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

Fantasy

Burlesque

Humorous

Grotesque

German

Fairy

Bûcheron

Kasperl

Song

Off-stage voices

Metatheatre

Appearance

Metamorphosis

Die drei Wünsche

The three wishes

The widow Werner lives with her young son Ludwig in misery: a sad Christmas is coming. To surprise her son, Mrs Werner goes out to buy a small pine tree and some apples. In her absence, Ludwig writes a letter to baby Jesus, asking for an illustrated Bible: he throws the letter out of the window addressing it to the angels. On Christmas morning, a package is delivered containing the Bible he asked for. The donor is Friedrich Walter, an old friend of the deceased Karl Werner: he has just returned from a long trip to the Orient and is inquiring at the police station about the widow's address, when some officers tell him of the amusing discovery of Ludwig's letter. Friedrich Walter takes the widow and child under his protection.

Reading

Education

Hanswurst

Bible

Childhood

Crib

Piety

Sentimentalism

Social realism

Christmas

Realist

Pathetic

Monologue

Letter

Transforming scenery

Chorus

Deus ex machina

Der Weihnachts-Brief

Christmas Letter

A moneylender nicknamed “'a Sberressa” (the policewoman) insults an old man and another poor man who cannot repay their debts. Her partner Nirone helps her and smacks every defaulting debtor. The Sberressa even forces one of the debtors, Rosenella, to give her money she had saved on the side to pay for medicine for her dying mother. These last abuses of power prompt two debtors to ask for Nicolino Iossa’s help. Nicolina does not hesitate and helps the poor victims of the moneylender. As punishment, he smacks the Sberressa and Nirone and forces them to give Rosenella her money back.

Rod and string marionette

Not specified

Perna Ciro

Wear and tear

Abuse

Protection

Violence

Punishment

Battered woman

Cycle of performances

Dramatic

Neapolitan

Moneylander

Old man

Old woman

Guappo

Debtor

Commoner (female)

Aside

Slaps

Aria

Echoing lines

Shouts of acclamation in several voices

'E sorde co 'nteresse

Money with interests

The rich Niflanguille goes to buy a bag of coal. He comes across the hungry Pierrot, who asks for his help in vain. The coalman cheats Niflanguille out of the weight of the bag. Pierrot hides in the bag and beats up the coalman, Niflanguille and the servant. Back home, Niflanguille looks for a sword to pierce the recalcitrant bag, but Pierrot gets it out in time and forces the servant to take his place. While Niflanguille pierces the bag and his servant with it, Pierrot runs away with a bag of money. A Gendarme wants to hang Niflanguille for murder, Pierrot for theft and the coalman for swindling. Pierrot kills the Gendarme and puts him in the sack, which he throws away, while Niflanguille flees through the window. Pierrot kills the coalman to avoid sharing the money, then orders wine which he pays for by beating the innkeeper with a stick. The Commissaire arrives with Niflanguille; he hangs Pierrot, but confiscates the money to punish the bad rich man.

Glove-puppet

All audiences

France

Paris

Duranty Louis Émile Edmond

Charcoal

Hunger

Swindling

Trade

Deception

Contempt

Money

Bad rich

Farcical

Didactic

French

Pierrot

Coal merchant

Domestic servant

Constable

Police Superintendant

Hidden character

Running gag

Blow-with-a-stick

Hanging scene

Le Sac de charbon

The Bag of Coal

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.

Cannibalism

University

Natural sciences

Philosophy

Tale

Misery

Cage

Forest

Justice

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Parodistic

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Night

Moon

Murder on stage

Animated natural element

Chase

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Confinement

Versified passages

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

Casperl is evicted by his landlord and starts looking for a job. He is employed by professor and explorer Gerstenzucker, as…a monkey! Indeed, the professor’s monkey, Schimpanse, has just died. He was trying to teach him human culture to prove that man and monkey are related. But Casperl is ill-behaved. He poses as Gerstenzucker and treats one of his female visitors with extreme uncouthness. Then he fights the professor, wreaks havoc on the inn and sows discord in town. Everyone ends up at the police station, where the fake monkey is exposed. As other characters try to throw him behind bars, Casperl knocks everyone unconscious and, at the end of the play, goes drinking to celebrate the final victory of Darwinism.

End of the month

Household

Women's condition

Monkey

Darwinism

Culture

Job seeking

Woman author

Animal savant

Tavern

Savage

Animal instinct

Comical

Satirical

Illustration on the title page of the 1875 edition

Intermezzo in einem Aufzug

Madame Kasperl

Mayor

Magistrato

Landlord

Court usher

Domestic scene

Brawl

Comic Equivocation

Disguise

Parody of formal language

Schimpanse, der Darwinaffe

Chimpanzee, the Darwinian monkey

While all poor people on the outskirts of Munich deposit their savings in Adele Spitzeder's bank, sometimes even selling their businesses to live on their income, Kasperl is looking for a job. Through his brother Baldhauser (also known as Baldes), a door-to-door salesman, he was placed as a doorman at Adele Spitzeder's house. He introduces the bank's customers to the bank office, where she receives them with her proverbial frankness. But at the end of his first day on the job, the police come and arrest the banker for fraud and close the place down: Kasperl beats down the poor people who come to claim their money. The fourth act or epilogue is a picture of country life: following a quarrel with his wife, Kasperl's other brother, Melchior, goes drinking with the town crier. Kasperl and Baldes enter the stage to conclude the play with a song.

Gailler Gabriel

Scandal

Stock exchange

Bank

Embezzlement

Bavaria

Politics

Society

Peasantry

Popular class

People

Bankruptcy

Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873

Waiter

Peasant

Shepherd

Police officer

Employé municipal

Flying machine

Spectacular turn of events

Inn scene

Catastrophe

Conversation

Political allegory

Slang

Argument

Adele Spitzeder

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.