More about the Performances

At the Theater

I went to the Central Library downtown again the other day, and in the Grosvenor Room, where local history lives, I found a great newspaper article about Salvatore Rizzo and his marionette theater on Dante Place. It was written in October of 1905. This was a year or two after Salvatore Rizzo had applied for and received a license from the city for his theater. I'm still looking for a copy of that - I'd love to put it on the blog!  

This is what the article looks like - it's a long one, and densely printed, so I'll paraphrase the most interesting bits. But anyone who feels interested in reading the whole thing can go downtown and see it in the Scrapbook Collection in the Grosvenor Room - it's in the scrapbook titled 'Theaters and Convention Halls in Buffalo', volume 1. The librarians there are wonderfully helpful!

The theater was an unused storefront. According to the article it was 75 feet long, and 25 feet wide, and it could seat about 200 people. The seats, which were straight backed wooden benches, were usually filled each night with men and boys who had paid 5 cents (in 1905) for admission. Sam Rizzo (grandson of Salvatore) told me that his grandmother had a little shop of her own next door, where she sold homemade cookies and cakes and other Italian delicacies, and she sold her lemonade and baked treats at the marionette performances. 

The show began with an overture by a four piece orchestra, which sat in a small pit in front of the stage. Then Salvatore himself would sit on the edge of the stage and give, from memory, an hour long synopsis of all that had led up to the evening's performance. The article states, "He holds the attention of his audience to a man. Vocal inflections, gestures, and facial expressions; all are perfect, and he draws the applause, the murmur of disapproval, or the laugh of his hearers at will."

The shows were from 8 to 10 in the evening, every evening. The second hour belonged to the marionettes. One man was required for each speaking puppet; Sam Rizzo told me there were usually two or three men on hand to do the shows, with minor characters being handled by small boys. Sam has a wonderful story of being allowed once to be one of these boys when he was about eight years old - his character was a monk. He remembers the puppet's robe accidentally getting caught on a nail during the performance. The robe was nearly torn from the marionette; luckily, the audience thought it was part of the show and laughed uproariously. 

Salvatore handled the marionettes with amazing skill. "While one hand is working the doll, the other member is employed in handling a book out of which he manufactures the lines used by all the characters on the stage." The book was written in text form, not as a play, which means that Salvatore had to reduce the text to set speeches for each character, on the spot, as the play progressed. Challenging work, indeed! In this photo, you can see the book in Salvatore's hand as he works the puppet. (In an actual performance, Salvatore would have been behind the backdrop.)

This is what the reporter wrote about Salvatore, "The genius who presides over these wooden actors is an Italian who speaks very little English. Professional and amateur performers could spend a very profitable evening listening to this man."

In my next post I'll write more about the stage and the stories; stay tuned! And, as always, I love to hear from my readers.