Marianne – the wife of a poor lumberjack – sends her starving children Hansel and Grethel in the woods, so that they pick some berries. But the children are captured by the cannibalistic naturalist Fleischmann, at the same time as the travelling tailor Kasperl Larifari, who believes he will find bed and board at his house. They are locked inside chicken coops and fattened. Kasperl is enraged. To calm him down, Fleischmann allows him outside the cage to drink some wine with him. He intends on eating him right after. But they both get drunk, while the professor’s maid, Katharine, helps the children escape and reports the cannibal to the police. Kasperl takes advantage of the general confusion to escape too. The professor chases him and then gives up. He wants to find the children but falls asleep in the end, exhausted. Kasperl finds him and sews the two legs of his pants together. Eventually, the court bailiff arrives with the children’s father, Peter. When they find Fleischmann, he is unable to move, and Peter kills him with an axe. The children come out of hiding and, at the end of the play, Kasperl declares that wickedness has been punished, virtue rewarded and that they all need to go to an inn now.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Cannibalism

University

Natural sciences

Philosophy

Tale

Poverty

Misery

Cage

Forest

Justice

Hunger

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Fantasy

Burlesque

Parodistic

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

German

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Kasperl

Night

Moon

Hidden character

Murder on stage

Off-stage voice

Animated natural element

Chase

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Confinement

Versified passages

Song

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

Kasperl is buried in debt and runs away from the city. He believes that there is no other solution but to kill himself. But when the Devil arrives and drives him to hang himself, Kasperl realises that his time has not come yet. At this exact moment, gunshots are heard. The hunter, Hasenmajer, thinking that he was shooting a billy goat, almost killed Kasperl. In order to be forgiven, he invites his “victim” to the inn to get a drink. Spitzer, the school teacher, arrives at the inn with terrible news: a Turko has escaped from the convoy of prisoners. The innkeeper Krüglhuber refuses to believe it, but the waitress, Kathi, confirms that the Turko has been seen devouring a little child. Krüglhuber is terrified and demands that all doors be closed. The huntsman comes in and announces that he has captured the Turko and wants his reward, 400 gulden. The innkeeper accepts, but wants to see the prisoner first. Hasenmajer shows him Kasperl disguised as a Turko, locked in a cage. Krüglhuber is happy: he can announce that there is a new attraction in his inn. But Kasperl gets out of the cage and locks the innkeeper inside. The latter realises that the “Turko” is none other than his debtor. Kasperl offers him a deal: either the innkeeper agrees to forget about his debts in exchange for his freedom, or he will have to replace the “Turko”. Krüglhuber has no other choice but to accept Kasperl’s offer.

Hansel und Grethel

Der gefangene Turko

oder Ein Kasperlstreich aus dem Jahre 1870