Polichinelle tells his Compère (Companion) that he has come into a private income and wishes to host a ball, but Compère explains that this income will barely be enough to buy a candle. A Turk arrives and gives sumptuous Grand Turk clothes to Polichinelle as well as the key to his seraglio. Polichinelle joins the women of the seraglio, his Compère sings a song and the play ends with a group of shepherds and shepherdesses dancing.

Rod and string marionette

Not specified

France

Paris

Manuscript

Enrichment

Foreigner

Ball

Money

Seraglio

Ballet

Comical

French

Polichinelle

The Interpreter

Turk

Sheperherdess

Change of social status

Final song

Dialogue with a character in the audience

Polichinelle Grand-Turc

Polichinelle Grand Turk

At the Foire Saint-Laurent, Polichinelle is conversing with a Poète (Poet), Monsieur de la Rimaille (Mister of the Doggerel), about how low the pay for writers is. A Chanteuse (Female singer) offers to join Polichinelle’s troupe, but she changes her mind when she learns that singers are hidden behind a piece of cloth in puppet theatres. A Marchand (Merchant) is looking for his wife, who is being unfaithful to him with a shop boy; a Petite Fille (Young Girl) is looking for her mother, who left her for a young man; this young girl herself goes to see a “petit jeune homme” (a little young man) whom she is acquainted with. Gros Thomas (Fat Thomas), a famous barker and tooth puller, arrives.

Printed summary

Playwright

Unfaithfulness

Love

Precocity

Barker

Les Aventures de la Foire Saint-Laurent, manuscript of the play.

Poet

Singer (female)

Merchant (man)

Young girl

Gros Thomas

Play with drawers

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Aria

Les Aventures de la Foire Saint-Laurent

Adventures in the Foire Saint-Laurent

Catarina, a matchmaker, tells Zeferino, a barber, that the young Filomena would like to marry him. Zeferino is delighted and rewards the matchmaker with one hundred escudos to buy snuff. Filomena, singing, comes in to deliver bread. Zeferino confesses his love for her and promises to marry her and to never beat her. They both sing and dance. Zeferino wants to take advantage of Filomena’s charms and announces that she will have to work after her wedding, contrary to her hopes. He takes a stick and beats her. She runs away, and Zeferino tells the audience that other young women could suffer the same fate.

Single rod marionettes

Adults

Portugal

Borba

Évora

Printed

Wedding

Deception

Women's condition

Matchmaker

Erotic

Portuguese

Seduction scene

Erotic scene

Blow-with-a-stick

Filomena e Zeferino

Rugantino lives in a shabby attic room. He has no money left, his wife Rosetta is sick and their children are hungry. The landowner comes to their place and asks them to pay the rent. Rugantino tries to move him to pity by showing the state to which his family and him have been reduced. The landowner shows them the order to seize their property, then, moved by Rugantino’s children who cling to his clothes, he lets himself be touched: he extends Rugantino’s delay to pay by a quarter of an hour.

Glove-puppet

Santangelo Gaetano (aka Ghetanaccio)

Italy

Rome

Printed excerpts

Debt

Rent

Poverty

Cruelty

Satirical

Romanesco

Rugantino

Rosetta

Landlord

Child

Dramatic irony

[Rugantino e l'affitto]

Rugantino and the rent

Pulcinella is desperate because he owes thirty crowns to his landlord for rent. Rugantino offers to lend them to him, since he has this exact sum in his house. He goes fetch the money and, when he comes back, says that his wife has spent half of it, but that he can still lend him the remaining fifteen crowns. Pulcinella agrees. Rugantino goes back home, then comes back and says that his wife has just spent another thirteen crowns and that he only has two left. Pulcinella accepts them still. Rugantino goes fetch them and, when he comes back, says that he owes three crowns to the collier: he then asks Pulcinella if he can lend him the missing crown.

Pulcinella

Running gag

[Rugantino e i trenta scudi]

Rugantino and the thirty crowns

Cassandro, a merchant of about fifty years old, is in need of money: he has finally decided to marry, partly to benefit from his wife’s dowry. He must go from Rome to Albano for this wedding with a woman whom he does not know. He leaves with Rocco, his apprentice, on a donkey. On the way, Cassandro stops at a famous inn in which many Romans meet, eat, drink and sing some sorts of stornelli in verse. Cassandro and Rocco then set out again to meet the bride. A storm breaks out during the trip: the donkey stumbles, Cassandro falls, and Rocco and the innkeeper who has come to help him both think that he is dead. While the two men are busy taking care of the donkey, Cassandro comes round; but he pretends to be dead to see what will happen. The fiancée arrives with her brother and mother. They also believe that Cassandro is dead, but they need to pretend that he is alive to make him sign the marriage agreement and take his money. Thus, they drag the so-called corpse and arrange it so that it can be at the wedding and stand before the notary, whose sight is bad. They change the contract so that the two parties can fully enjoy the other’s possessions. However, Cassandro “comes back to life” when it is time to sign it. The wedding still happens: although the young bride is blind in one eye and not pretty, Cassandro reaps economic benefits from it and the bride’s parents must make the best of it. The friends from the inn join in the celebration.

All audiences

Giraud Giovanni

Journey

Death

Contract

Giovanni Giraud, Opere edite e inedite, 1842.

Italian

Shopkeeper

Fiancé

Cassandre

Sister

Apprentice

Fiancée

Mother

Brother

Notary

Innkeeper

Coachman

Inn scene

Letter

Song

Music

Fall of a character

Fake death

Il viaggio sull'asino di Cassandro sposo

The trip on the donkey of Cassandro, husband

Pulcinella and Rosetta are husband and wife; they quarrel about love and money. Rosetta then meets a man of a certain age, Cassandrino; he tries to seduce her while she thinks he only wants to take her on for a sewing job. Cassandrino mistakes Pulcinella for Rosetta’s father and asks him if he can marry her. Pulcinella plays along with the situation and makes a fool of him by always talking about his daughter Malvinuccia, who is four years old, instead of Rosetta; indeed, Cassandrino does not know the name of the woman to whom he just spoke. Pulcinella settles on a very high price for the sewing job and agrees to let Cassandrino marry his daughter in return. Pulcinella is thrilled at having duped the old man and relates the story to his brother-in-law Rugantino. The latter takes the matter into his own hands: he asks Cassandrino to make a written commitment and begins to negotiate with him. Cassandrino wants to know how long all of this will take, because he is in a hurry and wants to atone for a failed marriage at the end of which his future wife left with a friend. After making repeated threats, Rugantino manages to turn down all his demands; he even gets money to buy a drink. Rugantino calls Pulcinella, who is sleeping, and tells him that the agreement is ready. However, Cassandro wants to see his fiancée Malvinuccia. Pulcinella then calls the children and the young Malvinuccia greets Cassandro merrily, as though he were her grandfather. The man says that there has been a misunderstanding and that he wants Rosetta. Thus, they go fetch her while she is nursing another child. She arrives and the misunderstanding is cleared: she is already Pulcinella’s wife. Rugantino still demands that the contract be honoured. They therefore decide that Cassandro will pay for dinner and wine for everyone, and the latter asks that they all go to Zagarolo (a village near Rome) to relate all that has happened and turn it into a theatre play.

Giovanni Giraud, Opere edite ed inedite, 1841

Old man

Cassandrino

Husband

Wife

Argument

Misunderstanding

Situation comedy

Naive character deceived

Malvinuccia ossia La bambina di quattro anni

Malvinuccia, or the four-year-old girl

Don Juan has asked his servant Kasperl to sell his last shirt and coat, but Kasperl has spent the money from the sale on beers. He sends him to borrow money from his father, the knight Pantolfius. When Pantolfius refuses, Don Juan himself comes to ask him to comply, but in vain, and Kasperl kicks him in the nose. To find money, Kasperl then has the idea of summoning the devil, but when Don Juan wants to sell him his soul, he replies that it already belongs to him and takes it to hell.

Reinhardt Carl

Germany

Munich

Tralala

Excessive drinking

Drunkard

Drinking

Credit

Father

Perlike

Hits

Radirullala

Devil

Eternal punishment

Parodistic

Grotesque

Farcical

German

Don Juan

Pantolfius

Kasperl

Final intervention of the devil

Spectacular turn of events

Pact with the devil

Kasperl und Don Juan

Kasperl and Don Juan

A wealthy baker chef asks his cousin the apothecary to help him poison Pierrot, who is constantly robbing and assaulting him. When this plan fails, he sends his dog after the thief, but Pierrot kills the dog. Knowing that Pierrot has always wanted to learn pastry-making, the baker pretends to take him on as an apprentice to get revenge. But Pierrot plays many tricks. The gendarme, who has come to arrest him, is swindled, then hanged in the villain's place. Pierrot kills the baker and the apothecary, as a worthy disciple of Polichinelle.

Duranty Louis Émile Edmond

Pastry

Theft

Wickedness

Poison

Learning

Revenge

Criminal

Perseverance in Evil

Cruelty to an animal

Pierrot

Pastry chef

Apothecary

Constable

Headbutt

Fight with an animal

Lazzi

Back Stroke

Hanging scene

Pierrot et le pâtissier

Pierrot and the baker

Fleeing his wife, Polichinelle steals a charlatan's cabriolet with Pierrot. First he wins the trust of the population with free advice, then he launches a subscription for a phantom financial company. When the shareholders demand their money, he sends them away with good words and blows, until the Public itself comes to threaten him directly. Mrs. Polichinelle offers to take care of the punishment. Terrified, Polichinelle flees into the forest. Abandoned by Pierrot, he walks to Hell. There, he tries to swindle Death and stands up to the Devil who, in desperation, goes looking for Mrs. Polichinelle. She brings her husband home firmly, with the approval of the audience.