Mrs Kasperl comes to ask her husband for money when Kasperl finds a cook to whom he has promised to marry her and who has just brought him a sausage and some wine. The two women argue with Kasperl and start fighting. Kasperl knocks them both out and locks them in a chest. Alerted by the noise, the night watchman comes to question him. Kasperl explains to him that the two women had a quarrel over some plums inside the chest, offers some to the watchman and closes the lid on the unfortunate man who has put his head in it. Then he leaves, announcing that he will throw the chest into the water...

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Reinhardt Carl

Germany

Munich

Printed

Sausage

Wine

Woman

Shrew

Couple

Household

Married life

Kitchen

Glutton

Plums

Quarrel

Unfaithfulness

Comical

Farcical

Satirical

Grotesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Night watchman

Blow-with-a-stick

Argument

Domestic scene

Frau Kasperl und die Köchin

Mrs Kasperl and the cook

After having locked the devil up in a box (in <a href="https://puppetplays.eu/en/oeuvres/5840/kasperl-und-der-teufel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kasperl und der Teufel</a>), Kasperl wants to throw him in the water. Suddenly, it is his wife who emerges from the box… and who starts to slap him many times to take revenge, for he wanted to get rid of her (<a href="https://puppetplays.eu/en/oeuvres/5777/frau-kasperl-und-die-k%C3%B6chin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frau Kasperl und die Köchin</a>)! Kasperl ends up throwing both his wife and the box out of the glove-puppet booth, and then goes to the inn. On the way, he encounters a curious animal peeping at him; he pets the animal, which bites him. He fetches a sausage to feed the animal, but decides to eat it and gives the skin of the sausage to the animal. The animal catches Kasperl’s arm with its maw, then catches him by the back of his pants… Kasperl goes to get his stick, which the animal tries to steal from him; the animal gets beaten and runs away, followed by Kasperl who wants to knock it out.

Animal

Beast

Stick

Mace

Devil

Nightingale

Crocodile

Tavern

Jaws

Hunger

Tralala

Hits

Radirullala

Carl Reinhardt, Das geheimnisvolle Tier, 1852.

Chase

Slaps

Das geheimnisvolle Tier

The mysterious animal

Guignol – Vincent’s servant – has lost his wife Madelon, who ate a melon and died of food poisoning. Vincent plans on having him marry Louison – Gnafron’s daughter – so that his two servants are bound to one another. But Guignol deeply misses his wife, with whom he was always quarreling. He leaves his master’s house with the intention of going down to the Underworld to get her back. However, Gnafron finds Guignol sitting in a wine shop. After an enjoyable meal, they go back to their master. As the marriage settlement is being drafted, Louison is delighted to have finally found a husband. She pushes Guignol in front of her with a hairpin and promises him that she will be as mean as his first wife. But Guignol manages to escape before the contract is signed: Gnafron and Louison chase after him, while Vincent decides to sit at a table to eat with his neighbour Durand.
Guignol is exhausted while looking for Madelon. He falls asleep and sees the Génie of goodness, who presents him in his dream with an image of his wife accompanied by an imp. When he wakes up, Guignol summons the Génie, who warns him about the dangers that await. He also describes the five rivers of the Underworld. But Guignol is a proud man from Lyon: he knows how to swim, and he is not scared! Before Charon lets him on his rowboat for free (Guignol promises that with such prices he will be a most loyal client), he warns the hero that Madelon is Proserpine (Proserpina)’s companion, and Proserpine might not give her back to him. Guignol insists and repeats that he is not afraid of Cerbère (Cerberus). In fact, he means to coax its seven heads with bread and cheese. When he meets Pluton (Pluto), Guignol asks for his wife to be given back to him. The king of the Underworld remembers that the man appealing to him is protected by the Génie of goodness and thus summons his wife. Proserpine refuses to let Madelon go—she clings on to her as to her meanest companion. Then she yields, on condition that the wife consents to it. Madelon arrives, hits her husband and hurls insults at him. But Guignol provides good arguments: he has just come into an inheritance of sugar, coffee, eau de vie and absinthe… After thinking it over for a few minutes, Madelon agrees to follow him, on the flying dragon that Pluton lends Guignol to take them back up to the surface. Before they leave, the king of the Underworld promises to organise a feast for them. They are delighted about the idea, but the flames of the Underworld force them to flee before they can taste anything.

Manuscript

Wedding

Descent into hell

Resurrection

Boat trip

Burlesque

Mock-heroic

La Descente de Guignol aux Enfers (cover page)

French

Notary

Rentier

Guignol

Domestic servant

Gnafron

Concierge

Young woman

Genie

Pluto

Proserpina

Charon

Popular speech

Dinner scene

Dream

Apparition of a genius

Avista

Flying machine

La Descente de Guignol aux Enfers

Guignol's Trip to the Underworld

The play is set in Orleans in 1867. Madame Pétenvert (a widow) and Mademoiselle Euphémie are accommodating two captains – Vachard and Chiclair – for three months. They quickly fall in love with their guests and would like to marry them. However, the two captains take advantage of the situation and spend their time talking, in a light-hearted manner, about politics, the army and, at the same, about women, billiards and their love of good food. One day, they are invited to dinner at the colonel’s house. The dinner ends with the two captains being drunk and getting the landladies’ houses mixed up. Thus, the two men being sick, captain Vachard spends the night with Mademoiselle Euphémie while captain Chiclair sleeps with Mademoiselle Pétenvert. The following day, after leaving the houses, they both accuse each other of having disrespected them, because of the state of their slippers and of the beds. However, this conversation about honour ends up being a commentary on the night they have just spent with the two women. The captains accuse the colonel of having treated them “too well” and the latter, in response, orders them to go back to their respective landladies and to marry them.

Maurice Sand (Maurice Sand)

France

Nohant

Politics

Army

Soldier

Dinner

Entertainment

Eugène Lambert, George Sand, Maurice Sand : marionette de Madame Pétenvert.

La Garnison d’Orléans, Les Deux Capitaines.

Captain

Colonel

Waiter

Widow

Host

Servant

Allusion to current political events

Comedy of language

Situation comedy

Nous dînons chez le colonel

We are dining at the colonel's

The bishop Simplicius invites Chrysogonus, the nephew of the governor of Patras, for lunch. A gorgeous young woman, Luce, appears to him and asks for his protection: she has vowed to remain a virgin and fled from her father, who wanted to force her to marry. She is alone for a short while, and she reveals that she is Lucifer. Simplicius is flustered: he invites Luce to have lunch with them, and falls in love with her. He appeals to the apostle saint André (Saint Andrew) to stop him from giving in to temptation. Le Pauvre (Poor Man) appears and asks to have lunch with them. Luce agrees to let him, if he can answer three riddles. Le Pauvre answers and reveals that she is Lucifer, and that he is Saint André. While Lucifer disappears in Hell, Saint André sits down to eat with Simplicius and Chrysogonus.