The retrieval of a letter written by Gabriellino d’Annunzio to Marino Moretti takes the reader behind the stage of the Manzoni Theatre in Milan on 27 March 1905. It was the first staging of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s play La fiaccola sotto il moggio (The light under the bushel), and Gabriellino played Simonetto, the female lead’s brother. His interpretation received mixed reviews, mainly due to the hysterical tone he gave to the character. Numerous sources refer to that première: not only Moretti’s writings but also various contemporary chronicles, as well as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’a volume Les dieux s’en vont, D’Annunzio reste, in which the author describes and comments the staging. The various sources testify to Gabriele d’Annunzio’s disillusionment towards his own directorial experiment.