La violenza va in scena Il teatro dei pupi napoletano epidermica ribalta di umori ferini e criminali, pedissequo e ossequioso riverbero di un consesso malavitoso

The pupi’s theatre of Neapolitan origins finds its structure and definition between the first and the second half of the Nineteenth century in the old districts of town, where at the same time the camorra was making a name for itself. The cycles of representation of pupi, which lasted several months and were dedicated to the criminal Neapolitan and Apulian activities and bosses, superseded the previous ones, rather inspired to the stories of knights and paladins. The looming and the propinquity of the camorra events became a concrete reality even through the active participation of men of honour to the shows and their demand to see represented on stage their personal power based on abuse and revenge. The physical proximity and some common, shared values, which impregnate both the mobster and audience’s soul, allow the performance of puppets to become threatening and aggressive at the same time, making the audience converge around the represented topics which became therefore just as disquieting. The link between real action and portrayed reality is therefore undeniably detectable in the physical interaction between the audience and what is represented on stage, an inbred relationship the audience has with the puppet: they clap at it, exhort it or even attack it, just like in real life, bolstering in this way an ideology based on violence that will go well beyond the second half of the 20th century.