Kasperl tracks down the poacher Mathias Klostermeier, known as ‘Hiesel’ in Bavaria, whose head has been put up for a bounty. But Hiesel meets him at Leder's inn: in a predicament, Kasperl agrees to join his gang. Shortly afterwards, Hiesel kills a gamekeeper in a duel. However, Hiesel's companions plot a robbery in Derferding, despite their leader's disagreement, as he does not want to be involved in banditry: once their plan has succeeded, they must all flee to Switzerland. Meanwhile, they are attacked by Captain Schädel and his troops, who have tracked them down thanks to Kasperl's indiscretion. The poachers are sentenced to death and taken away to be executed. During the trial, Kasperl answers questions incorrectly and the curtain falls on a brawl in the courtroom.

String marionette

Not specified

Germany

Landsberg am Lech

Printed

Robber

Gangster

Poacher

Forest

Wood

Justice

Judgment

Bavaria

Money

Poverty

Credit

Debt

Dramatic

German

Mathias Klostermeier ; Die unglücklichen Wildschützen ; Das lustige Elend

Der Bayrische Hiesel

Bandit

Kasperl

Waitress

Landlady

Gamekeeper

Captain

Public servant

Secretary

Soldier

Hunter

Peasant (man)

Court usher

Misunderstanding

Unexpected turn of events

Inn scene

Word for another

Murder on stage

Song

Off-stage voice

Chorus

Plot twist

Ridiculous fight

Confinement

Dialect

Parodic trial

Yodel

Mathias Klostermeir

Mathias Klostermayer

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

Munich

Scandal

Stock exchange

Bank

Embezzlement

Swindling

Beer

Politics

Society

Peasantry

Popular class

People

Misery

Bankruptcy

Satirical

Comical

Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873

Waiter

Shepherd

Police officer

Employé municipal

Flying machine

Spectacular turn of events

Catastrophe

Conversation

Political allegory

Slang

Argument

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Brawl

Adele Spitzeder

The poet meets Kasperl in the street. He proposes to him to attend his puppet theatre, leaving him alone in front of the puppet booth. The first character to emerge is Hanswurst, but he fails to amuse Kasperl, who kills him by hitting him with a stick. Next, an allegory portraying Art enters the stage and offers him fruits. Kasperl does not find them to his liking and spills the garbage can on the poor woman's head. Finally, Death comes for him, and Kasperl knocks his head off with a stick. The furious poet returns to chastise him, but Kasperl has had enough and beats him to death.

Glove-puppet

Blümel Otto

Poetry

Gluttony

Radish

Sausage

Beauty

Symbolism

George, Stefan Anton

Burlesque

Parodistic

Poet

Hanswurst

Arts

Death

Monologue

Versified passages

Comical regional accent

Parody of formal language

Talking at cross-purposes

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Blow-with-a-stick

Allegory

Der Dichter

The poet

Kasperl meets a communist with a red flag. The latter tries to win him over to his cause, but Kasperl, who at first thinks the communist is a bullfighter with a muleta, answers him on every point with a good-natured naivety: he thus manages to unmask the egoism of the other man, who, having run out of arguments, leaves, threatening Kasperl that he will be the first to be lynched at the next attempted putsch.

Drexler Franz

Communism

Revolt

Revolution

Sharing

Flag

Debate

Inflation

Socialism

Conservatism

Polemical

Communist

Kasperl und der Kommunist

Kasperl and the communist

The count Franz Pocci comes back on Earth to see Munich, his good old city, once again. There, he encounters a series of characters that, each in their own way, prove the missteps of the Soviet Republic: the Demagogue–under the features of revolutionary Kurt Eisner; Death; the Jew and the Devil; then Kasperl and the Münchner Kindl (“Munich child”, figure inspired by the coat of arms of the city). At the end, a young war invalid arrives and gathers around him university students, workers: an exhilarated crowd, who, fulfilling the count’s wish, begins to awaken “the ancient force of the German people” (“die alte deutsche Volkeskraft”).

Adults

Pocci Ernst

Landshut

People and history

Revenant

Tramway

Red flag

Faust

Anti-Semitism

Catholicism

Modernity

Spartacists

Nationalism

Ein Puppenspiel aus der Nachkriegszeit

Franz von Pocci

Demagogue

Devil

Münchner Kindl

War invalid

Blacksmith

Student

Apparition

Worker

Instrumental tune

Prologue

Light effects

Philosophical dialogue

Thunderbolt

Defecation on stage

Nachtschatten

Night shadows

In Bavaria, Kaspar learns that Professor Johann Christoph Gottsched is conspiring against him. He goes to Leipzig to work as a servant, under a false name, in the house of Gottsched and his friend, the actress and theatre director Caroline Neuber. During a performance, Caroline Neuber symbolically banishes Kaspar’s character from the stage and dismisses the actor who successfully played him, Silvio. But Gottsched's ward, Lucinde, is in love with the actor: the two young people defy Gottsched's dismissal and marry in secret. In search of a new actor to play the comic role in a play by the student Gotthold Ephraim, Caroline Neuber offers the position to Kaspar, who declines and then reveals his true identity. The actress breaks up with Gottsched and hires Silvio again, as well as Lucinde. Kaspar is arrested by the Bavarian policeman Stadelmann, who has set out after him, but is finally released by Gotthold Ephraim and is praised by the entire audience.