Kasperl leaves for America on a boat, but is swallowed by a whale that spits him out on an island inhabited by cannibals. They salt him and smear him in whale fat. Attracted by the smell of fat, an eagle kidnaps Kasperl on the verge of being eaten and takes him back to Europe. Kasperl manages to escape and meets a horseman who takes him back to his family. The play ends as a prologue with an invitation to take a seat in front of the puppet theatre for the start of the main performance.

Shadow theatre

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Boat

Navigation

Navy

America

Shipwreck

Fish

Leviathan

Unknown land

Island

Sausage

Beer

Thirst

Hunger

Cannibalism

Savage

Kidnapping

Horse

Family

Fantasy

Comical

German

Kasperl

Baleine

Cannibal

Eagle

Horserider

Mrs Kasperl

Child

Monologue

Play in verse

Chorus

Sung scenes

Macaronism

Unexpected turn of events

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Kasperl among the anthropophagi

Casperl wants to immigrate to America, but is cast ashore on an African island populated by cannibals. There he meets the German naturalist Gerstlmaier, who at first mistakes him for a parrot and ends up hiring him as a servant. But the cannibals capture him while he is sleeping. He swears not to drink any more beer if he manages to escape, whereupon the god Neptune frees him and allows him to return to Europe on the back of a dolphin. Casperl is then abducted by a large bird which releases him in the market place of his hometown, where his arrival causes general panic. Casperl has sworn not to drink any more beer, so he goes to the tavern to drink several to celebrate his return home.

String marionette

Africa

Robinson

Natural sciences

Ornithology

Scholar

Exoticism

Small town

Parodistic

Ein culturhistorisches Drama in zwei Aufzügen

Night watchman

Drum

Neptune

Crocodile

Dolphin

Instrumental tune

Word for another

Song

Talking animal

Deus ex machina

Scene of recognition

Parody of formal language

Casperl unter den Wilden

Casperl in the wilderness

Marianne – the wife of a poor lumberjack – sends her starving children Hansel and Grethel in the woods, so that they pick some berries. But the children are captured by the cannibalistic naturalist Fleischmann, at the same time as the travelling tailor Kasperl Larifari, who believes he will find bed and board at his house. They are locked inside chicken coops and fattened. Kasperl is enraged. To calm him down, Fleischmann allows him outside the cage to drink some wine with him. He intends on eating him right after. But they both get drunk, while the professor’s maid, Katharine, helps the children escape and reports the cannibal to the police. Kasperl takes advantage of the general confusion to escape too. The professor chases him and then gives up. He wants to find the children but falls asleep in the end, exhausted. Kasperl finds him and sews the two legs of his pants together. Eventually, the court bailiff arrives with the children’s father, Peter. When they find Fleischmann, he is unable to move, and Peter kills him with an axe. The children come out of hiding and, at the end of the play, Kasperl declares that wickedness has been punished, virtue rewarded and that they all need to go to an inn now.

University

Philosophy

Tale

Poverty

Misery

Cage

Forest

Justice

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Burlesque

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Night

Moon

Hidden character

Murder on stage

Off-stage voice

Animated natural element

Chase

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Confinement

Versified passages

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

Arlequin disembarks on an unknown land after a long boat journey. He puts on a coat made of animal skin as a precaution and with the hope of fooling animals. A wild cat sees him and walks towards him. Arlequin imitates his language and behaviour, going as far as climbing a tree. Meanwhile, Asdrubal and Pied-de-Biche (Crowbar) are hunting the wild cat to bring his head to the court. They look up and see two silhouettes perched in the tree. When Arlequin talks to them, they think that he is a talking animal. Intrigued, they watch him get down from the tree. Arlequin reveals his true identity and catches the hunter’s attention with the cheerful tale of his adventures. Asdrubal and Pied-de-Biche are charmed by his wit and decide to make him king, for it is very rare to find a man in the kingdom of the Ogres. Starving, Arlequin demands a meal. The whole court starts thinking about what dinner to make for him and where to find human flesh. Arlequin finds out that he is supposed to eat human meat and orders Pierrot to fetch a pot and a bean. However, the Ogres bring a pot with the intention of cooking their new king–Arlequin–in it. Two Parisians, Scaramouche and Tape-Dur, arrive at this moment: they recognise Arlequin and save him. Scaramouche declares that he and the king “will subscribe the Ogres to the thirty-two sous restaurants of the Palais-Royal” so that they definitely renounce human flesh.

des Essarts Emmanuel

France

Paris

Kingdoms

King

Meals

Restaurant

Return

Alfred des Essarts, illustration for Le Naufrage d'Arlequin

French

Arlecchino

Chambellan

Hunter

Pierrot

Cook

Kitchen boy

Young woman

Ogre

Ogress

Aside

Disguised character (false identity)

Off-stage noise

Stabbing

Le Naufrage d’Arlequin

Arlequin in a shipwreck

Testafina and the aged Mrs Carlotta wish to enlist as volunteers in the hunt for the hyena, a beast that devours the young women of the village of San Giorgio. Giorgio Orsolano, the village delicatessen owner, immediately reveals himself to be the hyena: in his first appearance, like a good shopkeeper, he thinks about how many victims he needs during the San Giorgio fair to meet the demand for fresh sausages. After introducing himself, Giorgio Orsolano takes action and, at the end of the first act, drops the young Bianca and Colombina into the trapdoor connected to his workshop. The latter is engaged to Gianduja, who, together with Testafina, is the protagonist of the hunt for the hyena. It is Gianduja who, after buying sausages from Orsolano, finds a piece of a woman's finger (which he recognises from the nail polish) in his plate and realises who could be hiding behind the hyena. While Testafina calls everyone together, Gianduja breaks into Orsolano's shop, who was about to kill Colombina, and knocks him out with his stick. The mayor and the guards then take care of bringing the delicatessen owner-hyena to justice, to everyone's satisfaction.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Niemen Gualberto

Italy

Hyena

Criminal

Butcher

Blood

Legend

Rewriting

Tradition

Italy (north)

Cold cuts

Grotesque

Italian

Storia di una vecchia leggenda.

Capitano Carletto dei cacciatori volontari della iena

Testafina

Gianduja

Colombina

Colombine

Mayor

Guard

Blow-with-a-stick

Dialect

Unveiling

Hidden corpse

Comical regional accent

La Iena di San Giorgio

Anatole wants to save Fric, who was mistakenly sent into space. They visit the Moon, Venus, the planet of Dame Tartine (Lady Toast), and that of the Père Noël (Father Christmas). Their trip ends in the pot of the Peaux-Rouges (Redskins), but a clever idea from the Chat Tempête (Storm Cat) saves them.

Blin André

Montrouge

Typed or electronic text with handwritten annotations

Milky Way

Astronaut

Telescope

Star

Comet

Rescue

Helicopter

Red Indian

Christmas

Company Les P'tits Bonshommes d'André Blin (André Blin’s Little Men), Les Aventuriers du ciel, 1955.

Servant

Shepherd

Father Christmas

Père Fouettard

Fairy

Dwarf

Page

Dame Tartine

Snow White

Aladin

Little Red Riding Hood

Little Mermaid

Ballet

Pantomime

Warning signs

Les Aventuriers du ciel

The Adventurers of the sky

King Victor Emmanuel II despairs to Garibaldi because the notorious criminal nicknamed ‘The Hyena of San Giorgio’ is stealing the limelight in the newspapers: more and more young girls are being kidnapped and then disappearing. When the Savoyard people (identified as ‘Cri de douleur’) beg him to free them from the Hyena, Victor Emmanuel takes his time and goes to San Giorgio because it seems that there is a butcher there, Barnaba Caccú, who makes the best sausages in all of Piedmont. Meanwhile, the nobleman Femorino wants to make sure that his fiancée, Angiolina, is a virgin, but when asked the question, Angiolina explodes in a fit of vulgarity and then reveals that she wants to marry a certain ‘Pensive Knight’ who secretly sends her love letters. Angiolina realises that her secret lover is the wanted criminal and, rejecting Femorino, agrees to marry him. Meanwhile, at Angiolina's house, her parents have invited Femorino to dinner: on the table is a sausage from the famous butcher of San Giorgio. Femorino finds a ring still attached to a piece of finger on his plate. No one suspects anything, however, and Femorino goes to the butcher's to return the ring. Meanwhile, in the butcher's hidden workshop, Caccù, with the help of his servant Crimea, has tied Angiolina to the table to turn her into sausage, but when he hears someone coming, he runs away. So when Femorino enters the workshop and finds Crimea with Angiolina tied up next to him, he immediately mistakes him for the Hyena. Meanwhile, in order to escape, Caccú has gone to the station disguised as a nun and expects the whole army to be sent after him. However, no one pays any attention to him. Outraged at not being recognised as the great criminal he is, Caccú confesses everything, even to King Victor Emmanuel II, but no one believes him. Left alone on stage, he shouts in vain, ‘It's me, I am the Hyena of San Giorgio.’

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Casperl unter den Wilden

Ein culturhistorisches Drama in zwei Aufzügen

Hansel und Grethel

Le Naufrage d’Arlequin

La Iena di San Giorgio

Storia di una vecchia leggenda.

Les Aventuriers du ciel

La Iena di San Giorgio

Tragedia per marionette

Fantastica visione

sopra il taglio e la vendita di carne con cenni alla questione degli attori, dell'arte, del teatro e del mercato generale degli oggetti nel disarmonico presente

Les Neuf Coriaces