Martin, a woodcutter, frees a fairy from an oak tree she has been trapped in for 500 years. The fairy gives him a ring that allows him to fulfil three wishes. Martin confides the secret to his wife Margreth, who tells Casperl, their neighbour. While Martin goes to ask the mayor and the priest for advice, Margreth, in conversation with Casperl, takes it upon herself to wish for a plate of sausages, even though she has the ring on her finger: her wish is immediately fulfilled. Seeing this, Martin retrieves the ring and, in his anger, vows that his wife will have sausages hanging from her nose. The wish comes true and the two men are no longer able to amputate Margreth's sausage appendages: all they can do is wish them away, and the gift of the three wishes is wasted.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Poverty

Spell

Dwarf

Ring

Secret

Beer

Hypocrisy

Sausage

Lust

Marvelous

Burlesque

Humorous

Grotesque

German

Fée

Bûcheron

Kasperl

Song

Off-stage voices

Metatheatre

Appearance

Metamorphosis

Die drei Wünsche

The three wishes

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.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Berlin

Representation

Infidelity

Duel

Self-consciousness of puppets

Local color

Argument

Wrangle

Hanswurst

Uproar

Entertainment

Satirical

Marionetten

Burleske in einem Akt

Directeur

Poète

Bourgeois

Fille

Comte

Soldier

Serveur

Enfant

Duke

Le père

Epoux

Raisonneur

Wrestler

Morte

Valet

Death

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Address to the public

Pantomime

Parody of formal language

Prologue

Versified passages

Stichomythia

Character thrown out of the scene

Zum großen Wurstel

To the big sausage

Martin is secretly in love with the beautiful Eleonora Lambriani, a mysterious dancer with a legendary reputation. However, he has already sworn his love to Sophie. When Martin prepares to leave in order to offer his life and his money to Eleonora, his cousin Cassian arrives at his house. Initially inconsolable because of the departure of her lover, Sophie changes from the virtuous girl to the woman expressing her desire for Cassian, then she elopes with him by jumping out of the window. Martin dies by the hand of Cassian, poor as a church mouse, as he has lost all his money in a dice game against Cassian.

Die drei Wünsche

Zum großen Wurstel

Burleske in einem Akt

Der tapfere Cassian

Puppenspiel in einem Akt