Kasperl returns drunk from the tavern and his wife Grethl refuses to let him in. He meets the night watchman, whom he frightens by pretending to be a ghost. He picks up the halberd and the lantern that the watchman dropped in his flight. That night, the moon is off duty and wanders through the streets. Kasperl apprehends it for wandering at night: as the moon refuses to comply, he strikes it in the face with his halberd, which destroys it. He then meets death and beats it with a stick. Finally the rooster crows. Kasperl is annoyed that the rooster can't say anything except "cock-a-doodle-doo" and kills it, then brings it back to Grethl for a meal: when she sees the poultry, she lets him come inside.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Drunkenness

Drunkard

Couple

Night

City

Village

Celestial body

Phantom

Ghost

Halberd

Poultry

Chicken

Tavern

Fantasy

Burlesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Night watchman

Moon

Death

Cock, cockerel

Apparition

Disguise

Animated natural element

Personification

Domestic scene

Versified passages

Fight

Metatheatre

Kasperl als Nachtwächter

Kasperl the night watchman

Unable to sleep, Casperl complains about his lot in life and even says that he is ready to appeal to the spirits, following the example of Faust, when a headless ghost appears in front of him. The ghost asks him to save him from hell by performing the necessary rites at midnight at the gallows. In exchange, Casperl will get hold of the treasure that the ghost buried at this location when he was still a bandit. The next day, Casperl, who has forgotten the ritual words, asks the witch Moosmayerin to help him: she gives him Holofernes’ magical belt. In the next scene, Casperl has become rich, but he considers that the money shouldn’t be used to pay his debts and he sends his creditors away with injurious words. When a police officer comes to arrest him, he manages to lock the police officer inside his house and goes to the tavern. When he returns to his place, he discovers that the police officer has hung himself by accident with the rope with which he tried to slip away. Casperl is thrown in prison, but he is freed by the ghost, who tells him that the police officer has not died and that he has resumed his work.

Beer

Melancholy

Faust

Spirits

Robber

Scaffold

Sorcery

People and history

Coffee

Market

Wealth

Scatology

Debt

Perlicke

Romanticism

Comical

Schicksalsdrama in vier Aufzügen

Tailor

Police officer

Shoemaker

Chimney sweeper

Monologue

Word for another

Thunderbolt

Chorus

Song

Parody of formal language

Macaronism

Hanging scene

Transforming scenery

Board

Instrumental tune

Casperl wird reich

Casperl gets rich

The action is set in Châteauroux in 1875. Friturin the innkeeper is going away for a few days, leaving his wife Ursule alone with two servants, Jean and Mariette. A female traveller, Corisande, arrives at the inn but has to share a room with Madame Friturin. Another traveller, Balandard, claims a bed in a shared room that happens to be the one where Corisande sleeps. Balandard cannot sleep because of the snoring of “his neighbour”, and, not knowing that it is actually Corisande, he shakes her up. Thinking that the aggression comes from Madame Friturin, Corisande protests. After quarrelling, they switch beds. Jean, who is in charge of waking up Corisande so that she can take her diligence, gets confused and wakes up Balandard. Corisande misses her diligence and because she believes that Madame Friturin is next to her, she accuses her of not having woken her up. Eventually, the misunderstanding is revealed. Balandard agrees to drive Corisande to La Châtre after having slept. When Monsieur Friturin comes back sooner than expected, he finds a man in his wife’s bed. While this happens, a fire sets off in the inn.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Maurice Sand (Maurice Sand)

France

Nohant

Journey

Fighting

Conflagration

Ironic

Eugène Lambert, George Sand, Maurice Sand : Corisande puppet

French

Les Oignons de Jeu-Maloche, Une nuit à la Tête de veau

Director of the theatre

Innkeeper

Police Superintendant

Valet

Fireman

Traveller

Wife

Maid

Comedy of language

Word warping

Aside

Brawl

Situation comedy

Misunderstanding

Une nuit à Châteauroux

A Night in Châteauroux

Casperl inherits money from his neighbor Frau Bas, who recently died: it's a fortune. He passes a miserable evening, tormented by the idea that people are plotting to steal his money. He even cries out about a fire. The next day, Grethel buys the latest style of toilet, hires a cook… Casperl goes out to drink at the tavern with his friend, the hunter Tomerl. However, when he returns, the notary Stahlfeder is there to announce to the cleaners that Madame Casperl's purchases and the settling of debts with the tavern have exhausted the fortune of Frau Bas—there is nearly nothing left. Casperl throws out the notary and police chief Schnuffler, who came with a fine for nighttime disturbances. He then scarfs down a plate of Knödel that his cook prepared while declaring that he doesn't need money as long as he keeps his good spirits.

Burial

Inheritance

Grief

Fear

Paranoia

Fashion

Knödel

Satirical

Farcical

Zwischenspiel in zwei Abteilungen

Thomerl

Hunter

Notary

Cook

Shopkeeper

Off-stage voice

Sung scenes

Final song

Dance

Current affairs

Die Erbschaft

L'Héritage

Hans is drunk and comes upon the night watchman. He slaps him and beats him to take revenge for having arrested him earlier, when the curfew started. The watchman calls for help and a student arrives. But he also beats him with a cane, for the same reasons as Hans. At the end of the play, Grete comes fetch her husband to bring him home.

Müller Alphons

Frankfurt

Curfew

Municipality

Public order

Front cover of the collection Sechs neue Lust-Spiele für das Porzinell-Theater

Nächtliches Schauergemälde mit Mondscheinbeleuchtung in einem Akt

Student

Role reversal

Blow-with-a-stick

Play in verse

Stichomythia

Hans und der betrunkene Nachtwächter

Hans and the drunk night watchman

On a rainy night, Pulcinella comes back home, prepares his bed and lies down in it. He has just fallen asleep when his friend Felice knocks on his door and asks for shelter from the storm. Felice has just seen Gilda, his fiancée, with a bersagliere (a soldier from a special corps of the Italian army) at the Teatro di San Carlo – the opera of Naples. Overcome with jealousy, he decides to go home but he cannot find his keys. After listening to his friend, Pulcinella offers him a chair to sleep in for the night. Felice cannot fall asleep and starts singing and screaming. Then he imagines that he is fighting the bersagliere and he throws all of Pulcinella’s furniture out of the window, including the bed. Gilda arrives at this moment. She explains that the bersagliere is her brother. She has come to tell Felice that he is going to inherit a large sum of money. Out of joy, Felice promises two millions liras to Pulcinella, who shouts: “per te sarò un principe, per lei sarò un signore, per questo colto pubblico umile servitore” (“for you, I will be a prince, for her I will be a lord, and for this cultured audience, an humbler servant”).

Ferrajolo Pasquale

Italy

Naples

Treason

Friendship

Love

Italian

ovvero Temporale a Mezzanotte

Pulcinella

The Interpreter

Fiancé

Felice Sciosciammocca

Fiancée

Sound of rain

Sleeping character

Address to the public

Throwing objects

'Na nuttata 'e guai

A night of troubles or Storm at midnight

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

Destiny

Madness

Illusion

Suicide

Lyrical

Oder die Glücklichen

Gardener

Poet

Street singer

Fool

Domestic servant

Physician

Teichoscopy

Light effects

Das kleine Welttheater

The small theatre of the world

It’s Saint John’s Day. The God Pan announces the arrival of dawn and invokes the spirit of flowers. Every character that appears seems to be filled with an overwhelming desire to love: a seminarian and the daughter of a priest secretly kiss, a bird sings for his lover, two young farmers embrace on a cart, two children talk about stars and babies, a nun praises her creator, two cats fight passionately, a young girl longing for love falls asleep… When she wakes up, an older girl suggests that they go see a witch that can make them see the man they will love. Despite their fear and the darkness, they go to the witch whose spell makes their future husbands appear. One looks oddly like the fisherman from the beginning of the play, and the other looks like the prince who previously appeared as a fish. Still quivering and bewitched, the two girls leave and Pan ends the play by playing the flute.