Pulcinella is desperate because he owes thirty crowns to his landlord for rent. Rugantino offers to lend them to him, since he has this exact sum in his house. He goes fetch the money and, when he comes back, says that his wife has spent half of it, but that he can still lend him the remaining fifteen crowns. Pulcinella agrees. Rugantino goes back home, then comes back and says that his wife has just spent another thirteen crowns and that he only has two left. Pulcinella accepts them still. Rugantino goes fetch them and, when he comes back, says that he owes three crowns to the collier: he then asks Pulcinella if he can lend him the missing crown.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Santangelo Gaetano (aka Ghetanaccio)

Italy

Rome

Printed excerpts

Rent

Money

Debt

Comical

Romanesco

Rugantino

Pulcinella

Running gag

[Rugantino e i trenta scudi]

Rugantino and the thirty crowns

Rugantino lives in a shabby attic room. He has no money left, his wife Rosetta is sick and their children are hungry. The landowner comes to their place and asks them to pay the rent. Rugantino tries to move him to pity by showing the state to which his family and him have been reduced. The landowner shows them the order to seize their property, then, moved by Rugantino’s children who cling to his clothes, he lets himself be touched: he extends Rugantino’s delay to pay by a quarter of an hour.

Poverty

Cruelty

Satirical

Rosetta

Landlord

Child

Dramatic irony

[Rugantino e l'affitto]

Rugantino and the rent

Guignol’s landlord – Vautour – complains about financial hardship, as his tenants do not pay the rent. He asks Guignol to settle the previous months of arrears, but Guignol ridicules him extensively and then refuses to pay. Gnafron helps Guignol get rid of Vautour. They both fear that Vautour will have Guignol’s furniture seized, and so they move it all before having a drink together.

Mourguet Laurent

France

Lyon

Printed

Scatology

Furniture

Farcical

Le Déménagement de Guignol. Lyon: Elardin, 1876 (couverture).

French

arrangé par Louis Josserand

Guignol

Gnafron

Monologue

Fight

Dialect as a social marker

Comic distortion of language

Trap

Misunderstanding

Final song

Le Déménagement de Guignol

Guignol’s Move

Pulcinella and his wife Rosella quarrel. Pulcinella cannot provide his wife with food, despite promising, before they married, that she would never be in need. They only survive thanks to the help of a rich uncle of the wife. Their son arrives in the middle of the quarrel, and he is also starving. He goes with his mother to the rich uncle, who is very sick. At this moment, Pasquariello – Pulcinella’s sidekick – arrives and recounts how he was evicted from his house by the landlord, slept in the street with dogs and, in the morning, was taken by a dogcatcher. Now, he hopes to eat with Pulcinella, but his friend has not eaten for several days. Don Giannattasio Brasciolone, the landlord, comes to ask for the seven months of unpaid rent. Pulcinella pretends to be dead and the landlord leaves. When Pulcinella’s wife comes back crying, the two friends believe that she is lamenting the death of her husband. In fact, Rosella is crying because her rich uncle has just died. Pulcinella receives an inheritance – the head of a Mercury containing a bag full of gold coins. In the end, Pulcinella is a millionaire and pays his rent for the entire year.

Ferrajolo Francesco

Salerno

Manuscript

Hunger

Inheritance

Francesco Ferrajolo's I due ciabattini, handwritten notebook

Neapolitan

Pulcinella milionario

Shoemaker

Wife

Pulcinellino

Zapatera

Domestic scene

Fake death

Word for another

Story

Dialect

National language as a social marker

Spectacular turn of events

I due ciabattini

The two cobblers

On the advice of Lafleur, Titine Calicot, gave up her studies and now works as a sales assistant in a sex shop. She thinks that Lafleur is a good man but Sandrine, his wife, does not agree with that. She believes he spends too much time with other women, does not work, does not earn any money and spends all of his free time drinking. Gégène, the owner of a pub, comes looking for Lafleur for he has not paid her in 6 months. Sandrine gets worried – if Lafleur is not at Gégène’s pub, where could he have gone? Papa Tchutchu, the landlord, demands that the rent for the past six months be paid. Sandrine tries to explain that she and her husband are living off her income, because Lafleur does not work and he claims to be ill. Papa Tchutchu hesitates over calling court baillifs, for Lafleur is capable of beating them and of making a scene. Gégène returns and explains that she has heard that Lafleur was hit by a car. Given the circumstances, Papa Tchutchu, gives up on being paid back. Titine has doubts, though – Gégène might have been mistaken. Blaise has also heard about Lafleur’s accident and cannot believe that he has really passed away. Him, Sandrine, Gégène and Paupaul reminisce about Lafleur and his banter. Lafleur comes back alive and enters the grieving house. He explains that it is not he who has been crushed, but old Marie’s flower. He is very angry with Gégène, who prefers to flee to avoid his kicks. Lafleur wants to know what has been said of him when it was thought he had passed away. Death enters. She, too, has heard that Lafleur had died. She comes to get him, but Lafleur kicks her away.