Last time I was at Castellinaria there came to the town for a week a company of Sicilian actors. I was afraid the dialect would be beyond me, but Peppino assured me that it would matter very little if it were, because I should understand the gestures, and he promised to come with me and give me any explanation I wanted. So we went to the theatre the first evening. He was right about the gestures which were wonderfully expressive and, as for the dialect, it may have been because he interpreted the long speeches that I found the first two acts of La Morte Civile rather dull. He admitted that it was so, but things would improve as soon as Giovanni appeared.

In the third act a haggard, hunted creature, in a peasant’s dress which he had borrowed or stolen, wandered in among the actors; Peppino whispered that he had escaped from prison. I could not take my eyes off him; every movement, every attitude, every gesture was full of beauty, nobility and significance, and his voice was a halo of romance. I thought no more about leaving the theatre. The part has been played by many famous actors, but the long account of how and why he killed his man can never have been more finely delivered. I saw him do the deed. I saw him turn and gaze upon the body while he wiped the blood off the knife and wrung it from his hands. He sat on a chair during the whole speech and I was surprised into believing I understood every word, whereas I understood none, for it was all in the dialect of Catania and Peppino, who was as much carried away as I was, forgot to interpret. And when, still sitting on his chair, he came to his escape from prison, he seemed to lift the roof off the theatre and to fill the place with freedom and fresh air.

Peppino, before his uncle died, thought of going on the stage and passed a year with Giovanni and his company in Catania and on tour, he therefore knew him quite well and at the end of the play took me round to his dressing-room. It was Carlo Magno in his palace receiving a couple of friendly sovereigns, though we were none of us dressed for our parts. I told him that he was the greatest dramatic artist I had ever seen and that he had given me a new standard whereby to judge of acting. I said that when he first appeared I thought he really was an escaped convict who had lost his way in the streets and come on the stage for shelter, and that he was going to interrupt the play, as the theatre cat sometimes does. Suddenly, in a flash, I saw what was before me in two senses at once, and knew that it must be Giovanni acting, and the sorrow for the poor hunted wretch was turned to joy at seeing a man do something supremely well. He was as pleased as a boy with a new half-sovereign, particularly when I compared him to the theatre cat, and said, with charming simplicity

“Thank you. Yes; that is because of the realism; that is my art.”

Peppino and I sat up late that night talking about him. He was then about thirty-five, with a large repertoire and a reputation extending through Europe and America. When he was about fourteen his father, who owned and worked the most famous marionette theatre in Catania, died suddenly, leaving the family unprovided for. He took over the business and kept his mother, his sister and his young brother. He spoke for the men figures himself, and his sister for the women. He says that in this way he learned his art, but other men have had similar training without arriving at such mastery. He has a passion for doing things thoroughly, and so thoroughly well did he manage his theatre that Catania was delighted with him. Three or four years after his father’s death, one of the celebrated Italian actors came to the town and they gave him a private performance of the Cavalleria Rusticana. The celebrated actor advised him not to waste his time with marionettes, but to act himself. The theatre was barely large enough, only six or seven paces across, but it could be made to do, and he followed the advice, giving, at first, in the Catanian dialect, plays of which nothing was written except, perhaps, a sketch of the plot. Formerly, when reading was a rarer accomplishment than it is now, it would have been of little use to write the words.

These plays are full of violence and vendetta, jealousy, murder and the elementary passions. The audience are uneducated, simple people who look for the same thing over and over again, as children love the same story and resent any radical change. This makes it easier to carry one through than it would be if subtleties or much novelty were to be attempted. I had seen some of these plays in Catania, and it may make matters clearer to give a short account of one; it was not until Peppino told me about them that I understood that the words were improvised.

In the first act Pietro Longo discovers that his sister has been betrayed, shoots her seducer and is taken by the police.

The second act passes in prison. Two convicts are talking and a third, a stupid fellow, old, dirty, only half clothed, is sitting apart, stitching together a few more rags. Singing is heard without. Every one in the theatre who had passed under prison walls by night had heard such music and had seen the singers crouching in the shadows; we all knew it was a signal. The two convicts go to the window and reply. A stone is thrown in, wrapped up in a letter, which tells them that Pietro Longo has killed one of their gang and will be taken to their prison; it is for them to avenge the murder. They confer and agree that the stupid fellow shall be their instrument. They call him from his occupation and instruct him. They tell him that a prisoner will be brought in, he is to ask his name, if he replies “Pietro Longo,” he is to stab him with the knife which they give him. He is so stupid that they have to act it for him, and to make him imitate them till they think he can be trusted. They hide. A prisoner is brought in and talks to the stupid fellow. The stupid fellow has been in prison for years and has talked to hundreds of prisoners. In the course of conversation, without any particular intention, for he has forgotten all about his lesson, he asks the prisoner his name.

“Pietro Longo.”

The stupid fellow remembers that this is his cue for doing something, but cannot remember what. His arm accidentally hits the knife which is stuck in his belt; of course, this is the prisoner he is to kill; he takes out his knife, opens it with his teeth and attacks Pietro who, though unarmed, is able to defend himself. This puts the stupid fellow out, he was told nothing about the prisoner defending himself. The two convicts, who have been watching, get impatient, come from their hiding and encourage him. This makes matters worse, he was told nothing about this either. He is irritated, he grows wilder and, in a fury, suddenly turns from Pietro and murders the two convicts instead.

The two acts were of about equal length; the first existed merely to introduce the second, and the second merely to introduce the stupid fellow whose part was nearly all gesture and, as I afterwards ascertained, was taken by Giovanni’s brother, Domenico. He may have spoken twenty words, he was too stupid to speak more; the others spoke a good deal, but, except that they had been told beforehand, as to each act, about as much as the reader has been told about the second, all they said was impromptu, so that each repetition, like a Japanese netsuke, would be a unique work of art.

Remembering how continually Sicilians use gesture in ordinary life, it will be understood that in such a play the actual words are of secondary importance. Giovanni, in working the marionettes had become familiar with all the types that in different grades of society reappear in all plays the good king, the proud tyrant, the traitor, the faithful friend, the young lover, the noble mother and so on; and, as the words were always improvised, except in such plays as Cavalleria Rusticana, which are exceptional with the Sicilian marionettes, his memory had become stored with conventional phrases suitable for all the usual stage emergencies and always ready for impromptu delivery. His fellow-actors were also familiar with them, having heard the phrases over and over again, and seen the types with their appropriate gestures from their early youth as members of the marionette audience.

It is claimed for this kind of impromptu acting that the actors are freer than when speaking words they have learnt, and can therefore behave with more naturalness. It is the difference between delivering an extempore speech and reciting one that has been learnt the difference between “recitare a soggetto” and “recitare col suggeritore.” So great is the freedom that an actor may introduce anything appropriate that occurs to him at the moment, and the others must be ready to fall in with it. Peppino told me that one night in Catania, after the performance, he was sitting in the cool with Giovanni’s family on the pavement and in the road, outside the theatre, when an old beggar stopped to beg. He had come a long way, he knew no one in the town, he had nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, no money. The mother gave him a penny, Giovanni gave him another, his brother, Domenico, another every one gave something. The beggar, seeing all that wealth lying in the hollow of his hand, and knowing that he was now safe for a few days, burst into tears and turned away speechless. At the sight of this, Domenico called to him, went after him, met him, emptied his pockets, gave him all he had, took his head in his hands, kissed him on both cheeks, dismissed him, returned to his family and was received with an approval that was too deep for words. Such an improvised incident, the sudden outcome of uncontrollable emotion, may be seen any day in Sicily and might be introduced any evening into one of these unwritten plays by any actor who should take it into his head to do it. The audience, who would probably have seen the play before, would recognize that here was an impromptu interpolation, and would applaud the actor both for the idea and for the way it was carried out.

Gradually Giovanni added written plays and a prompter, and was the first to take on tour a company of actors performing in a Sicilian dialect. He also included plays written in Italian. These written plays, though constructed with more care, did not depart far from the style with which he began. Giovanni still frequently returns from prison, but as he never forfeits the sympathy of the audience, if he really committed the crime it was in self-defence. Whatever the play may be, it always contains, besides the inevitable scenes of violence, many other passages such as hearing a letter read (he is then a simple fellow who cannot read), collapsing in the presence of the Madonna (he is then deeply religious), dancing at a festa (he is a perfect dancer), confiding, with his last breath, the name of his murderer to his young brother who promises to execute the vendetta. In these passages his humour, his delicacy, his grace, his tenderness, his voice and, most wonderful of all, his apparently intense belief in the reality of everything he says and does make one forget how crude and transpontine the bare theme is.

On my saying I should like to see more of him, Peppino asked why I had come away so soon. I had thought he must be tired and would want to be alone and change his dress.

“Never is he alone,” said Peppino. “Surely now shall he be suppering by his friends.”

We thought it too late to go and look for him then, so we determined to ask ourselves to supper after the play the following evening.