KIT – Kairos Italy Theater presents

Le Macchiette di Eduardo Migliaccio

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FARFARIELLO

A show by Laura Caparrotti as shot for the PBS documentary “Italian-Americans”

Neapolitan-born Eduardo Migliaccio (1892-1946), (his stage name Farfariello meant “Little Butterfly”) was one of the most popular and greatest entertainer of Little Italies. He emigrated to the United States in 1897 and got a job in a New York City bank writing to clients in Italy, a task that incidentally caused him to become well acquainted with various immigrant types. He interpreted all his characters, the male as well as the female ones.

The show presents a sample of his characters: the married woman, the engaged one, the boy just arrived in NY, the man living in NY for 30 years, the Hollywood star, the man praising the Italian Language versus the English one and the more political ones.

The audience will have the opportunity not only to experience Migliaccio’s work, but also to enter the New York of the beginning of the past century, with its slang, its habits, its new ideas, its smells, its noises, and so on.

Each character is introduced by Laura Caparrotti in English; the actual performance of the character is in the original language, that is sometime Neapolitan, sometime Italian, sometime Italian+English.

The sketches included in the show are:
Cunailando
L’allegra sartina
La donna moderna
La stella di Hollywood
A lengua taliana
L’areoplane ‘e Balbo
Mastantonio
Franceschino a New York
My Boy Friend

Please Note: the show could be introduced by a lecture by Professor Hermann Haller,  professor of Italian at Cuny and the author of Tra Napoli e New York. Le macchiette italoamericane di Eduardo Migliaccio (2006).
Tecnical Request:
2 chairs, Microphone (possibly a headset microphone)
The show could last from 20 minutes to an hour, upon request.