During a stay in Capri in the summer of 1917 at the home of the Swiss writer Gilbert Clavel, Depero wrote three themes for puppet plays, Suicidi e omicidi acrobatici, Avventura elettrica, Ladro automatico, as well as the unfinished draft of a fourth, Sicuro, but he did not seek to publish them or stage them. The playful and colourful imagination that he deploys in them will find its extension in Depero and Clavel's Balli plastici in 1918.

With its chase scenes and visual gags, Ladro automatico is obviously influenced by burlesque cinema.

A thief robs all the clients of a restaurant by hypnotising them. While driving a car, he empties three shop fronts and then electrocutes the police officers following him, all thanks to magnets. After a new burglary, he escapes thanks to a tram and a lift that gets him up into the sky.