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

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Germany

Berlin

Printed

Representation

Unfaithfulness

Duel

Self-consciousness of puppets

Local color

Argument

Wrangle

Hanswurst

Uproar

Lust

Entertainment

Burlesque

Satirical

German

Marionetten

Burleske in einem Akt

Director

Poet

Bourgeois

Fille

Comte

Soldier

Serveur

Child

Duke

Le père

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

Character thrown out of the scene

Zum großen Wurstel

To the big sausage

The puppeteer apologises to the audience because he is not ready to perform Macbeth: instead, he will perform an unpublished comedy by Goldoni, The Jealous Emigrant (which is, in fact, a fake written on purpose by Brunello). But one of his glove puppets, Arlequin, disagrees and organises a rebellion, convincing the other puppets to perform Macbeth. The tragedy begins, but Arlequin, who has dared to step out of his role, must die like Macbeth. The same applies to his antagonist King Duncan, who - as we discover at the end - is no other than the puppeteer himself.

Bare hand

Actor and puppet

Adults

Brunello Gigio

Molnár Gyula (aka Giulio Molnár)

Italy

Mogliano Veneto

Rebellion

Macbeth

Harlequin

Carlo Goldoni

William Shakespeare

Rewriting

Adaptation

Fake unpublished

Tragic

Ironic

Italian

Rodolfo

Colombina

Brighella

Arlecchino

Pantalon

Balanzone

Generico

Witch

Messenger

Guardiano

Sicaire

Singe

Comical regional accent

Theatre within the theatre

Double characters

Rehearsal (play within a play)

Apparition of the puppeteer

Surprise effect

Captatio benevolentiae

Tragic irony

Tragic conflict

Avista

Macbeth all'improvviso

Improvised Macbeth