Harlequin, servant of the Devil in person, (who, however, has disappeared), finds himself without a master and trying to sell a strange inheritance that was left in his hands: some valuable souls, damned souls, particularly cheeky souls, preserved in ice cubes so that "no se dislénguino, svolino via, che po' no le catémo più” (they won't vanish or fly away, otherwise we won't find them anymore). That's how an unpredictable, sharp-witted, biting "humorous journey" begins, in which Harlequin , "pro budello suo" (for his belly), will become from time to time: a queer charlatan, a wizard, a philosopher's disciple and a singer-songwriter, always speaking his mind about the customs of our (in his opinion) very strange world.
Bitten by pangs of a piercing, atavistic and deep hunger, he does his job as " seller of illusions" and seems to end up himself believing in that world of popular "common sense" and "nonsense" that surrounds his quick chatter, his somersaults and jokes, his dances, magic, songs and his comical earnestness and his tragic hilarity.
His ungrammatical, raving, comical "outlook on the world" is made up of fantasies, but also of a solid popular concreteness, capable of reversing all principles and priorities, and also of keeping our Harlequin with his feet firmly on the ground, or rather underground, already well roasted and smoked by his prancing in the flames of hell.
With the different hues of his various epochs, of his actors and authors, with his unending possibilities of reinventing and disguising himself, Harlequin can still let us enjoy his testimony, which is at the same time human, theatrical, animal and historical, and, perhaps, for this reason, also a little "diabolic" (as the little horns on his forehead require).
 That's how Harlequin turns his multicoloured "Mondologo" over, and in fact turns the whole of himself inside out like a pocket, once again on the public squares in the year 2000.

This is an hilarious "Mondologo" combining the taste for rambling speech of the most recent comedians with the tribute to the "Italian style theatre" of the tradition of the "Comici dell'Arte".
 In particular, we owe tribute to the meticulous reconstruction of the movements and jests of the character and, as far as the text is concerned, to the rediscovery of a number of cues and themes from the wide and scattered repertoire of the Italian and European theatre of the XVIth, XVIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth centuries: themes with the flavour of the unpredictable, fanciful, popular irreverence of a rebellious Harlequin, themes that can be compared with today's world, thanks to a subtle and sharp recontextualization. It is both a popular and a "fine" performance, certainly new for its topics, for its particular comical side and for the figurative taste with which the character's movements are "danced", which provides also a testimony to the various Schools which have cultivated the Commedia dell'Arte in our century.
The "Mondologo di Arlecchino" also represents the first formalized result of the research work of Claudia Contin and Ferruccio Merisi on the character of Harlequin: the performance is included in the permanent repertoire of the company Attori & Cantori as a "timeless" tribute to the Commedia dell'Arte of the past and of the futures.

Recommended audience: All. Evening audience.
Technical requirements:
Minimum stage size: 6 m D x 6-8 m W. Black framing with backdrop and four wings minimum W 1,5 m. Little stairs on the right admitting to the stage from the stalls. Minimum 10 Kw for lights.