Cockatrice, riding the magic donkey Brickle-Brit, is on his way to Rome. He envisions himself impersonating Charlie Chaplin in the inn where he has planned to meet his friends Blind-Boy and Columbus the Parrot. He complains about Brickle-Brit, thinks about his relationship with Blind-Boy, and ponders over different events in his life.

String marionette

Not specified

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Marina di Pisa

Printed

Journey

Identity

Hypocrisy

Immortality

People and history

Satirical

Comical

English

On the Road to Rome

Cockatrice

Basilic

Donkey

Monologue

Mobile Panorama

A young boy named Pepperl is sick and can't go out. With the collaboration of Kasperl, who replaces him in bed and takes the medicines meant for him, Pepperl escapes from his house to go see the Christmas manger. Arriving on a flying saucer and disguised as an astronaut, the Man on the Moon convinces Kasperl and Pepperl to escape the boring festive season to celebrate Christmas on the Moon. Upon their arrival, they learn that the Man on the Moon was deceiving them. Kasperl loses his memory of his life on Earth. Thanks to the intervention of the Girl on the Moon and of Saint Nicolas who brings him a musical Christmas ornament, Kasperl recovers his memory. Saint Nicolas, Kasperl, and Pepperl return to Earth, where they are awaited by Father Christmas to celebrate the holiday.

Young audiences

Germany

Munich

Audio-visual recording

Forced marriage

Nostalgia

Sadness

Cosmic journey

Visit

Regrets

Countdown

Oversight

Crater

Threat

Astronaut

Christmas

Fantasy

German

Kasperl

Pepperl

Inhabitants on the moon

Grand-father

Saint Nicholas

Doctor

Dialect

Object coming to life

Disguised character (false identity)

Flying character

Letter

Flying machine

Apparition

Entrance from below stage

Die klingende Weihnachtskugel

La boule de Noël musicale

While the Father of a rich, bourgeois family is dying at the hospital, his house is being burgled. Pascaline, his help (who has become his wife since he became a widower) laments, but her daughter Sarah is delighted to be relieved of the burden of the memories attached to the objects. A Young Man (the Father’s son) happens to come back that very day after seven years of unexplained absence. Freddy, a young and attractive rogue, arrives the same day to ask his mother Pascaline to give him an explanation for the identity of his father and for the reasons that have led her to abandon him. Pascaline, who behaves like a mother towards the Young Man, rejects Freddy. We learn that she survived the Shoah when she was a child. She pretends to ignore who Freddy’s real father is and she also claims that, after denying her pregnancy, she entrusted her to her sister, who raised him without love in a poor suburb. An alcoholic and a very unstable person, she sees Nazis coming out of the walls, unless that it is Freddy who is manipulating her so that she tells him the truth. Later, Pascaline, drunk, confesses to Freddy we was born out of a short-lived relationship she had with a Maghrebin jazz musician who died during the Algerian War. She ends up accepting his son as a gift from God. Freddy’s attractiveness and the ambiguity of his behaviour reveal both the Young Man’s homosexual desire and Sarah’s need for love, as she was a prisoner of an unconditional love for her own brother, and therefore rejected any kind of sexual intimacy. The Young Man encourages his sister to find happiness with Freddy while he, knowing that she is happy, will be able to transition into the woman he realized he wants to be. The phone rings and the death of the Father is announced. Pascaline goes off to discover the world, encouraging Freddy and Sarah to build a fulfilling life as a couple in the house.

Actor and puppet

Adults

France

Sainte-Marie-la-Mer

Avignon

Filiation

Prodigal son

Deportation

Shoah

Alcoholism

Virginity

Father

Mother

Death

Lust

Love

Couple

Brother-sister incest

Sexuality

Transsexuality

Dramatic

Ironic

Humorous

Fantastic

French

Domestic servant

Sister

Virgin

Rogue

Attractive man

Maghrebian

Homosexual

Slaps

Scene in the dark

Hip hop dance

Hallucination

Fall of a character

Scene of recognition

Hidden character

Anges du chaos

Angels of chaos

Polichinelle’s humps get in the way of his sleep. Crispin advises him to go find the fairy Mélusine so that she removes them from him. But the Fée (Fairy) is not at home and her daughter, who is still learning magic, gives him the wrong ointment. Polichinelle changes into a camel. He will have to find white roses to break the spell. Madame Dupont-Duteil is on her way to a marriage with a bouquet of white roses. She faints at the sight of the camel eating the flowers and transforming back into Polichinelle. Mère Gigogne, Polichinelle’s mother, gives birth to several children. She helps Madame Dupont-Duteil regain consciousness and has her believe that Polichinelle wants to marry her – news at which she runs away. Vexed, Polichinelle summons the Devil. He traps him in a sewing box and the Devil teaches him how to get rid of his humps—he must find a Parisian Marionnettiste (a Puppeteer). The latter removes Polichinelle’s humps. Having become “like everyone else”, Polichinelle lost his immortality. Death comes to take him away, but He has forgotten His scythe. While Death is looking for it, Polichinelle asks the Parisian Marionnettiste to glue his humps back on him. Death comes back with His scythe and fights with Polichinelle, who prevails. Crispin sets the Devil free. As a way to thank him, Death grants him a wish and Crispin asks to be loved by Madame Dupont-Duteil. He makes a deal with the Devil and Madame Dupont-Duteil invites Crispin over to her house. The Devil laments not having taken Polichinelle’s life but comforts himself with the thought that he has won Crispin who, having left with Madame Dupont-Duteil, is already “in Hell” in a way.

Glove-puppet

All audiences

Le Teil

Lyon

Electronic text

Hump

Amputation

Wedding

Magic

Fairy

Deal with the Devil

Bosse en trop: Polichinelle

Polichinelle

Crispin

Daughter

Devil

Puppeteer

Mother Gigogne

Child

Metamorphosis

Childbirth on stage

Song

Apparition of the Devil

Change of size on sight

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Fall of a body part

Apparition of Death

Fight

Dance

Bosses en trop

Unwanted humps

A dirty and emaciated Agneau (Lamb) is alone and followed by a Vautour (Vulture) waiting for him to die to eat him. The Agneau arrives in a pasture where he hopes to be taken in by a new Troupeau (Flock). The Troupeau asks him questions and reproaches him for having lied: he said at first that he did not know what had happened to his own flock, before admitting that they had all been killed. The Troupeau therefore refuses to take him in, and the sheep send the Patou – the sheepdog that watches over them – to chase him away. But the Patou knows the lonely Agneau’s original flock. In fact, he was raised there by Bella the ewe, whom he thinks of as her mother. As a consequence, he is convinced that the Agneau is his brother. Patou kisses him, tells him that he can stay in the Troupeau and that dogs and sheep are not different. He starts bleating to prove it and he teaches the Agneau how to bark.

Paris

Bourg-en-Bresse

Migrant

Refugees

Animal

Inclusion

Pity

Livestock

Hospitality

Anaïs Vaugelade, L'Agneau a menti, stage direction by Émilie Flacher, 2018.