It Is The Nec Plus Ultra Of Marionettism, In
Which Signer Girolamo, The Proprietor, Has Made A Revolution, Which Will
Form an epoch in the annals of puppetry; having driven from the stage
entirely the graziosissima maschera d'Arlecchino, who used
To be the hero
of all the pieces represented by the puppets and substituted himself, or
rather a puppet bearing his name, in the place of Harlequin, as the
principal farceur of the performance. He has contrived to make the puppet
Girolamo a little like himself, but so much caricatured and so monstrously
ugly a likeness that the bare sight of it raises immediate laughter. The
theatre itself is small, being something under the size of our old
Haymarket little theatre, but is very neatly and tastefully fitted up. The
puppets are about half of the natural size of man, and Girolamo, aided by
one or two others, works them and gives them gesture, by means of strings,
which are, however, so well contrived as to be scarcely visible; and
Girolamo himself speaks for all, as, besides being a ventriloquist, he has
a most astonishing faculty of varying his voice, and adapting it to the
role of each puppet, so that the illusion is complete. The scenery and
decorations are excellent. Sometimes he gives operas as well as dramas, and
there is always a ballo, with transformation of one figure into another,
which forms part of the performance. These transformations are really very
curious and extremely well executed. Almost all the pieces acted on the
theatre are of Girolamo's own composition, and he sometimes chooses a
classical or mythological subject, in which the puppet Girolamo is sure to
be introduced and charged with all the wit of the piece. He speaks
invariably with the accent and patois of the country, and his jokes never
fail to keep the audience in a roar of laughter; his mode of speech and
slang phrases form an absurd contrast to the other figures, who speak in
pure Italian and pompous versi sciolti. For instance, the piece I saw
represented was the story of Alcestis and was entitled La scesa d'Ercole
nell Inferno, to redeem the wife of Admetus. Hercules, before he commences
this undertaking, wishes to hire a valet for the journey, has an interview
with Girolamo, and engages him. Hercules speaks in blank verse and in a
phrase, full of sesquipedalia verba, demands his country and lineage.
Girolamo replies in the Piedmontese dialect and with a strong nasal accent:
"De mi pais, de Piemong." Girolamo, however, though he professes to be as
brave as Mars himself has a great repugnance to accompanying his master to
the shades below, or to the "casa del diavolo," as he calls it; and while
Hercules fights with Cerberus, he shakes and trembles all over, as he does
likewise when he meets Madonna Morte.
All this is very absurd and ridiculous, but it is impossible not to laugh
and be amused at it. An anecdote is related of the flesh and blood
Girolamo, that he had a very pretty wife, who took it into her head one day
to elope with a French officer; and that to revenge himself he dramatized
the event and produced it on his own theatre under the title of Colombina
scampata coll'uffiziale, having filled the piece with severe satire and
sarcastic remarks against women in general and Colombina in particular.
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