Pippo

Pippo Graffeo, to the left, and about twenty ragazzi, put on a theatrical show case for us the other night at the Cavea. Pippo, by profession, is an archivist for all of the papers of notaries who no longer have their offices (i.e. . . are dead). That means that he has to keep on file copies of deeds, wills, contracts, agreements, etc. . . that had been left on file with notaios here. And in Italy, a notaio is almost as important, or more important, than an avocato, or lawyer. He told me sometimes he has as many as fifteen wills for the same person, and he has no record and no way of really checking if the person is dead or not. This is especially true for people who left for America and did not come back. But I will get into all of that in another post, after I visit him in his archives.

Pippo also acted in one of the shorts that Sr. Santangelo made in Sciacca, and showed us one night. Apparently, he talked with one of the people on the entertainment committee, and not only offered to get St. Santangelo to show his film, but also offered to put together a bunch of kids to put on a play for us. And I should not say just kids, as some of them were, I think, well out of school. Clearly, they all wanted to continue to sing and dance.

Like so many productions, both at the amateur and the professional level, this was an original story about the theater, and the problems of mounting a production. In this one, the regista, or director, seemed most interested in mounting the various female troupe members. And there were a lot of them, and they were pretty. There were singers, there were dancers, there were dramatic readers, there were actresses. And of course, there was his loyal secretary, who held a torch for him, but only for so long.

My favorite character was the classic old Sicilian, who might have been played by a double for Piccone, a member of the popular and extremely funny duo of Faccara and Piccone, whose film we saw. This character was there to protect his sister, and once the regista touched his sister, albeit on the shoulder, he was there to insist that they get married. And if the director did not want to marry his sister, he himself would marry the director instead. And if that was not acceptable, his poor sister would have to become a widow before she was even married. He talked the roughest Sicilian I have heard, but I think I understood every work. He was hilarious.

The troupe is now going to take their show on the road, and will even be showcased in the atrium of the Communale on one of the last nights of the long celebration of Ferrogsoto. Fran would have said it was like the best of the high school productions she went to when Jon and Jess were in school, a lot of fun, but with just a few rough edges. Certainly it was far better than the Sambucca players we saw one night in their theater. And they all did it gratis, for love of the theater, for love of performing, and because they knew that we would have almost as much fun watching it as they had putting it on.

One last photo of Pippo and I, standing near the prop camera. For whatever reason, they either thought I needed to have the fucili in my hand, or they trusted me with it in my hand. It was a wonderful way to spend a few hours with the group from the condominiums, and the fact that this troupe came and up on the presentation is a great credit to the entertainment committee.