kiss him without first dying of fright. The whole story is played with very comic jokes, macaronic rants in dialect and great blows that amuse adults and conquer children.

Il tarlantan della Moscovia

Traditional finger puppet show!

The show is divided into two parts. The first part is entitled “The three good guys to the test” and sees, as usual, Fagiolino the protagonist of the cheerful and brilliant farce. it is a joke of the landlord, Pantalone, who puts them to the test in a fun game. The second part is the real show: “The Tarlantan of Muscovy”. The Doctor’s parrot died under mysterious circumstances … The Doctor decides to investigate. Fagiolino, the real culprit of the parrot’s misfortune, is the only servant who manages not to be fired. Sandrone and Brighella, however innocent, are left without work and take their revenge. With a thousand ups and downs, jokes and blows, everything will turn out well. The show highlights the typical vivacity of farce or brilliant puppet comedy. Full of accents and jokes that come from old canvases, with rants, old sayings and a mixture of macaronic dialects of Emilia. The recitation and manipulation are carried out by a single puppeteer, (with the help of a “second” assistant- puppeteer) involving the public – especially children – in the show.

The great triumph of Fagiolino

Traditional finger puppet show!

The traditional Emilian puppet show “Il Grande Trionfo di Fagiolino pastore e guerriero” is represented by the solo puppeteer Mauro Monticelli of the “Teatro del Drago” Company of Ravenna.  It is a 1988 production that has achieved great success in Italy and has also been reported in some important international festivals for research in the field of the tradition of finger puppet comedy.  This show, with a very simple plot, comes from an old canvas by the Bolognese puppeteer Angelo Cuccoli (mid-1800s).

“Il caso più curioso, cari cinni e cari adulteri, l’è quello che vedrete proprio adesso in tal casot di buratéin, e ciovè io mè Fagiolino Fan Fan squattrinato e senza un baiocco, con tanta fame da vendere e niente soldi da spendere, guarir n’a pranzipessa e diventar tota in t’una volta un re !!! …”.

With these introductory lines opens the story of Fagiolino who with great luck became one of the richest farmers in the kingdom of Thrace.

Meanwhile, the Magus Norandino is rejected as a husband by the beautiful Altea, Princess in the kingdom of Thrace; in revenge, the terrible Magician, with a witchcraft … steals the Princess’s speech.
Bean helped by a Fairy named Alcina, will first go to steal the “fairy peanut” from the Devil Farfarello and then to heal the Princess.
Obviously in the end he will also face the Magician Norandino to the sound of healthy beatings.

The show will end with the shepherd Fagiolino who will become a brave warrior and husband of the beautiful Altea.
And finally… the final ballet! “Musica Maestro!!!”

The pot of bewitched water

Traditional finger puppet show

Taken from an ancient nineteenth-century canvas and Otello Monticelli’s workhorse with the title “Miraculous water” and presented in the national premiere on the stage of the Artificerie Almagià.

The show begins with that villain Brighella “Cavicio Gambon”, always greedy for money and conspirator, who, helped by a wizard, tries to scam Fagiolino Fan Fan and Sandrone. Two witches arrive to create further damage: Guercia and Tonante, determined to create panic and misfortunes throughout the Kingdom.

The show is accompanied by a musician, who will perform popular music pieces live.

On stage Andrea, Mauro Monticelli, and Enrico Giorgi. Directed by Mauro Monticelli.

The amazing story of Fasolino

Traditional puppet show

“La Mirabilante istoria di Fasolino” (original tit.) is a production of ’93 by the Teatro del Drago. It concerns the “genre” of traditional finger puppet theater that the Company has been managing for years.
This show is represented by a solo puppeteer, flanked by an assistant puppeteer, as it was foreseen by tradition and usually represented in past eras.
Inspired by the most classic texts of the traditional repertoire, it presents Fagiolino, the main character and hero of the “puppet shack”, who as always “hunts all the bad guys at the bottom of the panirone with sticks!”. The text of the show is original, written by Mauro Monticelli and divided into two acts.
It is characterized by fast actions and a rather strange language: a mixture of explosive comedy based on dialectal cadences, gags and comic cues, with dialogues and lines from “puppet drafts”.
The characters all act in Italian, except for the “masks of the commedia dell’arte”, which use a mixture of Italian and a macaronic dialect.
Doctor Balanzone’s monologues-rants are very characteristic, deriving from essays from the Commedia dell’Arte, now disused and abandoned. The whole second part of the show is dedicated to Fagiolino’s sting to the bad guys: beatings accompanied and amplified by the assistant-puppeteer / noise-maker, with his poor and old props, which normally served “the job”: the clapperboard, the flame , the drum….

The Kidnapping of Prince Carlo

Traditional puppet show

The traditional Emilia-Romagna puppet show “THE KIDNAPPING OF PRINCE CARLO” is represented by the puppeteers Mauro Monticelli and Andrea Monticelli of the Teatro del Drago Company of Ravenna. It is a 1983 production that has achieved great success in Italy and abroad and has also been reported in some of the most important national and international festivals.

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