In Bavaria, Kaspar learns that Professor Johann Christoph Gottsched is conspiring against him. He goes to Leipzig to work as a servant, under a false name, in the house of Gottsched and his friend, the actress and theatre director Caroline Neuber. During a performance, Caroline Neuber symbolically banishes Kaspar’s character from the stage and dismisses the actor who successfully played him, Silvio. But Gottsched's ward, Lucinde, is in love with the actor: the two young people defy Gottsched's dismissal and marry in secret. In search of a new actor to play the comic role in a play by the student Gotthold Ephraim, Caroline Neuber offers the position to Kaspar, who declines and then reveals his true identity. The actress breaks up with Gottsched and hires Silvio again, as well as Lucinde. Kaspar is arrested by the Bavarian policeman Stadelmann, who has set out after him, but is finally released by Gotthold Ephraim and is praised by the entire audience.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Schmidt-Ziegler Tilla

Germany

Leipzig

Printed

Conspiring

Bavaria

Professor

Hanswurst

Literary criticism

Theatre

Reformation

Impossible love

Humour

Rationality

Women's condition

Pigtail

Wedding

Comical

German

Puppenkomödie aus dem alten Leipzig

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Policeman

Johann Christoph Gottsched

Neuberin

Cook

Pasteur

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Off-stage voice

Disguise

Metatheatre

Love story

Versified passages

Philosophical dialogue

Word for another

Dance

Kaspar stirbt nicht!

Kaspar does not die!

Two actors, first dressed up as gorillas, relate murders using a ventriloquist dummy and paper toys. The killers – represented by articulated heads – confess the reasons behind their crimes and reveal several details: the arms they used, the time it took for the victims to die, or the amount of blood they shed. They killed out of vengeance, passion, or even because of daily trivial conflicts. The killers’ heads often wear banners asking for forgiveness, and some crimes are told using shadow theatre. After reading each story, the actors stop to sing a nursery rhyme and play a clapping game. The show ends with a murder on stage.

Shadow theatre

Toy theatre

Full-view manipulation

Actor and puppet

Ventriloquism

Manipulated object

Tabletop Puppetry

Adults

Portugal

Lisbon

Porto

Storyboard

Death

Assassination

Collage

Black comedy

Satirical

Dramatic

Curtas em papel, osso e fel (Compagnie A Tarumba, 2019)

Portuguese

Animal

Address to the public

Song

Apparition of the puppeteer

Change of voice

Accumulation of events

Narrator

Inserting poetry

Murder on stage

Curtas em papel, osso e fel

Short stories in paper, bone and bile