Marianne – the wife of a poor lumberjack – sends her starving children Hansel and Grethel in the woods, so that they pick some berries. But the children are captured by the cannibalistic naturalist Fleischmann, at the same time as the travelling tailor Kasperl Larifari, who believes he will find bed and board at his house. They are locked inside chicken coops and fattened. Kasperl is enraged. To calm him down, Fleischmann allows him outside the cage to drink some wine with him. He intends on eating him right after. But they both get drunk, while the professor’s maid, Katharine, helps the children escape and reports the cannibal to the police. Kasperl takes advantage of the general confusion to escape too. The professor chases him and then gives up. He wants to find the children but falls asleep in the end, exhausted. Kasperl finds him and sews the two legs of his pants together. Eventually, the court bailiff arrives with the children’s father, Peter. When they find Fleischmann, he is unable to move, and Peter kills him with an axe. The children come out of hiding and, at the end of the play, Kasperl declares that wickedness has been punished, virtue rewarded and that they all need to go to an inn now.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Cannibalism

University

Natural sciences

Philosophy

Tale

Poverty

Misery

Cage

Forest

Justice

Hunger

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Fantasy

Burlesque

Parodistic

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

German

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Kasperl

Night

Moon

Hidden character

Murder on stage

Off-stage voice

Animated natural element

Chase

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Confinement

Versified passages

Song

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

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

Gugelhupf

Birthday

Kitchen

Women's condition

Exploitation

Ein Handpuppenspiel für zwei Spieler

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

A very big and very strong ogre terrifies an entire village. As the ogre sleeps, digesting a cow he has eaten, the inhabitants leap at the chance to tie him down. When he wakes up, they tell him they will not free him unless he does something useful, such as cleaning all the houses’ chimneys and blowing on some clouds so that it rains. Once the ogre has accomplished these tasks, the villagers have him believe that another ogre claims to be stronger than he is. The ogre goes into the mountains to challenge his rival. Because of the echo of his screams, he keeps thinking that his rival always is further and further away, so much so that he never comes back to the village.

Shadow theatre

Lanuza Empar de

Spain

Valencia

Village

Deception

Mountain

Theatre at school

Echo

Didactic

Catalan

Ogre

Comic Equivocation

Deceived naivety

Sound effects

Talking animal

L'ogre espantatotsitotes

The ogre thatscareseveryone

One day, little Agustí decides to grow a tree and plants a seed. But another child, Fidel, swaps the seed with another and the resulting tree produces a very special fruit: it contains the genie Eugeni, who punishes Fidel by beating him with a stick. Fidel asks for forgiveness and the genie throws confetti and sweets to the audience.

Tree

Ecology

Environment

Seed

Candy

Child

Mean trick

Punishment

Genie

Misunderstanding

Blow-with-a-stick

Apparition of a genius

Un arbre genial

An amazing tree

The wanderer Nabíh tells a child, Hassan, how the merchant Abdul found on a dead man’s body a bottle from which emerges a genie. This genie, in turn, tells the story of the dead man, a fallen king, father of Fatima, a princess who is said to have taken refuge among the desert dwellers because of the fratricidal war. The king's supporters are looking for Fatima to offer her the throne, and discover that she is Laïla, Hassan's mother. However, she renounces the throne to become the princess of the desert. Other stories are added to this main plot.

Rod puppet

Sirera Rodolf

Adventure

Vagrant

East

Princess

Vagabond

Merchant (man)

Commanding officer

Narrator

Theatre within the theatre

Throws

Dance

Instrumental tune

La Princesa del desert

Princess of the Desert

Miséria est un vieux forgeron qui passe ses journées à travailler le fer. Son seul plaisir est de prendre soin de son noyer. Un jour, São Pedro (Saint Pierre) vient lui rendre visite, demandant un fer à cheval. Comme il ne lui en reste plus, Miséria lui propose de prendre celui qui est un porte-bonheur en argent. Quelques temps plus tard, São Pedro retourne chez Miséria, disant qu’il peut demander un souhait. Miséria demande que ceux qui grimpent dans son noyer pour voler des noix finissent prisonniers de l’arbre. 
Quand la Mort arrive pour chercher Miséria, il fait un pacte avec le diable, avec lequel il gagne 20 ans. Au bout de 20 ans, la Mort revient. A ce moment, Miséria lui demande un dernier souhait : qu’elle grimpe à l’arbre pour lui chercher une noix. Ainsi, la Mort devient prisonnière du noyer. Tant qu'elle est prisonnière de l'arbre, le soleil ne se couche plus, il n’y a plus de vent, les feuilles restent immobiles ; le monde s’est arrêté. Miséria finit pas libérer la Mort à condition qu’elle lui promette la vie éternelle. La Mort accepte, mais le prévient qu’il regrettera son souhait. La pièce finit avec le vieux forgeron qui travaille le fer, se plaignant de son sort : son arbre qui était la raison de son existence vient de mourir et il reste condamné à la vie éternelle.

Full-view manipulation

Adults

Portugal

Porto

Magalhães Álvaro

Electronic text

Death

Old age

Deal with the Devil

Desires

Human condition

Future punishment

Time

Immortality

Philosophical tale

Tragic

Comical

Dramatic

Miséria (Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, 1991)

Portuguese

Old man

Blacksmith

Devil

Saint Peter

Voice

Apparition of a Saint

Apparition of Death

Peasant accent

Change of voice

Smoke

Flying character

Music

Miséria

Misère

The Conteuse (female narrator), with the help of the Voix Off (voice over), narrates the story of the Roi de Panelange (King of Panelange) who loves to change clothes. One day, two Tisserands (weavers) offer to create a fabric that only intelligent people would be able to see. In return, they ask for as many gold coins as there are ants in the kingdom. The Tisserands work in the dark in a big barn, isolated from everyone, around a big loom. The Roi (King) sends his Prime Minister to check on their progress, but when he gets there, he is unable to see the fabric. He pretends otherwise to the Roi, so that he is not seen as “the First Imbecile of the Kingdom”. The Roi then sends his Cuisinier en chef (head chef), and another person to check on the Tisserands’ work. The fabric is invisible to their eyes, but they all pretend otherwise. The Roi himself goes to see the result of the Tisserands’ work, but the fabric is also invisible to his eyes. He pretends he is able to see it, so that he can seem intelligent in front of his court, and he announces that he will wear the fabric for the next procession. The day of the procession arrives, and he undresses and puts on the fabric created by the Tisserands. He awards them an honorary distinction, and starts parading the streets of the kingdom. The fabric remains invisible to the crowd, who only sees a man in his underpants. They all pretend they can see the fabric, except for a child who admits to not seeing anything. The crowd admits the same thing, and says that they can only see their king half naked. To not lose any of his authority, the discombobulated Roi continues to parade as if nothing had happened.