A wealthy baker chef asks his cousin the apothecary to help him poison Pierrot, who is constantly robbing and assaulting him. When this plan fails, he sends his dog after the thief, but Pierrot kills the dog. Knowing that Pierrot has always wanted to learn pastry-making, the baker pretends to take him on as an apprentice to get revenge. But Pierrot plays many tricks. The gendarme, who has come to arrest him, is swindled, then hanged in the villain's place. Pierrot kills the baker and the apothecary, as a worthy disciple of Polichinelle.

Glove-puppet

All audiences

France

Paris

Duranty Louis Émile Edmond

Printed

Pastry

Theft

Money

Wickedness

Poison

Learning

Revenge

Criminal

Perseverance in Evil

Cruelty

Cruelty to an animal

Farcical

Comical

French

Pierrot

Pastry chef

Apothecary

Constable

Blow-with-a-stick

Headbutt

Fight with an animal

Lazzi

Back Stroke

Hanging scene

Pierrot et le pâtissier

Pierrot and the baker

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.

Not specified

Niemen Gualberto

Italy

Hyena

Butcher

Blood

Cannibalism

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

Dialect

Unveiling

Hidden corpse

Comical regional accent

La Iena di San Giorgio

Invited to the international convention of handymen in Chicago, Dr. Haase builds a rocket to go there. Two gangsters witness the landing and try to steal the rocket, but Haase manages to flee and goes to see Turnip, the organiser of the convention; the convention is actually an excuse invented to attract the German scientist. Turnip looks for ways to corrupt Haase, his daughter Elvyra tries to seduce him, and the gangster Bill tries to kill him. With the help of the black servant Ann, Haase manages to flee with the rocket and, at the same time, saves Ann’s son Tom from a lynching.

Young audiences

Hoke Werner

Germany

Leipzig

Rocket

Capitalism

Rivalry

Corruption

Science

German Democratic Republic (GDR)

America

Debauchery

Cabaret

Seduction

Racism

Satirical

Front cover of the collection Drei Puppenspiele

German

Satirisches Puppenspiel für große Kinder

Gangster

Policeman

Fake death

Brawl

Trap

Running away

Macaronism

Aside

Bawdy equivocation

Die Amerikareise

The trip to America

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.’