Mrs Kasperl comes to ask her husband for money when Kasperl finds a cook to whom he has promised to marry her and who has just brought him a sausage and some wine. The two women argue with Kasperl and start fighting. Kasperl knocks them both out and locks them in a chest. Alerted by the noise, the night watchman comes to question him. Kasperl explains to him that the two women had a quarrel over some plums inside the chest, offers some to the watchman and closes the lid on the unfortunate man who has put his head in it. Then he leaves, announcing that he will throw the chest into the water...

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Reinhardt Carl

Germany

Munich

Printed

Sausage

Wine

Woman

Shrew

Couple

Household

Married life

Kitchen

Glutton

Plums

Quarrel

Unfaithfulness

Comical

Farcical

Satirical

Grotesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Night watchman

Blow-with-a-stick

Argument

Domestic scene

Frau Kasperl und die Köchin

Mrs Kasperl and the cook

Kasperl is arrested after breaking into the gardens of the cruel Sultan Schurimuri. Schurimuri wants to have him executed for spying, but Kasperl poses as an important guest and ends up being royally received in the sultan's kitchen. Drunk, he admits that he is not a scholar or a traveller, but simply Kasperl. Schurimuri wants to have him executed again, but Kasperl beats and kills him. He then takes his place and especially the turban of the Sultan, which he promises will be of great use for him when he returns to Germany.

Pocci Franz von

Turkey

Despotism

Cruelty

Pipe

Black

Orientalism

Hunger

Muslim

Turban

Beer

Botany

Seraglio

Music

Burlesque

Ein grausames Lustspiel

Sultan

Slave

Jailer

Lazzi

Word for another

Song

Chorus

Casperl in der Türkei

Kasperl in Turkey

Casperl gets drunk with the hunter Thomerl and Thomerl offers to put Casperl’s wife Grethl to the test: Casperl has to fake an illness that will lead to his death, and Thomerl, disguised as a doctor, will come and certify the death. As soon as Casperl is pronounced dead, Grethl tries to console herself in the arms of Lieutenant Pulvermann. The fake dead man is resurrected, a fight ensues in which Pulvermann is killed and the corpse is taken backstage. A police officer comes to seize Casperl, but husband and wife join forces against the impetuous man, who is forced to give in to the violence. To celebrate their reconciliation, Casperl and Grethl go to the inn, where they also meet with Thomerl.

Wedding

Philosophy

Gluttony

Doctor

Drunkenness

Medicine

Grief

Scatology

Reconciliation

Tavern

Ein beispielloses Spektakelstück

Thomerl

Lieutenant

Police officer

Monologue

Macaronism

Spying scene

Parody of formal language

Aside

Fake death

Disguise

Dream

Brawl

Murder on stage

Dance

Slaps

Die Prüfung

The test

A painter named Schmierpinsel is at an award-winning ceremony. In his absence, Casperl, his servant, pretends to be the painter to a lady who wants to have her portrait made. Casperl takes a down payment, then paints a donkey’s head and hits the outraged woman with the canvas. Upon his return, Schmierpinsel is called at the police station. After his statement, the police chief, Karrnpichler, interrogates Casperl. The latter smears paint on the police chief's face before throwing him out.

String marionette

Young audiences

Portrait

Painting

Originality

Genie

Cheekiness

Prestige

Stammering

Outrage

Drink

Interrogation

Ein malerisches Lustspiel

Lady

Police Superintendant

Address to the public

Comic stuttering

Casperl als Porträtmaler

Casperl portrait painter

In this expanded version of the play, Kasperl introduces himself to the Sultan as a botanist and impresses him with his knowledge of radishes (which go well with beer), so much so that he is hired into his service. But he is unhappy with his situation in a Muslim country where the consumption of alcohol is forbidden (except for the Sultan, in secret). He decides to flee with the slave Mimikatzi, who is being held in Schuriburi's seraglio. Kasperl offers to rid the Sultan of the mosquitoes he has to complain about and beats him to death with his stick. Night falls: Kasperl and Mimikatzi flee.

Radish

Mosquitoes

Harem

Parodistic

Konstantinopolitanisches Lustspiel

Tambour

Turk

Allusion to current literary events

Running away

Criticism of actors' theatre

Epilogue

Versified passages

Confinement

Kasperl in der Türkei

Polichinelle stole a wizard's picnic and beat him up. The wizard made a giant hand appear. Chased by the hand, Polichinelle runned into an old woman's house. To get him out, the Hand trapped him with a smelly pâté. Feigning repentance, Polichinelle asked the wizard to free him from the Hand, then killed him and tried to control the Hand. But it threatened him with a pitchfork and carried him away like the Devil would do.

Bare hand

All audiences

France

Paris

Duranty Louis Émile Edmond

Hand

The Devil's Hand

Thirst

Theft

Sorcery

Pâté

Cunning

False repentance

Fantastic

French

Polichinelle

Magician

Old woman

Part of human body

Devil

Chase

Magical formula

Hands visible

Plot twist

Thumbing one's nose

Punching

Off-stage voice

Final intervention of the devil

La Grand'Main

The Big Hand

Polichinelle has cloistered himself in a barrel to escape the world’s malice. Despite the pleas of Pierrot, Cassandre and a pork butcher, he is determined to stay cloistered (although he took the wine, the money and the ham they brought to try and lure him out). Everyone misses the old Polichinelle and his love for life, but Pierrot comes up with an idea. He makes sure that Polichinelle watches a puppet show in which a harmless Polichinelle has withdrawn from the world. The real Polichinelle is outraged – he knocks the booth over and drives the puppeteer out. Meanwhile, Pierrot takes the barrel away. Polichinelle sorely misses his barrel, which he claims was a trick to better swindle people. The policeman arrives to arrest Polichinelle, for “disturbance to civilisation”, but the latter escapes. Pierrot, who fled when he saw the policeman, comes back with his arms full of the wine, ham and money he found in the barrel.

Hypocrisy

Misanthropy

Vanity

Money

Depression

Withdrawal from the world

Frontispiece of Polichinelle withdrawn from the World.

Pierrot

Constable

Pork butcher

Cassandre

Cassandra

L’Acteur faisant le personnage de Polichinelle

Actor

Manipulator

L’Acteur faisant le personnage de Pierrot

Theatre within the theatre

Hidden character

Apparition of the puppeteer

Characterisation through onomatopoeia

Polichinelle retiré du monde

Polichinelle withdrawn from the world

King Mirambole is tyrannical, vain and hypochondriac, and he wants to marry. Three rival courtiers (the Doctor, the Astrologer and the Goldsmith) flatter the King, smear one another and conspire to persuade him to choose a woman from their respective families as his wife. The Doctor convinces the King that only a comet put on his forehead will cure him of all his pains. To cause the Astrologer’s downfall, he also advises the King to leave this task to him. The Astrologer suggests that the King ask the Goldsmith to make one, while the Goldsmith persuades the King to entrust the Doctor and the Astrologer with the task. In the end, the valet Pierrot commits to bringing the king a comet. Pierrot goes to his brother, an innkeeper, brings back a bottle of “comet wine” and convinces his niece Balibutte to follow him. When he comes back to the palace, he introduces his niece as a comet embodied in a woman, and he cures the king with the wine. Balibutte relates a dream to the king, which both exposes the courtiers’ betrayals and tells him how to punish them. The king executes the courtiers, marries Balibutte and names Pierrot grand vizier.