Hanswurst is thrown out like trash from the stage of the Berlin theatre following the success of Voltaire’s tragedy Alzire. He is exiled to Salzbourg, where he lodges at Stoffel Knips’ house and seduces his host’s wife. Stoffel Knips catches them in the act and throws them out. Hanswurst’s distress is such that he tries to kill himself. But thunder strikes the branch on which he was hanging. Two Turks pass by the unconscious couple and take them aboard their felucca going to Turkey. During the trip, Madame Knips gives birth to two children – a boy and a girl – who grow extremely fast. In Turkey, Hanswurst is castrated to be made a eunuch in the Sultan’s seraglio. Madame Knips fell in the sea with her son during the trip, but she manages to swim to shore. She competes with her daughter for the Sultan’s favours; Hanswurst takes offence and makes a scene. He is banished by the Sultan as a result, and returns to Berlin, where he meets a prostitute. He recognizes one of the brothel’s clients as his own son, who also escaped drowning and became a pedant professor of philosophy. During a lecture he gives on the German almanac Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, published by Friedrich Christoph Nicolai, all the characters on stage die from atrocious diarrhoea.

Not specified

Schink Johann Friedrich

Germany

Berlin

Printed

Turkey

Sultan

Seraglio

Unfaithfulness

Prostitution

Suicide

Education

Literary criticism

Sturm und Drang

Genie

Adventure

Navigation

Human castration

Mutilation

Childbirth

Storm

Tempest

Scatology

Colic

Fart

Fornication

Triviality

Obscenity

Satirical

Anonymous illustration on the title page of Johann Friedrich Schink's collection Marionettentheater

German

Hanswurst

Madame Knips

Turk

Sailor

Daughter

Physician

Slave

Lady

Old woman

Prompter (theatre)

Scene of recognition

Bawdy equivocation

Splitting of the body

Prologue

Address to the public

Love story

Hanging scene

Play in verse

Epilogue

Unexpected turn of events

Brothel scene

Foul language register

Allusion to current literary events

Hanswurst von Salzburg mit dem hölzernen Gat

Hanswurst of Salzbourg with the wooden arse

Doctor Sassafras is pleased to have a client as hypochondriac as Steinreich. This rich and selfish man forbids his niece Marie from continuing to see his secretary Schreiber, whom he dismisses. Steinreich envisions a more beneficial match for his niece. Doctor Sassafras makes a deal with the devil to summon Death. Schreiber then attempts suicide, but a gravedigger saves him, as Death is detained in Sassafras’ enchanted chair. The Devil realises that his pact with Sassafras is detrimental to him and breaks their contract. Death comes fetch the doctor, who turns to God and hopes for His mercy. In the meantime, Steinreich converted: he has become charitable and, most importantly, no longer opposes Marie and Schreiber’s union.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Munich

Medicine

Knödel

Usurpation

Drink

Surgery

Prestige

Wealth

Champagne

Misery

Forced marriage

Hypochondria

Vanity

Cemetery

Faust

Bible

Sentimentalism

Religion

Farcical

Comical

Pathetic

Burlesque

Title page in the original edition of Pocci's comedies

oder Doctor, Tod und Teufel

Doctor

Kasperl

Secretary

Death

Devil

Peasant

Domestic servant

Gravedigger

Apparition

Parody of formal language

Dialect as a social marker

Versified passages

Allegory

Light effects

Pact with the devil

Song

Monologue

Off-stage voice

Philosophical dialogue

Final wedding

Doctor Sassafras

A poet comes out of his bath to walk on a bridge and enjoy the sunset. A gardener walks past him and mentions the glorious life he gave up in order to cultivate flowers. A young man relates his day spent hunting alone. Then comes a stranger, and after him a girl who is listening to a traveling singer. Night has now fallen. A group of three people arrives on the bridge: a madman, his servant, and a doctor. The madman is a young nobleman who had a life of abundance before devoting himself to solitude and to roaming. He meditates on the illusion of all things while leaning on the bannister. He tries to throw himself in the water, but his comrades prevent him from doing so.

Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August

Austria

Bad Fusch

Bath

Evening

Landscape

Flowers

Loneliness

Glory

Hunting

Dream

River

Childhood

Night

Destiny

Melancholy

Madness

Illusion

Lyrical

Oder die Glücklichen

Gardener

Poet

Street singer

Fool

Teichoscopy

Das kleine Welttheater

The small theatre of the world

The play takes place on a island of dreams. Mère-Grand learns that Myrrhine has distanced herself from her five sisters to dream on her own by the sea. She worries about it, as this daydreaming can only carry the young woman off towards reality. Myrrhine confirms that the “bandeau d’illusion” (the blindfold of illusion) has indeed been lifted from her eyes, and that she no longer believes in fairytales, only in love: she loves the Chevalier Tavonin (Knight Tavonin) and believes that she is loved by him too. The Knight appears on a small boat with Aurore, his new lover, and rejects Myrrhine. In her despair, she calls on the Génie des Arbres (the Genie of the Trees) and the Fée des Mousses (the Moss Fairy), but they are powerless—they cannot console her now that she has lost her illusions. Myrrhine kills herself by jumping into the sea. Mère-Grand blames her death on the Knight, but he replies saying that he is Love incarnated and that all of Myrrhine’s sisters will suffer the same fate, as their eyes will eventually be opened too.

Belgium

Love

Reality

Belief

Island

Teenagers

Fairy

Plant world

Funeral procession

Tragic

Fantasy

French

Grandmother

Knight

Revelation

Le Bandeau d'illusion

The Blindfold of illusion

Smeraldina and Facanapa, two servants in love, argue because Facanapa is jealous when Smeraldina pays attention to her appearance. She tells him that she is doing this for him, and also to obtain tips that allow her to pay for certain things. Pantalone, Smeraldina’s employer, asks her if she intends to marry Facanapa (who is a genuinely good guy), so that his wife no longer suspects their relationship. Facanapa comes back and says that the cellar has been flooded because he opened the barrels. Pantalone kicks him, and, angry, decides that Smeraldina will marry the shopkeeper Arlecchino. Meanwhile, Arlecchino asks Tartaglia for his daughter Rosaura’s hand, but she wants to marry Florindo and so rejects his advances. A discomfited Arlecchino leaves and encounters Pantalone who offers for him to marry Smeraldina. Facanapa hides from Pantalone in a tree, and overhears the conversation. Smeraldina agrees to marry Arlecchino, and Facanapa, very angry, wants to hang himself. Smeraldina saves him; Pantalone agrees to their wedding and even provides a dowry. Once again, Arlecchino ends up without a wife.

All audiences

Italy

Wedding

Unrequited love

Il Matrimonio di Facanapa, ed. Chiopris, 1910.

Venetian

Pantaloon

Servant

Young man

Waitress

Young woman

Father

Arlecchino

Shopkeeper

Kicking

Spying scene

Love rivalry

Failed suicide

Il matrimonio di Facanapa

Facanapa's wedding

Clara, a young teenage girl, has killed herself. The day after, the Arpenteur (surveyor) questions several of her relatives to try and understand the circumstances of her death. Whilst he looks for the reasons that led to this act, he also tries to grasp the reasons that motivate him to live. Each of Clara’s relatives describe memories of her and provide contradictory stories of her last moments. Dylan, her boyfriend, admits he felt that she had no desire to live. From the hereafter, Clara observes the same feeling in others. She hears the song that Dylan hums for her and tries to call for him, but to he can’t see her. Adrien, Pierre, and Sylvain, whose job is to start fires, say that they saw Clara with the Passeur (the ferryman). In a flashback, we can see Clara asking the Passeur to choose how she is going to die. A chorus of naiads then describes how she drowned in the river. The Arpenteur asks the Passeur to bring Clara back from the dead. The Arpenteur solves a riddle, and the Passeur allows Clara’s relatives to see her one last time. Clara appears and sees how they all suffer, but she assures them that she is happier dead than alive.

France

Paris

Mysterious death

Remembrance

Grief

Quest

Afterlife

Lust

fleuve

Philosophical tale

Fantastic

Éloi Recoing, Un instant suicidaire, Théâtre aux Mains Nues, 2008