The Cincillà Princess and the birthday cake

The show The Cincillà Princess and the birthday cake at the Argentina Theater directed by Elisabetta Gustini, taken from the book The Chinchilla Princess and other family fairy tales by Alessandro Portelli, stages a fairy tale using together the techniques of puppet theatre, of the reading aloud and, above all, revisiting the ancient Japanese art of kamishibai (translated as "paper theater show"), a theater of paper images used by storytellers, characterized by a narrator who moved from one village to another with his little theatre/butai of wood. From all this a small and original show emerged, born from an idea by Sabina de Tommasi, intended not only for a children audience, but for everyone.

Alessandro Portelli founded and chairs the Circolo Gianni Bosio for the critical knowledge of popular cultures, taught American literature at the Faculty of Humanities of the Sapienza University of Rome and contributed to the knowledge and diffusion of American culture. He also collected the popular and political songs of Rome and Lazio, collaborating with the Canzoniere del Lazio, Giovanna Marini, Sara Modigliani, Piero Brega and Ascanio Celestini. He met the partisans of Rome and the families of those killed in the Fosse Ardeatine, and brought together their testimonies in the book The order has already been executed, winner of the 1999 Viareggio prize.

In the book from which this show was based, he collected the stories invented first for his children, and then his grandchildren, from 1980 until today.

Photo credits: the Argentina Theater Facebook official page