Blind Woman is lying on her bed, which is on top of her house, and narrating her unsuccessful love stories to Doctor Fell. Her tale lasts for a few days. It ends when the curtain falls and a Marionette comes to announce that the Theatre Director found a way to make her stop her storytelling by gifting her a ring which grants one wish. Blind Woman declares to Doctor Fell that she wants revenge on Jupiter. Thanks to the ring, she turns into a Sphinx to force Jupiter to surrender to her power by asking him riddles. She asks Doctor Fell to dress up as a nanny. Jupiter is sailing at sea, dressed as a ship’s captain. He receives a call from Mama Ops, his mother, who wishes him to meet a smart woman and lets him know that she revealed his location to Blind Woman. Jupiter is distraught and reaches the boat of Blind Boy, Cockatrice, and Columbus, who also decide to dress up to mislead Blind Woman. The latter awaits Jupiter on a dock, under the guise of a Sphinx. She is persuaded that he disguised himself as a woman to get away from her. Jupiter, as a captain, lands with Blind-Boy, Cockatrice, and Columbus, who cross-dress as the Three Graces. Blind Woman, who thinks Cockatrice to be Jupiter, asks him a riddle and snatches his veil. Cockatrice appears, wearing a nightgown and makeup as a lady. Blind Woman faints into Doctor Fell’s arms while the others take this opportunity to get back on the ship and flee. 
When she comes to her senses, she meets a Watchman and tries to trick him with a riddle as well, while the curtain falls.

String marionette

Not specified

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Marina di Pisa

Printed

Latin Mythology

Mother

Seduction

Sphinx

Riddle

Boat

Adventure

Comical

Satirical

Fantasy

English

Blind

Physician

Puppet

Jupiter (Jove)

Cybele

Rhea

Blind Boy

Cockatrice

Basilic

Parrot

Columbus

Sailor

Mayor

City councillor

Night watchman

Ellipsis

Lowering the curtain during action

Address to the public

Metamorphosis

Boat mounted on wheels

Talking on the phone

Off-stage voice

Scene of recognition

Disguised character (false identity)

Cross-dressing

Comic speech

Instrumental tune

Anachronism

Jupiter & the Sphinx

Jupiter et le Sphinx

While the Father of a rich, bourgeois family is dying at the hospital, his house is being burgled. Pascaline, his help (who has become his wife since he became a widower) laments, but her daughter Sarah is delighted to be relieved of the burden of the memories attached to the objects. A Young Man (the Father’s son) happens to come back that very day after seven years of unexplained absence. Freddy, a young and attractive rogue, arrives the same day to ask his mother Pascaline to give him an explanation for the identity of his father and for the reasons that have led her to abandon him. Pascaline, who behaves like a mother towards the Young Man, rejects Freddy. We learn that she survived the Shoah when she was a child. She pretends to ignore who Freddy’s real father is and she also claims that, after denying her pregnancy, she entrusted her to her sister, who raised him without love in a poor suburb. An alcoholic and a very unstable person, she sees Nazis coming out of the walls, unless that it is Freddy who is manipulating her so that she tells him the truth. Later, Pascaline, drunk, confesses to Freddy we was born out of a short-lived relationship she had with a Maghrebin jazz musician who died during the Algerian War. She ends up accepting his son as a gift from God. Freddy’s attractiveness and the ambiguity of his behaviour reveal both the Young Man’s homosexual desire and Sarah’s need for love, as she was a prisoner of an unconditional love for her own brother, and therefore rejected any kind of sexual intimacy. The Young Man encourages his sister to find happiness with Freddy while he, knowing that she is happy, will be able to transition into the woman he realized he wants to be. The phone rings and the death of the Father is announced. Pascaline goes off to discover the world, encouraging Freddy and Sarah to build a fulfilling life as a couple in the house.