A monstrous-looking woman appears. She is mad and furious, vain and proud, a troublemaker and an insolent woman. She is accused of having murdered her family and her lovers. A sick and lonely woman is crying on a bed which is falling into pieces. A general is sitting on his strongbox, surrounded by officers and deputies waiting to be permitted to speak. He is receiving mail. A young man draws two cards to look into his future. A man in his forties is blaming himself for the death of his wife and daughter. In a Dutch school, old men are dressed as children. Three donkeys carrying sponges are swimming across a river. A sleepwalker is calling for help because someone wants to hang him. Guards arrest a burglar and send him to prison. A car with five wheels is running over people. A young man kills a Jacobin disguised as a soldier, because he attacked him.

Shadow theatre

All audiences

Séraphin (Dominique Séraphin François, aka Séraphin)

France

Paris

Printed

Metamorphosis

Poverty

Army

Death

Thief

Dramatic

Satirical

"Les Ombres chinoises", beginning of an article published in Le Thé ou le Journal des dix-huit (31 August 1797)

French

Old woman

Sick person

General

Young man

Old man

Donkey

Apparition of a monster

Character represented in animal form

Death on stage

Allusion to current political events

Political allegory

Spectacle des Ombres Chinoises

Shadow Puppetry Performance

Rugantino lives in a shabby attic room. He has no money left, his wife Rosetta is sick and their children are hungry. The landowner comes to their place and asks them to pay the rent. Rugantino tries to move him to pity by showing the state to which his family and him have been reduced. The landowner shows them the order to seize their property, then, moved by Rugantino’s children who cling to his clothes, he lets himself be touched: he extends Rugantino’s delay to pay by a quarter of an hour.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Santangelo Gaetano (aka Ghetanaccio)

Italy

Rome

Printed excerpts

Money

Debt

Rent

Cruelty

Romanesco

Rugantino

Rosetta

Landlord

Child

Dramatic irony

[Rugantino e l'affitto]

Rugantino and the rent

Pulcinella and Rosetta are husband and wife; they quarrel about love and money. Rosetta then meets a man of a certain age, Cassandrino; he tries to seduce her while she thinks he only wants to take her on for a sewing job. Cassandrino mistakes Pulcinella for Rosetta’s father and asks him if he can marry her. Pulcinella plays along with the situation and makes a fool of him by always talking about his daughter Malvinuccia, who is four years old, instead of Rosetta; indeed, Cassandrino does not know the name of the woman to whom he just spoke. Pulcinella settles on a very high price for the sewing job and agrees to let Cassandrino marry his daughter in return. Pulcinella is thrilled at having duped the old man and relates the story to his brother-in-law Rugantino. The latter takes the matter into his own hands: he asks Cassandrino to make a written commitment and begins to negotiate with him. Cassandrino wants to know how long all of this will take, because he is in a hurry and wants to atone for a failed marriage at the end of which his future wife left with a friend. After making repeated threats, Rugantino manages to turn down all his demands; he even gets money to buy a drink. Rugantino calls Pulcinella, who is sleeping, and tells him that the agreement is ready. However, Cassandro wants to see his fiancée Malvinuccia. Pulcinella then calls the children and the young Malvinuccia greets Cassandro merrily, as though he were her grandfather. The man says that there has been a misunderstanding and that he wants Rosetta. Thus, they go fetch her while she is nursing another child. She arrives and the misunderstanding is cleared: she is already Pulcinella’s wife. Rugantino still demands that the contract be honoured. They therefore decide that Cassandro will pay for dinner and wine for everyone, and the latter asks that they all go to Zagarolo (a village near Rome) to relate all that has happened and turn it into a theatre play.

Rod and string marionette

Giraud Giovanni

Wedding

Contract

Comical

Giovanni Giraud, Opere edite ed inedite, 1841

Italian

Cassandrino

Cassandre

Husband

Pulcinella

Wife

Young girl

Argument

Misunderstanding

Situation comedy

Naive character deceived

Malvinuccia ossia La bambina di quattro anni

Malvinuccia, or the four-year-old girl

Wagner hires Casper to serve his master—Doctor Faust. Destitute and crippled with debts, the latter makes a deal with the devil Mefisdofles: he will make him rich by helping him invent printing. In return, Mefisdofles demands that Faust sacrifice his parents and his wife. Faust murders his father, who has come to blame him for the death of his mother (she died of grief when she learnt that her son made a deal with the Devil). Meanwhile, Mefisdofles poisons Faust’s wife. Then Mefisdofles takes Faust and Casper to the court of Parma. But the courtiers envy the famous scholar and conspire against him: Mefisdofles helps him flee. Casper is sent to Hell, but he is soon let out. Everyone meets in Wittenberg: Faust repents, but he is then seduced by Helehne, whom Mefisdofles introduced to him; she changes into a skeleton when he tries to kiss her. At midnight, Faust is doomed and Casper, now a night watchman, marries the market gardener Anabakuduh, whom he meets in the street after curfew.

Bille Johann August

Germany

Greiz

Typewriting

Scholar

Professor

Necromancy

Sorcery

People and history

Printing

Parricide

Matricide

Feminicide

Perlike

Skittles

Poison

Dragon

Wittenberg

Nightwatchman

Tragic

Farcical

Title page of the manuscript of Johann Georg Bille's Docter Faust

German

Kasperl

Christoph Wagner

Faust

Voice

Angel

Devil

Fury

Mephistopheles

Father

Duke of Parma

Duchess of Parma

Minister

Neighbour (female)

Monologue

Lazzi

Word for another

Song

Off-stage voice

Dilemma

Apparition

Macaronism

Repetition of a word

Pact with the devil

Comic equivocation

Murder on stage

Aside

Echoing lines

Flying machine

Brawl

Story

Bawdy equivocation

Final wedding

Docter Faust

Doctor Faustus

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

Munich

Spell

Dwarf

Ring

Secret

Beer

Hypocrisy

Sausage

Lust

Fantasy

Burlesque

Humorous

Grotesque

Fairy

Bûcheron

Metatheatre

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

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.

Perna Ciro

Wear and tear

Abuse

Protection

Violence

Punishment

Battered woman

Cycle of performances

Neapolitan

Moneylander

Thug

Debtor

Commoner (female)

Slaps

Aria

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.

Spectacle des Ombres Chinoises

[Rugantino e l'affitto]

Malvinuccia ossia La bambina di quattro anni

Docter Faust

Die drei Wünsche

Der Weihnachts-Brief

'E sorde co 'nteresse

Le Sac de charbon

Hansel und Grethel

Schimpanse, der Darwinaffe

Intermezzo in einem Aufzug