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

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.

Glove-puppet

Santangelo Gaetano (aka Ghetanaccio)

Italy

Rome

Printed excerpts

Rent

Debt

Romanesco

Rugantino

Pulcinella

Running gag

[Rugantino e i trenta scudi]

Rugantino and the thirty crowns

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.

Poverty

Cruelty

Satirical

Rosetta

Landlord

Child

Dramatic irony

[Rugantino e l'affitto]

Rugantino and the rent

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

Perlicke

Hits

Radirullala

Devil

Future punishment

Parodistic

Grotesque

Farcical

German

Don Juan

Pantolfius

Kasperl

Final intervention of the devil

Spectacular turn of events

Song

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.

All audiences

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

Bored, Polichinelle wants to have fun. Pierrot suggests for him to open a theatre, but Polichinelle is penniless. Against the promise of a nice meal, Pierrot takes care of finding the needed money. He makes the Commissaire (Superintendent) and the Gendarme (Constable) believe that Cassandre’s bag of écus is the one that was stolen from him. His trick works, and Pierrot brings the money to Polichinelle who thanks him by beating him with his stick. In his troupe, Polichinelle hires everyone he encounters: they all have a specific talent. This is how Polichinelle’s theatre unveils before our eyes. Being a good director, he calls for the kindness of the audience.

Desnoyers Fernand

Theatre

Boredom

Actor

Alphonse Legros, engraving for Fernand Desnoyers' Le Théâtre de Polichinelle, 1861

Prologue en vers pour l'ouverture du Théâtre de marionnettes dans le jardin des Tuileries

Cassandre

Police Superintendant

Mother Gigogne

Magician

Death

Arlecchino

Colombine

Fairy

Address to the public

Captatio benevolentiae

Le Théâtre de Polichinelle

Polichinelle's Theatre

Catalysterium, a fake doctor, breaks into the Niflanguille's house and diagnoses the couple and their servant with a supposedly fatal disease. He asks them to stay in bed, eats their food and prescribes very expensive medicines (in fact water) to rob them. Mr. Niflanguille finds out about the scam and gets his money back. Cataclysterium is beaten by the Niflanguille and their servant and forced to take an oath to give up medicine forever.

False doctor

Medicine

Illness

Health

Medicines

Swindler

Punishment

Syringe

Physician

Domestic servant

Chase

Les Drogues de Cataclysterium

Cataclysterium's Drugs

The rich Niflanguille goes to buy a bag of coal. He comes across the hungry Pierrot, who asks for his help in vain. The coalman cheats Niflanguille out of the weight of the bag. Pierrot hides in the bag and beats up the coalman, Niflanguille and the servant. Back home, Niflanguille looks for a sword to pierce the recalcitrant bag, but Pierrot gets it out in time and forces the servant to take his place. While Niflanguille pierces the bag and his servant with it, Pierrot runs away with a bag of money. A Gendarme wants to hang Niflanguille for murder, Pierrot for theft and the coalman for swindling. Pierrot kills the Gendarme and puts him in the sack, which he throws away, while Niflanguille flees through the window. Pierrot kills the coalman to avoid sharing the money, then orders wine which he pays for by beating the innkeeper with a stick. The Commissaire arrives with Niflanguille; he hangs Pierrot, but confiscates the money to punish the bad rich man.