Marino investigated the subject of entertainment from his earliest youth and never abandoned it: from his Harlequins in the 1920's and 30's, his dancers and ballerinas in the 1950's and right up until the last years of his life, when his increasingly brilliant and lively palette gave colour to festive and merry jugglers, who almost seem to be dancing in rediscovered harmony with their horses.

Marino felt that circus people, as well as actors from such a fascinating world were also the symbol of man's obsessive research to obtain an impossible equilibrium, while the difficult trade of the acrobat is really a metaphor of humanity, which is always searching for a balance between pleasure and duty, good and bad, life and death. Marino's attraction for the world of the theatre culminated in his designing the sets and costumes for the Sacre du Printemps by Igor Strawinsky, performed at the Theatre of the Scala in Milan in 1972.