Jan Klaassen announces to the audience that he has just married Katrijn and talks vulgarly about her. When she arrives, he beats her and continues insulting her. Kleine Ko (a puppet with a very long and expandable neck) arrives on stage dancing, his back to the audience. Jan Klaassen calls out to him, but Kleine Ko shakes his head at every question to answer “no”. His neck expands until it reaches the ceiling, while Jan Klaassen tries to pull him downwards, but Ko disappears. Jan Klaassen calls Katrijn to get a suit out of his suitcase because it is his birthday. Katrijn initially refuses, but Jan insists, and when she opens the case, he pushes her inside it and locks her in. Jan Klaassen tries to sell the suitcase to a merchant. When the latter opens it, Katrijn grabs him, and Jan pushes them both inside. He leaves singing. Jan Klaassen is about to become a soldier. A general arrives and tries to train him in weaponry, but Jan Klaassen plays tricks on him. The general is offended and challenges Jan to a duel. They both fight, using guns as swords. Jan Klaassen deceives the general, kills him and calls the undertakers to bury him. They have a difficult time putting the general in the coffin, but they finally manage it and leave singing. An executioner is setting up the gallows. Jan Klaassen asks the public whether he should be hanged there. When the executioner comes back to hang him, Jan Klaassen pretends not to know where to put his head and asks the executioner to show him. Jan Klaassen takes advantage of the situation and hangs the executioner instead.

Glove-puppet

Marotte

Not specified

Netherlands

Amsterdam

Printed

Swearing

Wedding

Trunk

Trap

Duel

Cunning

Farcical

Comical

Janus Cabalt, Jan Klaassen en Katrijn, screenshot from a 1929 anonymous amateur film.

Dutch

Jan Klaassen

Katrijn

Merchant (man)

General

Gravedigger

Executioner

Dialogue with the audience

Nervous breakdown

Confinement

Blow-with-a-stick

Lengthening of a character

Hanging scene

[Jan Klaassen en Katrijn]

Jan Klaassen and Katrijn

After paladins Bradamante and Ruggiero get married, Emperor Carlo Magno holds a celebration. But the treacherous paladin Gano hatches a plot to turn the feast into violence and chaos. He plays dice with Rinaldo, who has already won a lot thanks to the money he borrowed from Orlando. Rinaldo wins, but Gano accuses him of cheating. A fight between Gano’s accomplices from Mainz and the other paladins erupts. Rinaldo is about to kill Gano when Carlo Magno arrives. The latter asks Orlando to arrest Rinaldo for not complying with his sovereign’s order. However, Orlando believes that Rinaldo is innocent and lets him escape. When Carlo slaps Orlando as a punishment, Orlando leaves, swearing that he will never protect his king ever again. Husband-and-wife and paladins Carinda and Cladinoro wish to live a restful life after long years of battles and hardships. However, Cladinoro has a bad feeling. A messenger arrives and informs them that King Attamante besieged Soldanella and that he will only spare his life if he leaves the city. Cladinoro refuses to yield and his son Candellino throws the messenger out. In the meantime, Orlando makes his way to pagan lands. There, he meets Antiforo di Barosia, who commands him to give him his arms. They pick a fight, and Antiforo dies. Orlando cuts his head off and switches clothes with his dead opponent’s. He can thus pretend to be dead so he can take on Antiforo’s identity and fight Carlo. Malgigi, a paladin and a magician, helps him and makes the mark that all members of the French royal family wear appear on the dead man’s shoulder. In Soldanella, King Attamante is furious with the response given to his messenger. The two armies clash in battle, and Attamante and Cladinoro fight until nightfall. In his royal palace, Carlo Magno, full of sorrow after he offended his nephew Orlando, learns that he is dead. The king and all the paladins of France mourn the death of Orlando while Gano secretly rejoices. Aldabella recognizes Orlando thanks to the mark he wears on his right shoulder. She grieves for her late husband, and curses and condemns Carlo. Meanwhile, in Soldanella, the fight between Attamante and Cladinoro resumes. Attamante loses, and his men attack Cladinoro, as agreed before the duel. Cladinoro vanquishes them all and kills Attamante.

Rod and string marionette

Armed rod marionette

Italy

Naples

Manuscript

Honour

Love

Grief

Seat

Treason

Dice game

Party

Cycle of performances

Epic

Italian

Paladin

Orlando

Paladin (female)

Bradamante

Marfisia

Knight

Moorish

Saracen

Roger

Renaud de Montauban

Charlemagne (King)

Traitor

Ganelon

Oliver

Ogier the Dane

Gandellino

Messenger

Warrior

Sorcerer

Wife

Widow

Aldabella

Shouts of acclamation in several voices

Aside

Crowd

Sword fight

Murder on stage

Slaps

Character thrown out of the scene

Disguised character (false identity)

Orlando e Rinaldo Parte prima Antiforo di Barosia

Orlando et Rinaldo first instalment Antiforo di Barosia

The knight Fichtou arrives on stage breathless: he hit an old man in the forest and his horse died by accident. He says goodbye to his horse then leaves the stage. The admiral Caratchou, a pagan, arrives. He is looking for adventures and decides to stay near a bridge to keep people from crossing it. Then he relates his various achievements. The knight Fichtou comes back and they both fight. Fichtou wounds Caratchou and forces him to abjure his religion, before fetching something to drink for him. He comes back with a watering can he took from a farmer after fighting him. Caratchou asks Fichtou to bring him the balms in his luggage to heal his wounds. He coats himself in the balms then stands up, healed, and says goodbye to Fichtou as he leaves, but he forgets his pants. Fichtou meets the Roi (king) de la Drap d’Maison and the prince Drap d’chiel à Bouton and tells them how he has freed the bridge. The prince brags about having won a duel against Caratchou. Then the three of them go have something to eat but the king can only afford some paltry leftovers meant for the cat. The king and prince go hunting. Fichtou meets a farmer and asks him to fetch his wife. He reunites with his wife and asks why she looks so unwell. Fichtou relates his fight against Caratchou and asks her wife why she is so pale. The princess tells him that she has given birth to a stillborn child, who was almost three metres high, and that they had to fold him in half to bury him. They both decide to go have a meal.

Single rod marionettes

Belgium

Liège

Knighthood

Bragging

Miraculous cure

Meals

Histoire du Terrible Chevalier Fichtou (first page).

French

King

Princess

Peasant

Monologue

Fight

Story

Histoire du terrible chevalier Fichtou

Story of the terrible knight Fichtou

The Viennese public attends a puppet show in the Prater. The play in question features a hero who is unwillingly involved in a foursome with his lover Liesl and the Duke and Duchess of Lawin. The duel between him and the Duke is cancelled, but he loses the interest of the Duchess and the love of Liesl in the process. Death comes. The audience, which has not stopped commenting on the play, intervenes more and more loudly and the performance turns into a scandal. It is no longer clear who is a spectator, who is a puppet, until a man in a blue coat enters the stage... and cuts the strings of the puppets with a sword, thus discriminating between animate and inanimate.

String marionette

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Germany

Berlin

Spectator

Unfaithfulness

Self-consciousness of puppets

Local color

Argument

Wrangle

Hanswurst

Noise

Lust

Entertainment

Burlesque

Satirical

German

Marionetten

Burleske in einem Akt

Director

Poet

Bourgeois

Daughter

Count

Soldier

Waiter

Child

Duke

Father

Husband

Raisonneur

Wrestler

Dead woman

Valet

Death

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Address to the public

Pantomime

Parody of formal language

Prologue

Versified passages

Stichomythia

Metamorphosis

Zum großen Wurstel

To the big sausage

Martin is secretly in love with the beautiful Eleonora Lambriani, a mysterious dancer with a legendary reputation. However, he has already sworn his love to Sophie. When Martin prepares to leave in order to offer his life and his money to Eleonora, his cousin Cassian arrives at his house. Initially inconsolable because of the departure of her lover, Sophie changes from the virtuous girl to the woman expressing her desire for Cassian, then she elopes with him by jumping out of the window. Martin dies by the hand of Cassian, poor as a church mouse, as he has lost all his money in a dice game against Cassian.

Visit

Journey

Loyalty in love

Sadness

Nostalgia

Seduction

Encounter

Temptation

Confession

Poverty

Luck

Deception

Battle story

Suicide attempt

Femme fatale

Parodistic

Der tapfere Kassian

Puppenspiel in einem Akt

Domestic scene

Plot twist

Love story

Deceived naivety

Teichoscopy

Der tapfere Cassian

The brave Cassian

In Carlo Magno’s (Charlemagne) royal palace, paladins are getting ready to fight Agramante, who has besieged Paris, and his army. In a wood, while she is waiting for her lover Ruggero, Bradamante kills a snake; then she saves a soldier who was in danger because of another snake. The solider tells him that Ruggero is going to marry Marfisa and he promises Bradamante that he will lead her to Agramante’s camp, so she can challenge Ruggero in a duel. In the enemy camp, the knights are preparing to fight Carlo Magno’s army. Marfisa tends to Ruggero, who was wounded by Mandricardo. When Bradamante arrives, Marfisa goes to fight her in Ruggero’s stead. The two warriors fight in a duel. Ruggero arrives to split them up. When he learns that the knight fighting Marfisa is his beloved Bradamante, he explains that he could not meet with her at the appointed time because he was wounded. Marfisa eavesdrops on the conversation, without being seen, and discovers that Ruggero is in love with Bradamante. Ruggero and Marfisa are about to fight when the ghost of the magician Atlante appears and reveals that they are the twin children of the Chrisitan king Ruggero di Risa. Ruggero and Marfisa reconcile, decide to be christened and to go with Bradamante to Carlo Magno’s court.

Rod marionette

Palermo

Typewriting

Twins

Jealousy

Phantom

Furiosa e terribile battaglia tra Bradamante e Marfisa per amore di Angelica

Agramante

Warrior (female)

Empress

Skeleton

Magician

Atlante

Apparition of a ghost

Fight with an animal

Duel scene

Hidden character

Spectacular turn of events

Reunion

Battaglia tra Bradamante e Marfisa

Battle between Bradamante and Marfisa

Upon his return from his military service, Turiddu discovers that Lola, the woman he loved, married Alfio. He gets engaged to Santuzza in order to make Lola jealous, and then becomes Lola’s lover. Santuzza, who is desperate, reveals to Alfio that Lola and Turiddu are having an affair. She immediately wishes she had not told him, but she cannot prevent atragedy from happening. Alfio challenges Turiddu to a duel, and after having thrown dirt into his eyes, Alfio stabs Turiddu to death.