Casperl is evicted by his landlord and starts looking for a job. He is employed by professor and explorer Gerstenzucker, as…a monkey! Indeed, the professor’s monkey, Schimpanse, has just died. He was trying to teach him human culture to prove that man and monkey are related. But Casperl is ill-behaved. He poses as Gerstenzucker and treats one of his female visitors with extreme uncouthness. Then he fights the professor, wreaks havoc on the inn and sows discord in town. Everyone ends up at the police station, where the fake monkey is exposed. As other characters try to throw him behind bars, Casperl knocks everyone unconscious and, at the end of the play, goes drinking to celebrate the final victory of Darwinism.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

End of the month

Household

Women's condition

Philosophy

Poverty

Natural sciences

Monkey

Darwinism

Culture

Job seeking

Woman author

Animal savant

Tavern

Savage

Animal instinct

Comical

Satirical

Farcical

Illustration on the title page of the 1875 edition

German

Intermezzo in einem Aufzug

Teacher

Kasperl

Mrs Kasperl

Mayor

Magistrato

Landlord

Court usher

Domestic scene

Brawl

Comic equivocation

Disguise

Parody of formal language

Off-stage voice

Schimpanse, der Darwinaffe

Chimpanzee, the Darwinian monkey

In an atmosphere recreating the Soviet Union in the 1970s, two actors greet the audience in Russian. They are wearing blond wigs and handing out tickets made of tissues. An old record player, a table with an ancient television covered with a crocheted doily and small china dogs, among other objects, form a kitschy setting. The paper figures show a nose coming off the face of author Nikolai Gogol and going into a bottle of port wine on the table, next to a turtle with Marine Le Pen’s face. Then Theresa May flies across space aboard a T-Rex. Vladimir Putin is turned into a zebra in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body, with Sacha Baron Cohen’s legs (Borat). He will then appear in a two-headed heart alongside Donald Trump. Finally, Jacques Prévert’s and Luís de Camões’s lines are recited and accompanied by an unusual and varied soundtrack (Iggy Pop, Serge Gainsbourg, Juliette Gréco, Yves Montand).

Toy theatre

Object theatre

All audiences

Portugal

Lisbon

Storyboard

Politics

Social criticism

Nose

Music

Kitsch

Collage

Absurd

Este não é o nariz de Gogol mas podia ser... com um toque de Jacques Prévert (Compagnie A Tarumba, 2016)

Portuguese

Nikolai Gogol

Writer

Barber

Major

Part of human body

Sphinx

Politician

Vladimir Putin

Donald Trump

Marine Le Pen

Boris Johnson

Theresa May

Jacques Prévert

Luís Vaz de Camões

Singer (female)

Juliette Gréco

Singer

Yves Montand

Serge Gainsbourg

Iggy Pop

Football player

Cristiano Ronaldo

Barack Obama

Grupo de narizes bailarinos de São Petersburgo

Dancer

Address to the public

Inserting poetry

Comical foreign accent

Allusion to current political events

Caricature

Este não é o nariz de Gogol mas podia ser... com um toque de Jacques Prévert

This is not Gogol’s nose but it could be… in Jacques Prévert’s style