Director Lello Serao reinterprets Eduardo De Filippo’s masterpiece with an unconventional production featuring a single actor interacting with seven puppets operated in full view of the audience. The play recounts the story of the Cupiello family, offering a glimpse into the audience’s collective imagination and memory.
Christmas at the Cupiello House
Eduardo De Filippo / Lello Serao
© Anna Camerlingo
Right of First Refusal
2h
LAC+ members have first refusal starting December 1.
Sales open to the general public starting December 8.
Teatro Foce
25.-
Sat 06.02
20:00
Christmas at the Cupiello House
Eduardo De Filippo / Lello Serao
© Anna Camerlingo
Right of First Refusal
2h
LAC+ members have first refusal starting December 1.
Sales open to the general public starting December 8.
Teatro Foce
25.-
Sat 06.02
20:00
A dream that comes to life through puppetry, in which actor Luca Saccoia immerses himself and reemerges as “Tommasino” after saying the fateful “yes” to his father. From that moment on, he relives and brings to life the “Christmas” that has been accompanying audiences for over ninety years. He thus becomes the personal interpreter of a tradition, a witness to a ritual that weaves through both comic and tragic family memories, shaping his own story and that of those watching the performance.
To give shape and continuity to this ritual, he draws on the puppets and figures that come to life in his dreams and nightmares, resurfacing every year like the nativity scene and its shepherds. In this continuous return, he continues to be surprised by the stories that emerge; he takes part in them, recites their lines, and renews the dream of Eduardo and his “Luca Cupiello”: that of smoothing over conflicts through the ritual of the nativity scene.
“The nativity scene—as stated in the director’s notes—is the horizon against which the entire work unfolds, both literally and metaphorically. It is the element Luca Cupiello needs to hope for a renewed, conflict-free humanity, but it is also the representation of birth and death. It is the time of transition from the old to the new, the blend of past and present, an established iconography that must, at the same time, be continually deconstructed. The nativity scene is renewed every year; it is cyclical like the seasons—it may be liked or disliked.”