Fabiana Iacozzilli's 'La Classe': A Docupuppets on Childhood Memory

Fabiana Iacozzilli's 'La Classe', a 'docupuppets' blending documentary and puppet theatre, debuted in October at Romaeuropa Festival/Anni Luce and will be performed on January 18 at Teatro Cantiere Florida in Florence. Produced by CranPi, the show originates from interviews with Iacozzilli's former classmates about their strict education at Istituto Suore di Carità. Children are reduced to puppets animated by five performers, moving without pathos on tables evoking school desks, slaughterhouse tables, or operating tables. The piece asks: 'What can every human being become starting from their own pain?' Iacozzilli explains that the term 'docupuppets' was coined spontaneously in a van while returning puppets to Cinecittà, and later interpreted by Andrea Pocosgnich on Teatro e Critica as 'a work where documentary genre and coming-of-age fable intersect.' She chose puppet theatre to strip sentimentality and universalize her autobiographical experience, noting that puppets embody childhood solitude without sentimentality. She draws an analogy between Tadeusz Kantor's 1975 'The Dead Class' and her own work, both seeking to return to childhood. Iacozzilli states that the answer to her question is that every human can transform pain into grace and poetry, but hopes audiences also ask who their 'Suor Lidia' is.