The Travel Pages visits a puppet show in Palermo on Sicily, where puppet theatre is a historic family tradition.

We’d just toured the Teatro Massimo in the centre of Palermo, Sicily’s capital. The theatre is the largest opera house in Italy, and the third-largest opera house in Europe after Paris and Vienna. An opera was about to open, Rossini’s Elizabeth, Queen of England, but we were only there for the opening night, which was sold out. Even if it hadn’t been, with tickets costing north of €100 we probably wouldn’t have gone.

Instead we wandered out of the theatre and went randomly down one of the narrow back streets opposite, the Via Bara Ali Olivell. After squeezing past – and sometimes through – the many restaurants that line either side of what is little more than an alley, we came to another theatre, the grandly-named Teatro dei Pupi di Mimmo Cuticchio.

A poster outside told us there were shows at 6.30pm the next day, Saturday, and on Sunday. We peeked through an open door to see an auditorium that was considerably smaller than the Teatro Massimo’s 1,387 seats, holding perhaps a hundred people at the most. At the far end was the puppet-sized stage, looking not unlike a typical Punch and Judy show.

Attending a Puppet Show in Palermo

A man came to the door and asked if we wanted to see the show. Absolutely we did. He took our names and told us we needed to be there by 6pm, and if we didn’t show by 6.10pm, our tickets (€10 each) would be sold to someone else.

As we left we saw that across the street was the workshop for the puppet theatre, or Puppet Opera as they also called it. Inside a man was turning some wood and carving it, the walls lined with woodworking tools and shelves containing puppets and bits of puppets. Given the family nature of the business, he was probably the father of the guy who reserved our tickets.

Next night the heavens opened. We left our hotel in torrential rain, and despite two umbrellas we arrived at the tiny theatre dripping water and with rain-soaked shoes and trousers. Of course everyone else was in the same boat, shaking their umbrellas and, being Italian, laughing about it all.

A rather serious-looking lady dressed all in black (the mother?) was showing people to their seats, and as we were one of the first in we got seated in the third row, the first two rows, we realised, being reserved for children.

Excitement mounted as we got closer to 6.30pm, when the serious-looking lady got up on stage and gave a brief talk, the only bit of which we understood was that you couldn’t take photos during the show. The lady then disappeared off the stage, the house lights dimmed, and a man sat down and started cranking a kind of pianola.

The Palermo Puppet Show Begins!

The show was, of course, all in Italian, of which we know maybe half a dozen words. It didn’t matter, though, as we were as gripped by the hour-long show as any of the children sitting in front of us.

A knight came on, evidently the hero, and pretty soon afterwards was slaying a dragon. Bad guys appeared. More fights ensued. The puppets were controlled by sticks from up above the stage and I was intrigued by the fact that our hero (Orlando, we got that much) was able to draw his sword and then resheathe it again and again, as he dealt with the Moorish villains. I watched closely every time but could not figure out how the puppeteers connected the hand to the sword, and then disconnected them when the fighting was done.

Blood and Gore Galore!

And there was lots of fighting, with plenty of blood and gore. It made Punch and Judy look tame. One knight had his face sliced off and it dropped to the floor. Another was beheaded. Another was sliced at the waist so that his bottom half dropped off and entrails were dangling from the top bit. Yet another was sliced lengthways so that the puppet fell in two. Gory it may have been, but it was another testament to the skill of the puppeteers, the way it was all done so convincingly.

I realised the show was coming to an end as the pile of the baddies’ bodies increased and there was no way the stage could be quickly cleared again, to make way for more swordplay. With a fanfare the show ended, and the three puppeteers appeared, seeming like giants next to their puppets, which must have been about two feet high. It was quite a surreal sight, after an hour in the dark in a puppet-sized world.

One of the puppeteers was the serious woman dressed in black, and another was the guy who had reserved our seats. The third one looked like his brother. It truly was a family enterprise, though this particular theatre, we discovered, was only established in 1973. However, the tradition of the Opera dei Pupi in Sicily goes back to the 15th century, and may have been introduced to the island by Greek or Spanish marionettists.

We made our way out into the real world again, now thankfully dry, and dived into one of the tempting back street trattorias for a human-sized plate of pasta… with red wine rather than blood and gore.

Where to Find the Puppets of Palermo

The Teatro dei Pupi di Mimmo Cuticchio is at Via Bara All’Olivella 95 in Palermo (Tel: +39 091 323400)