Victor is in love with Clémence, the daughter of the Baron de Fritzierne. Moreover, a long time ago, Victor was found in the forest by the Baron de Fitzierne and raised like his own son. Victor reveals to Clémence that he is not her brother. Clémence is thrilled and believes that they can finally marry. However, Victor wants to run away: he is afraid to ask the Baron for Clémence’s hand, for he is convinced that, without wealth, we will never get his consent. Forban, a bandit, gives Victor a letter that was meant for the Baron, and assures him that it can save his life. Meanwhile, Clémence has revealed everything to her father, who now wants to see Victor. Together, the Baron, Clémence, and Victor read the letter sent by Roger, the leader of the bandits. A few days before, the Baron’s men freed Madame Germain, a woman captured by Roger. The latter now demands that the Baron bring her back to him within twenty four hours, or he will seek revenge. The Baron refuses to yield and asks for his army to be prepared to face Roger. The Baron puts Victor to the test: to marry Clémence, he will have to prove that his parents are honest and honourable people, even if they are poor. The battle starts. Victor fights Roger, but Madame Germain intervenes and saves the bandits’ leader. The Baron asks for explanations. The truth comes out: Roger is actually Victor’s father, and Madame Germain was the friend of his mother Adèle. Adèle had entrusted Madame Germain with a mission: to save her son. Madame Germain had then kidnapped Victor and let him in the forest, where he was found by the Baron. When he had discovered this, Roger, enraged, had killed Adèle. The Baron gives Victor one last chance: if he convinces his father to stop his criminal activities, he will marry Clémence. Victor finds Roger and tells him that he is his son. Roger refuses to give up his lifestyle, even though he loves him. In the end, he sacrifices himself to protect Victor and Clémence when the camp is attacked. Fatally wounded, he asks the Baron in his last breath to not judge Victor because of his lineage, and to approve his union with Clémence.

String marionette

All audiences

France

Printed

Family

Love

Escape

Friendship

Mysterious letter

Threat

Army

Combat

Sacrifice

Relationship between father and son

Forgiveness

Honour

Melodramatic

Heroic

French

Leader

Brigand

Baron

Young man

Old man

Lieutenant

Officer

Soldier

Daughter

Lady

Monologue

Revelation

Letter

Off-stage voice

Aside

Off-stage noise

Battle cries with several voices

Off-stage combat

Fight to the death

Death on stage

Victor ou l'Enfant de la forêt

Victor or the Child of the forest

Don Juan is set free from hell on the condition that he leads one thousand and three women to ruin. When he comes back on earth, the seducer appoints Kasperle as his servant, under the name Casparello. The fairy Innocentia goes after them to protect the innocence of young women. The task will prove difficult. Don Juan arrives near Barcelona, where he chances on one of his old victims, Zerline, who is now old and desperately looking for a man. Don Juan and Kasperle flee as quickly as possible when they see her. Innocentia chases them relentlessly and locks Kasperle up in a cage as he sleeps, but she falls in love with him then. Don Juan comes on and frees the prisoner. In Turkey, Don Juan seduces Fatime, a slave to the cadi Mustapha. Both the master and the servant are arrested and sentenced to death. But Lucifer appears and takes Don Juan with him in hell, for having failed to seduce one hundred and three women. Innocentia also appears and takes Kasperle with her in her palace in the clouds.

Koch Ludwig

Germany

Munich

Manuscript

Music

Opera

Storm

Hell

Eternal punishment

Seduction

Turkey

Spain

Silliness

Old age

Despotism

Cage

Bird

Innocence

Fantasy

Parodistic

German

Kasperles Gefahren

Don Juan

Kasperl

Fairy

Clerk

Zerlina

Slave

Servant

Devil

Apparition

Final intervention of the devil

Inn scene

Allegory

Magic act

Bawdy equivocation

Comic equivocation

Glory

Love story

Macaronism

Aria

Ghost

Dialect as a social marker

Versified passages

Deus ex machina

Confinement

Parody of formal language

Pact with the devil

Don Juan's zweites Leben

The Second Life of Don Juan

Perrette found herself locked in the house by her father, who left early in the morning. What's more, her father wants to marry her off to an ‘old fool’ named Lagoutte, even though she is in love with Collin. Lagoutte arrives with the key to the house, which Perrette's father has given him. He has come to “free” her, but on one condition: she must agree to marry him. Perrette refuses. Later, Collin arrives to invite Perrette to the village festival. He decides to rescue her and sets up a ladder. Perrette chooses to climb down and live happily with Collin.

Not specified

Paris

Father-daughter relationship

Party

Disobedience

Comical

Milkmaid

Lover

Trump blower

Song

Situation comedy

Final song

La Prisonnière de village

The Village Prisoner

Fleeing his wife, Polichinelle steals a charlatan's cabriolet with Pierrot. First he wins the trust of the population with free advice, then he launches a subscription for a phantom financial company. When the shareholders demand their money, he sends them away with good words and blows, until the Public itself comes to threaten him directly. Mrs. Polichinelle offers to take care of the punishment. Terrified, Polichinelle flees into the forest. Abandoned by Pierrot, he walks to Hell. There, he tries to swindle Death and stands up to the Devil who, in desperation, goes looking for Mrs. Polichinelle. She brings her husband home firmly, with the approval of the audience.

Glove-puppet

Duranty Louis Émile Edmond

Swindling

Wedding

Punishment

Forest

Public

Perseverance in Evil

Money

Capitalism

Bossy woman

Satirical

Farcical

Ironic

Le Charlatan

Charlatan

Polichinelle

Crook

Pierrot

Tenant

Peasant (man)

Cassandre

Cassandra

Shopkeeper

Colombine

Valet

Death

Intervention of the audience

Apparition of the Devil

Plot twist

Blow-with-a-stick

Apparition of Death

L'Homme au cabriolet

the man with a cabriolet

A thief robs all the clients of a restaurant by hypnotising them. While driving a car, he empties three shop fronts and then electrocutes the police officers following him, all thanks to magnets. After a new burglary, he escapes thanks to a tram and a lift that gets him up into the sky.

Depero Fortunato

Italy

Anacapri

États-Unis

Annandale-on-Hudson (New-York))

Printed outline

Hypnotism

Manipulation

Tramway

Lift

Dwarf

Burglary

Burlesque

Italian

Chase

Multiplied characters

Scene with Hypnosis

Ladro automatico

Automatic thief

The play is set in 2077, in a military dictatorship. Everything happens in the cellar of a common citizen – Joan. One day when she comes back from work, she finds Dummy in it. He broke into her apartment by breaking a window, as he was trying to hide from the army. He does not own papers and has been shoplifting to survive. At first, Joan believes that he wants to rob her and asks him to hand her his knife. But Dummy is homeless and undocumented: his knife is his only means of defence. What is more, he is emotionally attached to it. Joan then agrees to feed and hide Dummy. He relates his past and confides that he was forced by soldiers to kill one of his parents. Joan and Dummy call on a smuggler, Jack, who promises to forge papers for Dummy, which would allow him to cross the border. However, the money Dummy was keeping in a box has disappeared. At this point, Jack declares that he has links with the army and threatens to report them. Despite the help Joan offers him (she goes as far as trying to request a loan), Dummy turns down her offer to run away with her: he says he wants to leave with Jack and to continue to steal for a living. Joan’s life has radically changed since meeting Dummy, for whom she says she has sacrificed everything. She does not understand his decision and launches into a xenophobic monologue, during which she inflicts extreme violence on Dummy. She stabs him several times, steps on him and tears him up. At the end of the play, the actor dubbing Dummy’s voice walks among the “debris” of the puppets and speaks in a fictional language.