Júpiter, madly in love with Alcmena (Alcmene), sets up a stratagem imagined by Mercúrio (Mercury): while the beautiful woman laments the absence of her husband, the general Anfitriaõ (Amphitryon), who has gone to war, the god disguises himself as her husband and goes to see her. As for the servant Cornucópia, she is talking with Mercúrio, disguised as her husband Saramago. When Saramago arrives and announces his master’s return, he sees Mercúrio, disguised as him: disconcerted, he cannot guide his master when he asks him how the news was received in the house. Juno, Júpiter’s wife, decides to avenge herself for his infidelities. Calling herself Felisarda, she comes down to Alcmena’s house; Júpiter has just left. When the real Anfitriaõ returns, even Juno is fooled and believes that he is in fact her husband Júpiter. The scene also leads to a series of misunderstandings between Anfitriaõ and his wife, who believes that she saw him the day before, and between Saramago and Cornucópia, who reproaches him for his rudeness. Determined to keep the ruse going, Júpiter goes as far as deceiving the soldiers and usurps Anfitriaõ’s military victory. The nymph Iris, disguised as Corriola, attempts to find out the truth by seducing Saramago. Tirésias, in love with Juno, who is pretending to be the daughter of Anfitriaõ’s enemy, agrees to help her: they will take revenge against their husbands. The couples quarrel and reconcile: jealous when she hears the romantic conversations between Saramago and Iris, Cornucópia is forced to think about her own unfaithfulness with the other Saramago. In the meantime, Júpiter reconciles with Alcmena, who was angry with him after a quarrel about the real Anfitriaõ. Mercúrio stops Anfitriaõ from coming by refusing to recognise him: this leads to a violent struggle between the master and his “valet”; when the real Saramago arrives, he is beaten. Anfitriaõ and Saramago break through the door and force Júpiter to leave the house: Anfitriaõ comes face to face with his lookalike. The two suitors are about to kill each other, but they are interrupted by Alcmena, who faints. The scene is paralleled by a confrontation between Mercúrio and Saramago, in front of Cornucópia, who also faints and turns into a dwarf. When Saramago discovers Tirésias and Juno’s love affair, the goddess turns him into an olive tree: Mercúrio and Cornucópia knock down its fruits, then Júpiter engraves the name of his beloved on it, before giving Saramago his original body back. Júpiter meets Alcmena, who is sleeping by the fountain. He is challenged by Anfitriaõ. Mercúrio testifies on behalf of his master, against the real Anfitriaõ. The couple is in a predicament: Tirésias sentences Alcmena to death for her infidelity; doing so, he obeys Juno; Anfitriaõ is put in prison, where he beats Saramago for being the cause of his misfortune. However, the gods intervene, so that the play has a happy ending. Juno frees the prisoners; then, when Alcmena is about to be sacrificed, Júpiter reveals the truth: the stage transforms into an empyrean.

Rod and string marionette

Giant marionette

Not specified

António José Da Silva (António José da Silva, aka O Judeu)

Portugal

Lisbon

Printed

Return from the war

Double

Identity

Usurpation

Encounter

Love

Jealousy

Fantasy

Mock-heroic

Comical

Burlesque

Parodistic

Title page and summary of Amphitryaõ (1759)

Portuguese

ou Júpiter e Alcmena

Amphitryon

Husband

Jupiter (Jove)

Mercury

Tiresias

Captain

Servant

Alcmene

Wife

Juno

Maid

Iris

Music

Love duet

Chorality

Transforming one character into another

Love rivalry

Clouds

Flying machine

Misunderstanding

Blow-with-a-stick

Duel scene

Fainting

Change of head on sight

Change of size on sight

Sleeping character

Confinement

Revelation

Deus ex machina

Avista

Anfitriaõ

Faetonte (Phaethon) came to Italy to find the young woman whose portrait made him fall in love. He meets Egéria, the daughter of Tirreno (Tyrrhenus), who was dispossessed of her kingdom by her uncle Tages. The latter wants his daughter Ismene to become queen; he would like her to marry his nephew Albano. Faetonte does not know that he is the son of the Sun and introduces himself as a shepherd from Thessaly. Egéria falls in love with him and asks him to avenge her by killing Ismene. Faetonte meets the magician Fíton, who followed him from Thessaly. The servant Chichisbéu, who also followed his master Faetonte, is mistaken for the magician and taken prisoner by Tages’s soldiers. Albano worries because he betrayed Egéria, choosing Ismene instead. Tages announces the arrival of the great magician; he hopes that he will reveal the identity of the son of the Sun, who is known to be in the region. Faetonte arrives at Tages’s palace and reunites with Chichisbéu, who is tasked with finding the son of the Sun. On Faetonte’s suggestion, Chichisbéu pretends that his master is the son; he can therefore enter the palace. Chichisbéu tries in vain to charm Chirinola, Egéria’s maid: his nose grows longer with every lie he tells. Faetonte is about to kill Ismene when he realises that she is the young woman from the portrait. He stops his hand, and she calls the soldier, but Faetonte flees in the darkness cast by Fíton. Ismene asks Albano to avenge her. Albano asks Chichisbéu to reveal the murderer’s identity: the fake magician says that he will find him in the forest. The King admits that he would rather give his daughter’s hand to the son of the Sun rather than to Albano, whom he does not trust. Ismene goes into the forest to hunt and wounds Faetonte, believing that he is an animal. He falls to her feet and declares his love to her. Albano is convinced that Faetonte is Ismene’s murderer and tries to kill him. Chichisbéu stops him and reveals that Faetonte is the son of the Sun; the trees begin to move on orders of Apolo to signal that this is true, and he is escorted with great pomp to the King’s court. When Egéria finds blood on the ground, she believes that Faetonte has killed Ismene and been imprisoned. Faetonte declares his love to Ismene, who recognises the portrait in his hands as the one she sent to her future husband, the Prince of Rhodes. During the ceremony meant to unite Ismene and Albano, Fíton turns off the lights: claiming that this is a sign from Apolo, the King adjourns the wedding. Fíton tells Faetonte that he really is the son of the Sun, but that disclosing his identity would only cause his downfall. The King wants Ismene to marry the son of the Sun and have Egéria marry Albano. Albano and Faetonte fight, but they are interrupted by Ismene, who appeals to the gods. To curry favour with Chirinola, Chichisbéu reveals his true identity and says that Faetonte is only a shepherd. Ismene and Albano were spying on them and now believe that they know the truth: the King announces that he will marry his daughter to Albano, and Faetonte despairs. Quarreling with Fíton, he asks his father to confirm his identity. Apolo therefore entrusts his chariot to him: the horses bolt and run to the sea where Egéria is—she finds Faetonte’s lifeless body in her arms. Apolo brings his son back to life. Faetonte marries Egéria, and Chirinola agrees to marry Chichisbéu.

Portrait

Inheritance

Metamorphosis

Filiation

Pastoral

Lyrical

Antonio José da Silva, Precipício de Faetonte, 1759.

Phaethon

Shepherd

Prince

King

Magician

Niece

Princess

Daughter

Apollo

Double intrigue

Set that comes to life

Apparition of a wizard

Attempted assassination

Hunting scene

Spectacular turn of events

Gunshot

Animated natural element

Scene of recognition

Scene in the dark

Signes annonciateurs

Spying scene

Resurrected character

Final wedding

Precipício de Faetonte

The Fall of Phaethon

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

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Marina di Pisa

Journey

Hypocrisy

Immortality

People and history

Satirical

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

German

Kasperl

Pepperl

Inhabitants on the moon

Grand-father

Saint Nicholas

Doctor

Dialect

Object coming to life

Disguised character (false identity)

Flying character

Letter

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

Prodigal son

Deportation

Shoah

Alcoholism

Virginity

Father

Mother

Death

Lust

Couple

Brother-sister incest

Sexuality

Transsexuality

Dramatic

Ironic

Humorous

Fantastic

French

Domestic servant

Sister

Virgin

Rogue

Attractive man

Maghrebian

Homosexual

Slaps

Hip hop dance

Hallucination

Fall of a character

Hidden character

Anges du chaos

Angels of chaos

One morning, in a house with a garden, two children walk a robot-dog and ask each other questions about the world: how can we measure love? why does the sky change colours? when a flower is plucked, does it hurt?
The children keep asking questions, and try to answer some of them: is a storm just an angry cloud? can we find infinity where the sea ends?
This journey in the world of whys is completed by several stories in which eccentric characters like a balloon-hippopotamus, a widow-caterpillar, and a cow-fish mix with Humpty Dumpty, Hansel and Gretel, and the Little Prince. The children tell their stories while doing household chores. The widow-caterpillar saw her husband die, run over by a bike, but she remains cheerful. The balloon-hippopotamus has been floating in the sky since the previous summer, but only the little girl can see it. As for the cow-fish, it appeared the day several cows fell in the sea and transformed after eating seaweed. The last story of the day chosen by the children is the one about Bicho Papão (Bogeyman) because he is not so evil after all.

Rod puppet

Full-view manipulation

Costume puppet

All audiences

Porto

Friendship

Topsy-turvy world

Nature

Childhood

Animals, Mythical

Philosophical tale

João Paulo Seara Cardoso, A Cor do Céu, Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, 2004.