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

Printed

Hyena

Criminal

Butcher

Blood

Cannibalism

Legend

Rewriting

Tradition

Italy (north)

Cold cuts

Comical

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

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.’

Rod and string marionette

Gloved hand

Ceronetti Guido

Albano Laziale

Sausage

Piedmont

Guilty

Evil

Tragic

Ironic

Tragedia per marionette

King

Vittorio Emmanuele II

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Prophet

Blind

Count

Doctor

Slave

Bourgeois

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Emperor

Maid

Vicar

Judge

Carabiniere

Stationmaster

Caricature

Trap

Disguise

Implausible

Hyperbolic action

Spectacular turn of events

The Hyena of Saint George

At the beginning of the year 2000, the elected representative and his secretary organised an evening in a municipal multi-purpose hall, where they met with the 'working classes' to ask them what their dreams were. The politician wants to redesign the local bar so that it is no longer a meeting place for 'not normal people', and hopes to direct people's dreams towards his goal. But nothing happens as he imagined: everyone talks about their dreams, but they turn out to be expressions of inner unease or personal hopes, rather than achievable wishes. By sharing fragments of their drifting lives, the citizens turn the evening into a slump of violent outbursts, which nevertheless leaves room for bursts of infinite tenderness.

Lemahieu Daniel

France

Paris

Villeneuve-lès-Avignon

Typed or electronic text with handwritten annotations

People

Poverty

Worker

Violence

Sadness

Fear

Bourgeoisie

Vaudeville

Music

Love

Tenderness

Wrestling

French

Social vaudeville for fifty puppets and three actors

Patron

Politician

Twins

Social worker

Bride

Old woman

Child

Old man

Sung scenes

Inn scene

Dialect as a social marker

Dance

Splitting of the body

Song

Monologue

Chorality

Silence

Fight

Gunshot

Fake death

Grammelot

Le rêve de votre vie (à vos souhaits)

The dream of your life (Bless you!)

The puppeteer is an inmate. He plays his puppet show for an audience of psychology students who have come to hear him relate his autobiographical story. He introduces the characters: Dean’s puppet, Wayne’s puppet, and the puppets of several dead boys. He also plays his own role, that of David. David and Wayne are a teenage couple. Dean is older than them. In their house, they talk of multiple murders they committed together: in the cave, the victims were killed by Dean, with the help of Wayne, after having been sexually assaulted, tortured and mutilated. The crimes were recorded on camera by David. The series of murders goes on until the murder of Jamie – a boy Wayne was in love with. Wayne is blinded by rage and kills Dean. David suggests that they put an end to the killing spree. Wayne agrees in a first time. But when he meets Brad, another boy, and engages in an erotic game at the end of which he takes Dean’s place: he tortures Brad until he kills him. After the murder, David kills Wayne during a panic attack. Then he calls the police and confesses to his crimes.