The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo (1884-1947): The Paladins of France in America
Jo Ann Cavallo
Anthem Press
Sicilian puppet theater was the predominant form of cultural expression for working-class southern Italians and Sicilians from the early 1800s until the proliferation of television in the 1950s. This form of dramatic prose theater also flourished in diasporic Italian urban communities, bringing immigrants together for nightly performances of the same deeply cherished chivalric stories. Agrippino Manteo’s scripts, examined for the first time in this study, are testimony to the rich substance of the Paladins of France narratives dramatized on the traditional opera dei pupi stage. Even beyond their historical and aesthetic value, the alternating episodes of love, enchantment, adventure, and warfare invite us to relive the passion, heartbreak, excitement, and magic of knights and damsels from around the globe – from Europe to North Africa to East Asia – who share the stage with a host of wizards, fairies, giants, and monsters. This study reconstructs the history of the Manteo family marionette theater in New York City across seven decades and three generations, provides translations of eight selected plays and 270 extant summaries, and offers comparative analyses uncovering the creative process of adaptation from Italian Renaissance masterpieces of chivalric poetry to nineteenth-century prose compilations to Agrippino Manteo’s opera dei pupi dramatizations.
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Alessandro Napoli
Preface
Introduction
Part One The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo and Family
1 The Puppeteers
2 The Scripts
Part Two Select Plays from the Paladins of France Cycle
Introduction
3 The Arrival of Angelica of Cathay in Paris (sera 152)
4 The Duel between Astolfo and Gradasso di Sericana (sera 159)
5 The Duel between Orlando and Agricane di Tartaria (sera 165)
6 The Grand Council of Agramante di Biserta (sera 170)
7 The Enamorment of Bradamante and Ruggiero (sera 182)
8 The Madness of Orlando (sera 198)
9 The Voyage of Astolfo to the Moon (sera 203)
10 The Battle of Three against Three in Lampedusa (sera 208)
Conclusion
Appendix 1: List of Characters
Appendix 2: Papa Manteo’s Marionettes—currently at IAM
Appendix 3: Extant Publications from the Library of Agrippino Manteo
Appendix 4: Paladins of France Scripts in the Handwriting of Agrippino Manteo
Appendix 5: Agrippino Manteo’s Summaries of Plays in the Paladins of France Cycle
Appendix 6: Select Characters from the Paladins of France Cycle
Appendix 7: Manteo Family Genealogy
Works Cited
Index