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.

String marionette

All audiences

Koch Ludwig

Germany

Munich

Printed

Manuscript

Music

Opera

Storm

Hell

Eternal punishment

Seduction

Turkey

Spain

Silliness

Old age

Despotism

Escape

Cage

Bird

Love

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

Sultan Mustapumpum still needs more soldiers to send his army to massacre the Christians, whom he wants to turn into tongue and ear salad for his meal. On the orders of Marshal Morackel, the recruiter of the Sultan's army tries to recruit the Jews Schmuel and Zwirn, who immediately flee; then he recruits Kasperl. But Kasperl knocks Morackel out with the rifle he gave him for the exercise. The marshal catches him in the act and wants to have him hanged. Kasperl does it so badly that Morackel puts the rope around his neck himself to show him how. Kasperl hangs him and then kills the Sultan by hitting him with the gallows.

Not specified

Reinhardt Carl

Sultan

Muslim

Black

Army

Military service

Gallows

Cruelty

Farcical

Role reversal

Word for another

Kasperl als Rekrut in der Türkei

Kasperl, a recruit in Turkey

The wealthy Cassandre is so distressed by his son Pierrot’s foolishness and insolence that he is willing to spend a fortune on a private tutor. Polichinelle is hired, but his poor lessons in obedience, geography, arithmetics, moral and fencing turn Pierrot into a brawler, drinker, liar and thief who ends up hanged after having cheated the tavern keeper Arlequin and beating up the Gendarme (Constable). When Cassandre asks Polichinelle for explanations about his son’s death, Polichinelle beats him to death with a stick. When Arlequin denounces Polichinelle as Pierrot’s accomplice, Polichinelle kills the Gendarme who has come to arrest him. He is carried off by the Diable (Devil).

Glove-puppet

France

Paris

Relationship between father and son

Cheekiness

Education

Lesson

Swindling

Comical

Satirical

French

Polichinelle

Pierrot

Arlecchino

Constable

Slaps

Blow-with-a-stick

Headbutt

Hanging scene

Characterisation through onomatopoeia

Polichinelle précepteur

Polichinelle private tutor

Berlingue asks his wife to keep his travel trunk during his day of absence. The wife, jealous that the trunk receives more attention than she does, takes advantage of his absence to go party with Arlequin. After an unfortunate blow of the stick from Arlequin, Mme Berlingue drops dead. Arlequin hides her corpse in the trunk, makes the husband’s doubts vanish, and gets rid of the Apothicaire (Apothecary) who had come to visit him. On his way to the boulangerie, where he is planning to destroy the corpse by putting it in the oven, he encounters Pierrot who steals the trunk and discovers the body. Pierrot sells the trunk to a merchant who sells it back to Arlequin, who wants the merchant to take it back. The merchant’s screams alert the Gendarme (Constable) who arrests Arlequin and wants to hang him. Arlequin runs away and pushes the Gendarme (who gets run over): the trunk opens in the impact and brings Mme Berlingue back to life. As the merchant claims ownership of the trunk, Mme Berlingue goes back home to relate everything to her husband. The Commissaire (Superintendent) arrives and, in disbelief of the merchant’s tale, requisitions the trunk. Berlingue arrives and wants his trunk back. The Commissaire accuses him of murdering the Gendarme and wants to hang him. The Gendarme comes back to life. Mme Berlingue convinces the Gendarme to un-hang her husband and to take his place. When the Commissaire returns, he finds the Gendarme hanged but still alive; they both abandon any hanging plans, for no one was murdered.

Trunk

Trade

Corpse

Resurrection

Accidental murder

Error

Duranty, illustration for "La Malle de Berlingue" (Théâtre des marionnettes du Jardin des Tuileries, 1862)

Apothecary

Police Superintendant

Spectacular turn of events

Unexpected turn of events

Hidden corpse

Fake death

Death on stage

Misunderstanding

La Malle de Berlingue

Berlingue's Trunk

Casper is accused by a farmer of stealing his hay and the cart and cow that went with it. He tries to bargain over the compensation and settles the matter with a stick. In court, he insults the judge and beats the policeman. The peasant asks for him to be hanged, but Casper finds out and hangs him instead. Then he beats the policeman again. The judge wants him tortured and executed, but Casper beats him to death.

Young audiences

Sonneberg

Justice

Theft

Retribution

Punishment

Torture

Police

Jail

Judgment

Prosecution

Violence

Assassination

Embezzlement

Wickedness

Insubordination

Ironic

Judge

Policeman

Peasant (man)

Address to the public

Flying machine

Parodic trial

Stichomythia

Foul language register

Murder on stage

Epilogue

Casper soll ins Gefängnis kommen

Casper must go to jail

After a prologue in which Casper announces, among other things, that he is going to cut off the ears of children who are not well-behaved, the performance begins. Casper announces that, out of boredom, he wants to become a soldier. He shows his insubordination towards the non-commissioned officer who undertakes to train him by beating him with sticks. The non-commissioned officer sends him to the devil, who arrives: Casper kills him. He returns to his wife, announcing that he will be a general. She hits him with a broom, takes his stick back and they fight.

Soldier

Military

Spousal abuse

General

Stick

Broom

Household

Couple

Mrs Kasperl

Non-commissioned officer

Prologue

Apparition of the Devil

Domestic scene

Brawl

Casper will Soldat werden

Casper wants to become a soldier

Casper goes to the magic factory to learn magic tricks. The magician shows him some, but Casper is so crude that the magician soon doesn't know what to say, whereupon Casper calls him a donkey. They fight, one with his stick and the other with his broom. Casper defeats the magician. A policeman comes to arrest him, but Casper knocks him out and hangs him on the gallows. His wife blames him, they argue and fight.

Magic

Triviality

Vulgarity

Rebellion

Magician

Casper will Zauberer werden

Casper wants to become a magician

The lazy Kasperl is elected chancellor and makes ridiculous suggestions to solve administrative problems. He encounters Death who takes him to a court where it must be decided whether Kasperl will go to heaven or to hell. Kasperl's stupidity saves him from eternal suffering. He wakes up: it was only a dream, and he promises to become a better person and to work. He encounters Death again, but this time, Death decides to let Kasperl live.

Polgar Alfred

Austria

Vienna

Laziness

Heaven

Politics

Chancellor

Judgment of God

Lawyer

Hunger

Fighting

Anti-Semitism

Death

Soul

Absurd

Der unsterbliche Kasperl. Ein Spiel für das Wursteltheater

Ein Spiel für das Hanswursttheater

Neighbour

Emissary

Angel

Voice

Passer-by

Physician

Plot twist

Song

Political allegory

Dialect

Der unsterbliche Kasperl

The immortal Kasperl

Christine is in love with Heini, a law student, but her father has promised to give her in marriage to the apothecary, a character so conceited and ridiculous that she cannot tolerate him. Heini resolves to leave for Leipzig in order to finish law school and he makes Christine promise that she will resist the apothecary’s advances in the meantime. The apothecary, however, learns that an uncle has bequeathed his fortune to him before he passed away, provided that he would marry his niece: he easily forgets about Christine. But his baseless allegations about Christine offend her father, and, as he is furious with the apothecary, he calls Heini back in order to organise the wedding of the young lovers.