Through various scenes that follow one another without necessarily being linked, The text evokes the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps through a poetic diversions. The common thread running through the entire play is the character of the little girl, about seven years old, who meets different characters, human or not: a Man who shrinks the sky, a Little Pile of Ashes, a Train, a Chimney. Each character appears as a metaphor charged with meaning, first and foremost the Little Pile of Ashes, which materializes in a macabre and at the same time "light" way the ashes of the victims burned in the ovens. At the end of the play, the little girl, who has lost both her innocence and her life force, also disappears, swallowed up by the little pile of ashes.

Actor and puppet

Not specified

Cagnard Jean

France

Cannes

Printed

Shoah

Death

Loss

Concentration camp

Lightness

Change of age of the characters

Poetry

Historical event

Pathetic

Lyrical

French

Petite-fille

Father

Mother

Grand-mère

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Transforming scenery

Change of size on sight

Active stage directions

Board

Allegory

Les Gens légers

Th light people

Ondina Peteani was born in Trieste on 26 April 1925. As a teenager, she began to associate with the Fontanot family and attended communist meetings. At the age of seventeen, she chose to become an underground activist of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). She soon began to carry out her first resistance actions under the pseudonym "Natalia". During a police operation in a mountain refuge, Ondina managed to save herself with the help of comrade Cvetko. In June 1943, all the members of the resistance group to which Ondina belonged, Ondina herself, her mother and her sister were imprisoned because of a double agent. After the armistice on 8 September, they are all freed by the people. The informer turns out to be Ondina's sister, Santina, because she had a love affair with a young fascist. Santina is executed. Fighting against the Germans begins and the resistance fighters succumb after a fierce struggle. Ondine and comrade Stecchi are sent in pursuit of the traitor Blechi, who has caused the death of many resistance fighters after infiltrating among them. The comic sketch with the glove-puppets begins: Blechi notices the presence of Ondina and Stecchi and disguises himself as a priest so as not to be recognised, thus managing to escape. When he meets Ondina, he disguises himself as an old man, but she recognises him and Blechi is caught and killed. In 1944, Ondina is deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a political prisoner. She survives despite the physical and psychological hardships. The horror she experienced in the camp did not erase her conviction that she had to fight for resistance and freedom.

Glove-puppet

Gloved hand

Mannequin

Full-view manipulation

Cuscunà Marta

Italy

Monfalcone

Documentary story

Biography

True story

Resistance fighter

Partisan struggle

Resistance

Fascism

Communism

Feminism

Woman

Heroism

Maquis

Realist

Dramatic

Italian

Progetto di teatro civile per un’attrice, cinque burattini e un pupazzo

Choir

Peasant accent

Comical regional accent

Alternating narrative / dialogue

Disguise

Confinement

Pantomime

Disguised character (false identity)

Narrative Theater

Narrator

Murder on stage

È bello vivere liberi!

It's good to live free!