
A sea of wishes
ANIMATED TRANSFORMATION (Campania)
Loosely based on Giannini-Luzzati's "Pulcinella e il pesce Magico"
dramaturgy Claudia Riccardo
animation conception Ciro Arancini
actor/animator Ciro Arancini
dramaturgy Claudia Riccardo
technical support Margherita Vicario
Books are meant to be read, of course, but sometimes if magic gets in the way... A big book opens and from its pages magically sprout the places and characters of the tale. The old little house of Punchinello and his wife Zeza is roofless and the bed is a pile of straw. Every morning, Zeza, has to invent a new one to wake up her lazy husband, and when she has succeeded, she tidies up and sends Punchinello out to fish. One day after waiting for hours, a fish finally takes the bait. Punchinello is incredulous. The fish is huge, with a thousand shining colors. Punchinello fantasizes about how he will cook it, but the fish confesses to him that it is magical and can grant all his wishes. But to what extent?
A SEA OF WISHES is our company's first pocket show experiment. The starting idea was to be able to tell stories anywhere, anytime, without giving up the magic of theatrical animation. So we built pop-up books and performance objects thinking they should fit in a suitcase. We were inspired by Giannini - Luzzati's cartoon "Punchinello and the Magic Fish" because we were struck by the simplicity and magic of these masters' storytelling and images, but not only that. Pulcinella is a character very dear to us and in many ways still mysterious. Working on another story of which he was the protagonist allowed us to discover a few more pieces of his immense and extraordinary world.