Don Quixote takes up his role as a wandering knight and asks Sancho Pança (Sancho Panza) to help prepare before they leave, while his niece and the childminder beg him to stay. Sancho Pança gives instructions for his will and bids farewell to his wife and daughter. Don Quixote declares his love to a woman peasant whom he believes is Dulcineia under a spell. He mistakes comedians for giants, but the fight is avoided thanks to Sancho Pança’s donkey. In a forest, they meet Sansão Carrasco (Sansón Carrasco), who pretends to be a wandering knight. Don Quixote challenges him to a duel and unhorses him. Then, he attacks a caged lion, kills it and declares that he will now have to be called the Knight of the Lions. When he learns that a wandering knight is imprisoned in the cave of Montesinos, Don Quixote descends into it and tries to remove a spell from Lord Montesinos and from Belerma, the lady of the knight Durorante. The earth shakes and he is carried into the air with Sancho Pança. Back in the forest, Don Quixote believes that Dulcineia has been changed into Sancho Pança and declares his love to him; Sancho threatens to kick him until Don Quixote’s illusion is broken. The muse Calíope (Calliope) comes down from a cloud and asks Don Quixote to fight the bad poets. Don Quixote chases them off. Apolo (Apollo) offers Pancho’s son, who is a poet, to join the Parnassus. After embarking on a boat, Don Quixote and Sancho are shipwrecked. They are taken in a palace. Sancho asks for the island promised by his master. A devil on a donkey announces that the evil spell put on Dulcineia has come to an end. After being flogged, Sancho is appointed governor of the island. He passes several burlesque judgements, dictates a fanciful letter for his wife and then goes out to have lunch. He is forced to consult a doctor and quarrels with a judge about whether eating is good or not. Touring his island, Sancho wants to stop a serenade, but he flees after a sword fight. The scene ends with a fake attack on his island: Sancho avoids being killed.
The Countess Trifaldi asks Don Quixote to remove her spell. Mounting a horse that came down from the sky, he leaves and starts his quest as a wandering knight again, while Sancho announces that he plans on going back home. Carrasco tries one last time to bring Don Quixote back to reality, fights him in a duel, unhorses him and forces him to go back home. Sancho complains that he has won nothing in this adventure.

Not specified

António José Da Silva (António José da Silva, aka O Judeu)

Portugal

Lisbon

Printed

Madness

Illusion

Knighthood

Deception

Adventure

Trap

Mock-heroic

Fantasy

Comical

Parodistic

Burlesque

António José da Silva, Vida do grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança, stage direction by Émilie Valantin, Comédie-Française, 2008.

Portuguese

Sancho Panza

Niece

Nurse

Daughter

Notary

Peasant (female)

Devil

Calliope

Apollo

Muse

Miller

Sailor

Gentleman

Lady

Clerk

Merlin

Violinist

Physician

Surgeon

Innkeeper

Old woman

Horseman

Bearded lady

Chorus

Aside

Aria

Flying machine

Apparition of a god

Disguised character (false identity)

Fight with an animal

Earthquake

Avista

Shipwreck scene

Scene of flagellation

Court scene

Vida do grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança

Life of the great Don Quixote of la Mancha and of the fat Sancho Panza

Leander is in love with Leontine, the daughter of the rich Gebhard. Leander’s footman, Hanswurst, is in love with the maid, Katharinchen. Old Gebhard spends his time reading two books from the "Das Reich der Todten" (The Empire of the Dead) series, which collects imaginary conversations between dead people. He is against his daughter’s wedding. Leander only has a chance at marrying her if he learns the books by heart. The lovers decide to give a sleeping pill to Gebhard, to take him to the garden, and to make him believe that he died. They dress up to stage the chaos happening in The Empire of the Dead. Leontine, Leander, Katharinchen, and Hanswurst go to meet the old man one by one. They explain to him that they too died and that it was his fault. Gebhard thus ends up giving his consent for the wedding. Ernst, a cereal merchant from whom Leander sought advice, enters the stage to expose the trickery to Gebhard, who learns that none of them is dead.

String marionette

Hofmann Anton

Germany

Augsburg

Manuscript

Hell

Death

Reading

Wedding prevented

Father

Dialogue of the dead

Farcical

Poster from Joseph Peter Seelig, Augsburg, circa 1820 (Stephan Oettermann: Ankündigungs-Zettel von Kunstreitern, Akrobaten, Tänzern, Taschenspielern, Feuerwerkern, Luftballons und dergleichen, Wiesbaden 1993, no. 1683)

German

Die bestrafte Einbildung, oder: Das Reich der Todten mitten im Reich, der Lebendigen

Rentier

Fiancée

Chambermaid

Merchant (man)

Fiancé

Léandre

Hanswurst

Servant

Disguise

Illusory world

Final wedding

Monologue

Cross-dressing

Das Reich der Todten

The Empire of the Dead

A poet comes out of his bath to walk on a bridge and enjoy the sunset. A gardener walks past him and mentions the glorious life he gave up in order to cultivate flowers. A young man relates his day spent hunting alone. Then comes a stranger, and after him a girl who is listening to a traveling singer. Night has now fallen. A group of three people arrives on the bridge: a madman, his servant, and a doctor. The madman is a young nobleman who had a life of abundance before devoting himself to solitude and to roaming. He meditates on the illusion of all things while leaning on the bannister. He tries to throw himself in the water, but his comrades prevent him from doing so.

Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August

Austria

Bad Fusch

Bath

Evening

Landscape

Flowers

Loneliness

Glory

Misery

Hunting

Dream

River

Childhood

Night

Destiny

Melancholy

Suicide

Lyrical

Oder die Glücklichen

Gardener

Poet

Street singer

Fool

Domestic servant

Teichoscopy

Light effects

Song

Off-stage voice

Das kleine Welttheater

The small theatre of the world

The play takes place on a island of dreams. Mère-Grand learns that Myrrhine has distanced herself from her five sisters to dream on her own by the sea. She worries about it, as this daydreaming can only carry the young woman off towards reality. Myrrhine confirms that the “bandeau d’illusion” (the blindfold of illusion) has indeed been lifted from her eyes, and that she no longer believes in fairytales, only in love: she loves the Chevalier Tavonin (Knight Tavonin) and believes that she is loved by him too. The Knight appears on a small boat with Aurore, his new lover, and rejects Myrrhine. In her despair, she calls on the Génie des Arbres (the Genie of the Trees) and the Fée des Mousses (the Moss Fairy), but they are powerless—they cannot console her now that she has lost her illusions. Myrrhine kills herself by jumping into the sea. Mère-Grand blames her death on the Knight, but he replies saying that he is Love incarnated and that all of Myrrhine’s sisters will suffer the same fate, as their eyes will eventually be opened too.