During a May Day, as peasants are dancing and singing, Polichinelle chases them with blows of his stick. In the meantime, it is discovered that it is his twentieth birthday. Happy to be finally of age, he orders his servant to organise a feast. Shortly after, he encounters Crocofante, a sword fighter who suggests that he enlists to serve the State. However, Polichinelle prefers his stick and immoral pleasures to a sword and honour. Crocofante is offended and challenges him to a duel. Polichinelle agrees, but only after the feast, which turns into a real “bastonnade” (stick beating) where he insults his father and other guests. Soon after, Polichinelle kills the servants Alain and Nerina, accuses Crocofante, and has him arrested in his stead.

Young audiences

des Essarts Emmanuel

France

Paris

Printed

Party

Peasant

Birthday

Contempt

Cheekiness

Death

Prosecution

Devil

Comical

Alfred des Essarts, illustration for La Jeunesse de Polichinelle, 1863.

French

Father

Polichinelle

Soldier

Butler

Nurse

Peasant (man)

Young woman

Magistrato

Peasant (female)

Chorus

Blow-with-a-stick

Aside

Song

Death on stage

Character invisible to some of the other characters

Apparition of the Devil

Final intervention of the devil

Epilogue

La Jeunesse de Polichinelle

Polichinelle's Youth

The princess escapes to the moon by walking on a ray of moonlight. Her father, King Cyprian XIII, promises a reward for he who can bring her back to earth. Kasperl and Seppl volunteer and leave on a rocket. They find the princess miserable, forced to cook and clean for the Man on the Moon. Thanks to a trap, Kasperl and Seppl succeed in escaping with the princess. The king thanks Kasperl and wants to offer him a gift, but Kasperl is content with a piggybank—he had to break his own to buy the rocket.

Glove-puppet

Bertl Hayde (Berta Gründler-Hetmanek)

Austria

Vienna

Rescue

Misfortune

Disillusionment

Tale

Gugelhupf

Kitchen

Women's condition

Exploitation

Fantasy

German

Ein Handpuppenspiel für zwei Spieler

Kasperl

Seppl

Inhabitants on the moon

Trumpet (military man/woman)

Town crier

Night watchman

Metatheatre

Improvised scene

Dialogue with the audience

Address to the public

Flying machine

Disguised character (false identity)

Trap

Aria

Die Fahrt auf den Mond

Le voyage sur la Lune

Jeannot, a child who has a third eye, is adopted by Clémence and Prudent. They take Jeannot to see a doctor who wants to perform surgery on him. Jeannot rebels and a temporary solution is found: his third eye will be blindfolded so that the child can get used to having two eyes and prepare for the future. For a week, Jeannot lives with his eye covered but becomes sick with melancholy. Clémence decides that he will go to school without covering his eye. On the first day, the other children are either surprised or scared, then they are impressed by Jeannot’s “supersonic” eye. Soon enough, they no longer pay attention to that eye, but they pay attention, rather, to what it makes him see. Jeannot contradicts the schoolteacher regarding Romeo and Juliet, and he is chased out of the classroom. Mariette, a classmate, tells him that she shares his point of view. The head of school tells Clémence and Prudent that their son has been expelled for a week. Mariette pays a visit to Jeannot who is stuck in the house, and she reveals to him that she also has a third eye. They dance together until they are interrupted by the arrival of Mariette’s parents. When Jeannot goes back to school, a student mocks him. Mariette defends Jeannot by showing her third eye to everybody in the classroom, which terrifies the schoolteacher, who thinks there is an epidemic. Some parents take legal action and sue for voluntarily contaminating other children. The judge, who is understanding, thinks that Jeannot can see the colour of the human soul thanks to his third eye. Jeannot asks to become an emancipated minor in order to leave on his own, without his parents. His request having been accepted, Jeannot leaves, although it is difficult to accept for Clémence and Mariette. The narrator reveals herself to be Mariette, who has grown old: it is the day of her birthday and she wishes to see Jeannot again more than anything.

Not specified

Orphan

Convent

Adoption

Surgery

Vision

Childhood

School

Discrimination

Expulsion

Judgment

Separation

Shakespeare

Dramatic

Satirical

Narrator

Child

Mother

Doctor

Teacher

Director

Crowd

Judge

Avista

Light effects

Dance

Classroom scene

Night scene

Court scene

Jeannot trois yeux

Three-Eyed Jeannot

Papa (Dad) and Maman (Mum) celebrate Bébé’s (Baby) birthday. They eat cake, drink champagne, play music and are happy. Pap’s and Mam’s, Bébé’s grandparents, comment on the scene without partaking in it, for they died in a bombing.

All audiences

Danan Joseph

Family

Regrets

Grandparents

Infant

Grandmother

Grand-father

Baby

Invisible character

Spying scene

Sur la terre moins qu'au ciel

On earth less than in heaven

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.