The old streets of Madrid sing, then comes the Mayor who announces the opening of a new street. The old streets protest and pretend to be the more beautiful ones, but the Mayor calms them down. Three thieves appear and vanish as they see a Guard with a cage. The Mayor comes again and suggest to go to the sea-shore, where sailors sing a serenade, then he invites everyone to go to the official opening of the new street. The performance ends with a final song.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Nino Pozzo (Matteo Pozzo)

Italy

Verona

Typing with handwritten annotations

Zarzuela

Madrid

Official opening

City

Spain

Comical

Nino Pozzo, La Gran Via (Cover page).

Italian

Knight

Thief

Mayor

Choir

Street

Prison guard

Song

Dance

Prosopopoeia

Aria

Avista

Final song

Allegory

La Gran Via

The Main Road

The puppeteer apologises to the audience because he is not ready to perform Macbeth: instead, he will perform an unpublished comedy by Goldoni, The Jealous Emigrant (which is, in fact, a fake written on purpose by Brunello). But one of his glove puppets, Arlequin, disagrees and organises a rebellion, convincing the other puppets to perform Macbeth. The tragedy begins, but Arlequin, who has dared to step out of his role, must die like Macbeth. The same applies to his antagonist King Duncan, who - as we discover at the end - is no other than the puppeteer himself.

Bare hand

Actor and puppet

Adults

Brunello Gigio

Molnár Gyula (aka Giulio Molnár)

Mogliano Veneto

Printed

Rebellion

Macbeth

Harlequin

Carlo Goldoni

William Shakespeare

Self-consciousness of puppets

Rewriting

Adaptation

Fake unpublished

Tragic

Ironic

Rodolfo

Colombina

Brighella

Arlecchino

Pantalon

Balanzone

Generico

Witch

Messenger

Guardiano

Singe

Comical regional accent

Theatre within the theatre

Double characters

Address to the public

Rehearsal (play within a play)

Apparition of the puppeteer

Surprise effect

Captatio benevolentiae

Tragic irony

Tragic conflict

Parody of formal language

Macbeth all'improvviso

Improvised Macbeth

Alcide Cervi was a farmer. In 1934 he moved with his family to Gattatico, near Reggio Emilia, on a piece of land called Campirossi ("red fields"), which nobody wanted because it was infertile. He lives there with his nine children: seven boys and two girls. With hard work, they manage to make these fields prosper, and the family can afford to buy a tractor. The Cervi family is known for their anti-fascist political positions. After July 1943, when the Americans landed and Mussolini was arrested, all seemed well. But in November of the same year, a hundred fascists besieged the Campirossi house. The seven brothers try to resist, but they are arrested and eventually executed. As a sign of support and respect, Alcide Cervi never ceased to receive gifts from all sides: a Bible from the Fiat factory workers in Turin, a globe from the agricultural cooperative workers in Santa Vittoria, skittles for his grandchildren from some friends of the boules club. Finally, the puppeteer himself, Maurizio Bercini, wants to give Alcide a gift: a puppet with his features, with which he can transform pain 'into serenity and play'.

La Gran Via

Macbeth all'improvviso

Cide

I doni di papà Cervi