Quarlous and Winwife visit the office of their friend John Littlewit, a legal clerk. Both men want to marry Littlewit's mother, Lady Purecraft. They argue over which of them has the better chance of winning her heart. They are joined by other characters, including Bartholomew Cokes, who has come to collect a license to marry Grace Welborn. Littlewit invites the characters to come to the Bartholomew Fair to see the puppet show he has put on. Adam Overdo, a judge and Grace Welborn’s guardian, decides to disguise himself in order to uncover all the crimes committed during the fair. The plot shifts to the popular world of the Smithfield district, and Littlewit’s group soon finds itself confronted with the debauchery of the fair: Overdo is tricked by Mooncalf, a waitress, and Edgworth, a thief. Edgworth then steals money from Bartholomew Cokes. Overdo, in disguise, is suspected of being the thief’s accomplice. Quarlous and Winwife discover that the culprit is none other than Edgworth, and Quarlous hires him to steal Cokes’s marriage license. Overdo, Wasp (a servant of Cokes who caused a brawl) and the false preacher Zeal-of-the-Land Busy are sentenced to the gallows, while Win Littlewit and Mistress Overdo are encouraged to drink to excess. Trouble-All, a madman, has a fit of madness because no arrest warrant has been issued for Overdo, Wasp and Busy. His outburst creates a diversion and the three men manage to escape from their sentence. All the characters go to John Littlewit's puppet show, which brings together the love story of Hero and Leander and the friendship of Damon and Pythias. Zeal-of-the-Land Busy constantly interrupts the show to denounce its immoral and blasphemous nature. Puppet Dionysus puts an end to the debate by pulling up its costume, reminding Busy that puppets have no sex: its status as an "object" prompts Busy to change his mind, transforming him into a model spectator.

Not specified

Jonson Ben

Great Britain

London

Printed

Theatre

Debauchery

Fair

Religion

Love

Friendship

Comical

Farcical

English

Puppeteer

Leandre

Puppet

Waiter

Pythias

Damon

Hero (priestess)

Dionysos

Dialogue between actor and puppet

Undressed character on stage

Punching

Kicking

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Bartholomew Fair

La Foire de la Saint-Barthélemy

A dove is saved from a vulture by the knight Theobald and finds shelter in the knight’s daughter’s (Agnes) lap. At this moment, their neighbour – a widow called Rosalinde – and her daughter Emma come to ask for Theobald’s protection against Ulrich von der Wart, who wants to grab her land. As a token of friendship, Agnes gives Emma her dove. Ulrich has hired a robber to break into Theobald’s castle to put it to the fire and the sword with the help of his group. The robbers dress as pilgrims and stop at Rosalinde’s place. But Casperl, Rosalinde’s servant, uncovers their plot and tells his madam. Theobald, his family and servants would have been lost had Emma not thought of sending the dove to Agnes, with a message to warn them. The robbers find themselves powerless. Theobald besieges Ulrich’s castle, and the latter is killed during the fight.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Gangster

Middle Ages

Widow

Knighthood

Justice

Rapacity

Pilgrimage

Morality

Castle

Drink

Crusades

Seat

Dramatic

Burlesque

Illustration by Franz Pocci for the first edition of the play

German

Nach einer Erzählung von Christoph Schmid in vier Aufzügen dramatisch bearbeitet

Knight

Dietrich le Noir

Kasperl

Guard

Servant

Horserider

Monologue

Song

Off-stage voice

Disguise

Letter

Story

Die Taube

The Dove

On a rainy night, Pulcinella comes back home, prepares his bed and lies down in it. He has just fallen asleep when his friend Felice knocks on his door and asks for shelter from the storm. Felice has just seen Gilda, his fiancée, with a bersagliere (a soldier from a special corps of the Italian army) at the Teatro di San Carlo – the opera of Naples. Overcome with jealousy, he decides to go home but he cannot find his keys. After listening to his friend, Pulcinella offers him a chair to sleep in for the night. Felice cannot fall asleep and starts singing and screaming. Then he imagines that he is fighting the bersagliere and he throws all of Pulcinella’s furniture out of the window, including the bed. Gilda arrives at this moment. She explains that the bersagliere is her brother. She has come to tell Felice that he is going to inherit a large sum of money. Out of joy, Felice promises two millions liras to Pulcinella, who shouts: “per te sarò un principe, per lei sarò un signore, per questo colto pubblico umile servitore” (“for you, I will be a prince, for her I will be a lord, and for this cultured audience, an humbler servant”).

Ferrajolo Pasquale

Italy

Naples

Night

Treason

Inheritance

Italian

ovvero Temporale a Mezzanotte

Pulcinella

The Interpreter

Fiancé

Felice Sciosciammocca

Fiancée

Thunderbolt

Sound of rain

Misunderstanding

Sleeping character

Word for another

Word warping

Address to the public

Throwing objects

'Na nuttata 'e guai

A night of troubles or Storm at midnight

On his way to Paris, young d’Artagnan bumps into a stranger accompanied by a gorgeous woman he calls Milady. The stranger steals from him a reference letter addressed to Tréville – the captain of the musketeers. In Paris, d’Artagnan meets Tréville and earns the trust of the three musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis when he fights with them against the Cardinal Richelieu’s guards. The king gives the three musketeers and d’Artagnan thanks for their courage. Then, d’Artagnan saves Costanza – the queen’s lady-in-waiting. She entrusts him with a mission – to save the queen from a trap set by Richelieu. The queen gave aglets to the duke of Buckingham, who is in love with her, but they had been gifted to her by the king. In order to make the king aware of this relationship between the queen and the duke, the cardinal suggests that he organise a party and ask the queen to wear the aglets for the occasion. D’Artagnan then goes to London with the three musketeers, manages to recover the aglets and so to save the queen’s reputation.

Rod marionette

Rod and string marionette

Palermo

Typed or electronic text with handwritten annotations

Bravery

Impossible love

Plot

Cloak-and-dagger novel

Heroic

d'Artagnan

Milady

Innkeeper

Jean-Armand du Peyrer, earl of Tréville

Choir

Aramis

Athos

Porthos

Jussac

Louis XIII

Landlord

Bonacieux

Lady

Duke of Buckingham

Cardinal Richelieu

Earl of Rochefort

Anne of Austria

Queen

Chancellor

Duel scene

Spying scene

Sword fight

Spectacular turn of events

Dance

I tre moschettieri

The three musketeers

Anselme Sablefin, "a man of a certain age", fights against time. He does everything he can to silence the hands of his watch. But they only do as they please, despite his threats and physical attacks. On his birthday, Anselme invites his friend Pascal Beaurivage over and takes out the cake from last year’s birthday, which “had entirely faded and looked all stale and inedible”. Faced with Beaurivage’s sadness, he brings out a second cake, a fresher and mouth-watering one – the birthday cake’s birthday cake. Everytime Anselme cuts a slice, shapes suddenly come out, reminding him of various periods of his life.When Sonia, Beaurivage’s daughter, asks him to cut the last slice of the cake, a huge, red heart and tears suddenly appear. He dies, but comes back to life right after, and they all eat the cake together.

France

Birthday

Nostalgia

Fear

Death

Cake

Sadness

Aging

Fantastic

French

Oversized object

Fake death

Running gag

Object coming to life

Blow with an object

Appearance

A Piece of Cake

Un morceau de gâteau

Three young chicks speaking different languages travel together. They are looking for the sun, which has not been seen for three days. After meeting other small animals on the way, who guided them, they find that the sun is trapped behind a dark cloud. At the end, they make the sun shine again with the audience’s help.

Actor and puppet

Tabletop Puppetry

Spain

Alcoy

Electronic text

Fable

Linguistic diversity

Theatre at school

Union

Didactic

All the characters in the play Sol, solet, on ets?

Catalan

Chick

Bird

Rabbit

Moon

Narrator

Talking animal

Personified object

Dialogue with the audience

Intervention of the audience

Sol, solet, on ets?

Sun, little sun, where are you?

Bouffefeu (Eatfire), the director of the theatre, announces that he is going to tell a rewritten version of Pinocchio’s adventures. Just as he is about to start carving a piece of wood, Père (Father) sees it morph into a puppet. He adopts it as his own child and, even though he is poor, gives it all he can. Instead of going to school, Pinocchio, accompanied by Grillon (Cricket), sells everything he owns to enter the funfair. Bouffefeu, the owner of the funfair theatre, takes pity on Pinocchio’s poverty and gives him five coins. They decide to head home and meet Chat (Cat) and Renard (Fox) on the way. Pinocchio shows them his money. Then, Chat and Renard dress up try to steal his money but Pinocchio and Grillon manage to escape and hide from them. On the advice of Fée Bleue (Blue Fairy), the allegory of Pinocchio’s mother, they hit the road. They encounter Chat and Renard again, who make Pinocchio believe that if he if he sows his money, a tree will grow out of it and will produce new coins. Pinocchio is gullible; he believes them and complies.
At another funfair, the Bonimenteur (Barker) changes him into a donkey, but he manages to escape. In the stomach of a sea monster, Pinocchio and Grillon find Père again. The three of them manage to get back onto dry land. Back to the Field of Miracles where Pinocchio buried his money, Pinocchio discovers trees laden with gold coins. He meets the Fée Bleue who lets him decide between becoming a real little boy or remaining a puppet. He chooses to remain a puppet so that he can always be a child in his father’s eyes.