Lele, who taught everyone to look at a finger and see the moon in it

Andrea Rauch

My acquaintance with Lele Luzzati began back in 1981, when we met for the publication centenary of the novel Pinocchio. On that occasion Lele, together with Tonino Conte, had created an amazing Pinocchio bazaar in cielo e in terra, which was one of the highlight events of the celebrations. In Pescia’s main square, Lele and Tonino staged a Teatrino di Mangiafoco, a Pinocchio in ombra, fireworks and multicoloured merry-go-rounds. From that moment on, Pinocchio was a permanent member of Lele's “tour company”, together with Papageno, the magician Urluberlù, the Paladins of France and Candido, the Thieving Magpie and Cinderella. And together with all the others, first and foremost Pulcinella.

And, of course, with Papa Ubu, whom I began to love, right because of Lele, when in 1986 Lele and Tonino invited me to draw the character created by Jarry on the occasion of the staging, for the Tosse Theatre, of an Uburlesque. The latter featured, among others, a hilarious and scurrilous Enrico Campanati playing Mama Ubu. With Ubu, I actually travelled a large part of my journey: over the years, I ended up illustrating the whole of Jarry’s quadrilogy from the Roi, to the chained Ubu, the Cuckold, ending up on the hill.

Since that first Pinocchio-fostered meeting in 1981, our paths have always been closely connected, through the initiatives by Teatro Gioco Vita, for the great exhibition organized by the Association of European Theatres at the Centre Pompidou - later held also in Rome, Palermo and Florence, among others -, and the many books and catalogues we have prepared for Nuages. In 2004, when he was asked to design the banner for the Palio of Siena, I was lucky enough and had the honour of presenting his work to the contradaioli in the public ceremony that always precedes the horse race.

When, with Aldo Colonetti, I organised the great exhibition of Epoca posters in Siena, I asked Lele for one of his classical ones: Jonesco's Rhinoceros, a play directed by Franco Enriquez in the early sixties and staged by the Compagnia dei Quattro. He sent me two copies and I was aghast when I realised that one of them was the original 70x100 drawing of the poster. For that play, Lele had designed different posters for all the cities where the show was to be staged. The one he gave to me was advertising the show at the Teatro Mercadante in Naples.

He was an incredibly prolific and genial draftsman and illustrator. Very quick and enthusiastic, disarmingly candid and smart. Once, it was maybe in 1998, I called him to ask for an illustration of Calvino's Barone rampante. I needed it for a magazine article on this subject. Lele told me that he had never actually drawn the Baron, but only The Cloven Viscount. I then explained to him what I needed the drawing for (in black and white, nothing too complicated) and we went on talking for a few minutes, I can’t remember about what. As soon as I hanged up the phone, the fax machine immediately started to screech. It was the drawing of the Baron on the tree that I had just asked for. Lele had drawn it in pen while we were talking.

For a famous Midsummer Dream staged in 1971 by the Teatro della Rocca, and directed by Egisto Marcucci, the entangled loves of Oberon and Titania, Lysander and Demetrius, Hermia and Helen, and the magical mockeries of Puck were set in a castle of old wooden school desks painted white. A large green tarpaulin covered the desks; the heads and hands of the actors emerged from the fabric to mimic the thicket of the magical forest of Athens. This complex and very rich scene was resolved with a stroke of modest and grandiose intelligence, capable of recreating the great Elizabethan theatre with nothing. Great, great Lele, who taught everyone to look at a finger and see the moon in it.

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