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

Adultery

Kitchen

Voracity

Plums

Quarrel

Infidelity

Comical

Farce

Satirical

Grotesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Veilleur

Blow-with-a-stick

Argument

Domestic scene

Frau Kasperl und die Köchin

Mrs Kasperl and the cook

Kasperl leaves for America on a boat, but is swallowed by a whale that spits him out on an island inhabited by cannibals. They salt him and smear him in whale fat. Attracted by the smell of fat, an eagle kidnaps Kasperl on the verge of being eaten and takes him back to Europe. Kasperl manages to escape and meets a horseman who takes him back to his family. The play ends as a prologue with an invitation to take a seat in front of the puppet theatre for the start of the main performance.

Shadow theatre

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Boat

Navigation

Sea scene

America

Shipwreck

Fish

Leviathan

Unknown land

Island

Beer

Thirst

Hunger

Cannibalism

Savage

Kidnapping

Horse

Family

Marvelous

Baleine

Cannibale

Eagle

Cavalier

Enfant

Monologue

Play in verse

Chorus

Sung scenes

Macaronism

Unexpected turn of events

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Kasperl among the anthropophagi

Martin, a woodcutter, frees a fairy from an oak tree she has been trapped in for 500 years. The fairy gives him a ring that allows him to fulfil three wishes. Martin confides the secret to his wife Margreth, who tells Casperl, their neighbour. While Martin goes to ask the mayor and the priest for advice, Margreth, in conversation with Casperl, takes it upon herself to wish for a plate of sausages, even though she has the ring on her finger: her wish is immediately fulfilled. Seeing this, Martin retrieves the ring and, in his anger, vows that his wife will have sausages hanging from her nose. The wish comes true and the two men are no longer able to amputate Margreth's sausage appendages: all they can do is wish them away, and the gift of the three wishes is wasted.

String marionette

Poverty

Spell

Dwarf

Ring

Secret

Hypocrisy

Lust

Burlesque

Humorous

Fée

Bûcheron

Song

Off-stage voices

Metatheatre

Appearance

Metamorphosis

Die drei Wünsche

The three wishes

Surprised by a downpour, Prince Alfred and his companion von Edelfels take refuge in Casperl’s household while Grethl waits for her husband to return from the inn. Casperl arrives in a very drunken state and immediately falls asleep. The prince, who had retired with von Edelfels to a nearby hovel, has an idea for a joke. He has the sleeping Casperl taken to a luxurious room, where he is treated with full honours. Soon Casperl does not know whether he is Casperl or Prince Schnuri... Pretending to be his doctor, Prince Alfred gives him a sleeping pill, and Casperl wakes up a few hours later in his old room. Von Edelfels, disguised as a magician, assures him that he is indeed Prince Schnuri, but that as a punishment for being a drunkard he has been turnt into a ‘dumb man’. Casperl finds Grethl and promises to make amends, all while announcing that he will drink many more litres of beer.

Excessive drinking

Rain

Incognito

Joke

Aristocracy

Luxury

Metempsychosis

Black

Doctor

Magician

Political news

Otto von Bismarck

Tavern

Moralische Komödie in drei Aufzügen

Prince

Maure

Valet

Spying scene

Parody of formal language

Word for another

Disguise

Transvestite

Brawl

Pyrotechnics

Board

Casperl als Prinz

Casperl prince

The poet meets Kasperl in the street. He proposes to him to attend his puppet theatre, leaving him alone in front of the puppet booth. The first character to emerge is Hanswurst, but he fails to amuse Kasperl, who kills him by hitting him with a stick. Next, an allegory portraying Art enters the stage and offers him fruits. Kasperl does not find them to his liking and spills the garbage can on the poor woman's head. Finally, Death comes for him, and Kasperl knocks his head off with a stick. The furious poet returns to chastise him, but Kasperl has had enough and beats him to death.

Blümel Otto

Poetry

Gluttony

Bavaria

Radish

Beauty

Symbolism

Stefan George

Parodistic

Poète

Hanswurst

Arts

La Mort

Versified passages

Comical regional accent

Dialogue of the deaf

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Murder on stage

Allegory

Der Dichter

The poet

Don Juan overhears a conversation between Amarillis and Don Philippo, who agree to a romantic rendezvous. He sets out to kidnap Amarillis, when her father, Don Pietro, appears. Don Juan stabs him, and then robs his relative Don Alvaro Pantolfius, before fleeing Seville with his servant Schängche. The latter, tormented by a devil, is carried into the air on a giant sausage. After a shipwreck in which Schängche is swallowed and then spat out by a whale, the two fugitives wander through the woods. They meet a hermit, who, under threat, lends Don Juan a suit to disguise himself. Lost in the forest, Amarillis meets Schängche's fiancée, the innkeeper Greta de la Rosa. Don Juan finds the two women and tries to seduce them, but Don Philippo finds him in the meantime. Don Juan murders him. Schängche still has to fight a monster they meet in the forest. They arrive by chance at Greta's inn, where Don Juan seduces the bride of a wedding that has just taken place. At the cemetery, he invites the statue of Don Pietro to supper, who accepts his invitation. But Don Juan refuses to repent and is damned. Schängche, on the other hand, marries Greta.