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.

String marionette

Not specified

Gailler Gabriel

Germany

Munich

Printed

Scandal

Stock exchange

Bank

Embezzlement

Swindling

Money

Bavaria

Beer

Politics

Society

Peasantry

Popular class

People

Poverty

Misery

Bankruptcy

Satirical

Comical

German

Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873

Waiter

Peasant

Shepherd

Police officer

Employé municipal

Kasperl

Flying machine

Spectacular turn of events

Inn scene

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

Dialogue of the deaf

Song

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Blow-with-a-stick

Murder on stage

Chorus

Allegory

Der Dichter

The poet

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.

Adele Spitzeder

Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873

Der Dichter

Kaspar stirbt nicht!

Puppenkomödie aus dem alten Leipzig