After singing and dancing, Pulcinella goes under Teresina’s balcony and calls to her. The building’s watchman arrives and asks Pulcinella what he is doing. The watchman, who is Teresina’s father, demands that Pulcinella speak with her. Teresina arrives and Pulcinella tells her that he wants to marry her. She agrees, on condition that he gets permission from her brother Nicola, who is very suspicious and jealous. Nicola rejects Pulcinella’s request as he doesn’t want his sister to marry such an ugly, unpleasant and weird man. The pair fight with sticks and Pulcinella kills Nicola. The story continues like any classic guarattelle show with other scenes where Pulcinella faces Death or is arrested and sentenced to hang.

Glove-puppet

Marotte

All audiences

Zampella Nunzio

Italy

Naples

Printed summary

Wedding prevented

Jealous brother

Engagement

Comical

Nunzio Zampella's puppet booth with his Pulcinella and his Teresina

Neapolitan

Pulcinella

Guardian

Father

Teresina

Brother

Guappo

Song

Dance

Swazzle

Blow-with-a-stick

Syntactic parallelism

National language as a social marker

Il fidanzamento di Pulcinella

Pulcinella's Engagement

One rainy day, Pulcinella is waiting for his friend and roommate Mastro Raffaele to come home with some money so he can eat. Unfortunately, Mastro Raffaele has lost the coal he was supposed to sell, but he possesses a valuable item that he could pawn. When Mastro Raffaele goes to look for this item, Pulcinelluccio, the son of Pulcinella, shows up. Pulcinella has given Pulcinelluccio the job of taking a letter to his uncle to ask for a loan. But the child makes a greasy mark on the letter and his uncle refuses to read it. Pulcinella, furious, chases his son away. Even the hope of withdrawing some money from Mastro Raffaele’s treasury vanishes when the latter returns with an old garment. At that moment, the Prince of Casadoro, a friend of Pucinella, shows up.
The Prince has asked Cavaliere Buonobono for the hand of his daughter, the first dancer at the Naples Opera. Buonobono will agree to the marriage on condition that he meets the Prince’s family. But the Prince’s father and uncle are on a trip and the young lover, impatient to get married, asks Pulcinella and Mastro Raffaele to impersonate them. Buonobono starts to have doubts about the identity of the two friends when they throw themselves on the meal they have been served, climb on the table and put the spaghetti in their pockets. His suspicions are confirmed when he discovers Pulcinella with his wife. It turns out that Pulcinella’s wife and son had been hired as servants at Cavaliere Buonbono’s house after Pulcinella ejected them from his own house.
Despite the deception being uncovered, the young Prince obtains Buonobono’s forgiveness and pays Pulcinella and Mastro Raffaele for their services.