Cockatrice arrives at the Royal George Inn and impersonates Charlie Chaplin. The Landlord discovers that Cockatrice’s Magic Donkey creates gold coins, and he swaps it with his own donkey while Cockatrice is asleep. During an interlude, a Marionette informs the audience that a scene will not be acted. The scene was supposed to show the meeting between Cockatrice and the King to show his Magic Donkey create coins; the latter, having been switched, cannot do so, and Cockatrice is sent to jail. The curtain opens up to Blind Boy’s arrival at the inn. The Landlord tries to steal Blind Boy’s bag while he is asleep; Blind Boy wakes up and orders the Magic Stick to beat him. The Landlord confesses that he also stole the Magic Table and the Magic Donkey, but he explains that he was once a prince who became enamoured with Princess Razzlemond and that an evil fairy changed him into a Landlord and cursed him to steal all of his clients until one defeated him - just as Blind Boy did. In order to make amends, he gifts Blind Boy a Magic Fiddle that forces everyone to dance. Cockatrice and Columbus sing in their cell to kill time. They are brought to the public place to be tortured, judged, and executed before the King and Princess Razzlemond. Blind Boy interrupts the scene and, thanks to his Magic Fiddle, forces everyone to dance until the King pardons Cockatrice and Columbus. Princess Razzlemond asks Blind Boy to marry her, but he tells her to go to the inn, where her Prince, the former Landlord, awaits her.

String marionette

Not specified

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Marina di Pisa

Printed

Theft

Magic

Torture

Execution

Jail

Comical

Satirical

Fantasy

English

The Magic Ass and The Magic Stick

Queen

Cockatrice

Basilic

Parrot

Blind

Blind Boy

Violin

Donkey

Innkeeper

Courtisan

Guard

Guardiano

Clerk

Executioner

Captain

Spectator

Puppet

Disguised character (false identity)

Story

Instrumental tune

Aria

Monologue

Compartmented stage

Song

Avista

Address to the public

Object coming to life

Crowd

Dance

The Roman Adventure - Parts Two & Three

Blind Boy, Cockatrice, and Columbus the Parrot are headed to Rome. The Magic Donkey refuses to walk because it is afraid of Cockatrice’s face, and until he wears a mask. At a crossroads where three different roads lead to Rome, they each decide to follow a different path and agree to meet at the Royal George, an inn. Columbus, disguised as a rich traveller, gets to the inn first. He uses the Magic Table to gift a delightful meal to all customers. After this meal, Columbus goes to sleep, and Oward, the innkeeper, switches the Magic Table with an ordinary one. In the morning, Columbus receives a telegram from the King of Rome, who is also the King of Europe, inviting him to his palace to meet his daughter, Princess Razzlemond, and to marry her. At court, Columbus tries to make another feast appear but fails. The innkeeper complains about his table being stolen, and Columbus is sent to prison.

Journey

Meals

Royal audience

Antiphrase

Europe

The Magic Table

Table

Cook

Postman

Peasant

Italian

Chambermaid

Herald

Trumpet (military man/woman)

Prompter (theatre)

Masked characters

Inn scene

Appearance

Parade

Personified object

Letter

The Roman Adventure - Part One

After a prologue in which a marionette summarizes the plot, the scene opens in Juno’s bedroom at 3 a.m. Jove and Mercury, drunk and dressed as burglars, break the window to get in. Jove drives Mercury away and tries to sleep but he wakes up Juno, who picks a quarrel with him. She is furious and she decides to go to Hell and fetch two snakes which will kill Hercules and his mother in retaliation for Jove’s unfaithfulness. At the gates of Hell, Juno orders snakes and meets Blind Boy and Columbus the Parrot, who are carrying a bag. They are introduced to Pluto and his favorite snake, Slimy-Go-Gurgle-and-Twirl. They are sentenced to boil in the cauldron of Hell, but Columbus states that he has a present for Pluto in his bag. Pluto asks to see it. The present is an egg containing six other eggs, which are all of different colours and are placed one inside the other. Out of the smallest one hatches the “Worm of Worms,” Cockatrice, who kills all the snakes in Hell and terrifies everybody. Pluto gives his ring to Blind Boy and asks him to take Cockatrice away, but Blind Boy informs him that he is his mother and offers to explain how it happened. They all sit in front of a small theatre, where the story of Cockatrice’s birth is narrated. In the cockney neighborhood of London, Jove, dressed up as a cock, steps into Blind Woman and Blind Boy’s shop in order to buy pigeon milk. He hands over an egg to Blind Boy, since he is blind and therefore cannot see Cockatrice, who is about to hatch, for a single glance at Cockatrice would prove fatal - it would even kill him to see himself in a mirror. Jove asks Blind Boy to be Cockatrice’s mother and to never reveal to him who his father is. After hatching, Cockatrice befriends Blind Boy, and they decide to travel the different worlds together. After the performance ends, Blind Boy, Cockatrice, and Parrot leave Hell in order to rescue Hercules from the snakes sent by that Juno sent.

Printed excerpts

Unfaithfulness

Latin Mythology

Hell

Monster

Evil

Descent into hell

Parodistic

Jupiter - Parrot - Pluto - Cockatrice & Blind-Boy

1st version

Juno

Jupiter (Jove)

Mercury

Worker

Pretty Polly

Columbus

Servant

Devil

Pluto

Slimy-Go-Gurgle-And-Twirl

Snake

Gusano (ver)

Cock, cockerel

Theatre within the theatre

Egg eclosion

Verbal imitation

Argument

Blind character

Analepsis (Flash-back)

Anachronism

Hell (1916)

Enfer

A Priest, whose face looks like those painted by Fra Angelico, gets out of his house, smiling at life. While hearing noise from the modern city and the industrial world, he changes his expression and his voice to better fit the expectations of a churchman. He sees a Soldier and accuses him of having a mistress. The Soldier tells him that his wife is living with the Lawyer. The Lawyer comes and shares his disapproval concerning the Merchant, who openly commits adultery with the Doctor’s wife. The Merchant then exposes the affair between the Doctor and the Actor’s wife, as well as the one between the Actor’s wife and the Doctor’s wife and the Doctor’s daughter’s passion for the Actor. Each of these revelations is followed by the exclamation “It is too much!” from the previous characters, and with a change of expression emphasizing the hypocrisy of their outrage. The Doctor and the Actor enter together, and the Doctor declares that all the women of the village are in love with the Poet. All men rush to their homes to find their wives. The Priest remains alone and asks Mary, his servant, who we can tell is his partner, to set the table to receive the Poet for lunch. He will be accompanied by all of his wives and the children he had with them. The play ends when the children get on stage, through a door opening in the sky and under a rain of rose petals.

Hypocrisy

Indignation

Religion

Morality

Priest

Soldier

Merchant (man)

Actor

Doctor

Poet

Lover (woman)

Off-stage noise

Change of head on sight

Running gag

Off-stage voices

Entrance by a hole in the back cloth

Rain of flowers

It is too much

C'en est trop

Three women – young Janet, her mother, and her grandmother – take refuge in a stable while a storm and the temptations of St. Anthony are raging outside. Janet asks in vain to be explained what these temptations are. Saint Anthony (called Anthony Perkins) is in a cell and only has his Halo, his Clock, and his Calendar as friends. He prays to Zeus to send him temptations, for they never reach him. Time flies, and he ends up dying of boredom. Shortly after Anthony’s death, the now old Queen of Sheba enters his cell, accompanied by Gustave Flaubert. The Queen of Sheba dies, disappointed that she could not tempt Anthony. Flaubert asks two eunuchs to bury them. Cleo di Patra appears in the sky, surrounded by angels. The play ends with a great ballet and a funeral cortege.

Waiting

Temptation

Desappointment

Lust

Chastity

Hermit

Saint Anthony the Great

Clock

Gustave Flaubert

Old woman

Queen of Sheba

Cleopatra

Angel

Black Man

Domestic servant

Eunuch

Stormy scene

Reading aloud

Speeding up of time

Death on stage

Apotheosis

Procession

Ballet

Actualité

The Temptation of St Anthony

La Tentation de saint Antoine

Tom Fool, the author of the play which will be performed, finds out that the set designer chose an engraving showing Craig pointing to the huge entrance to the Macbeth's castle to portray the Gates of Hell. He voices his discontent. The set designer then suggests a “realistic” representation of Hell: the door to a mansion in a rich neighbourhood of London. Still unsatisfied, Tom Fool eventually agrees with the stage designer for a more “traditional” style, as portrayed in mystery plays staged in popular theatres (notably in Christmas pantomimes in Great Britain) – with a Hellmouth, colorful devils, pitchforks, boiling cauldrons, snakes, and so on. The characters in The Drama for Fools, eager to play, come forward one by one on the stage, but Tom Fool has not written their parts yet.

Scenery

Realism

Gordon Craig, Edward

Set design

Popular theatre

Props

Hellmouth

Scene 1 from the Drama for Fools

An Interlude

Tom Fool

Stage designer

Propsman

Child

Metatheatre

Devil's apparition

The Gates of Hell

Les Portes de l'Enfer

The old streets of Madrid sing, then comes the Mayor who announces the opening of a new street. The old streets protest and pretend to be the more beautiful ones, but the Mayor calms them down. Three thieves appear and vanish as they see a Guard with a cage. The Mayor comes again and suggest to go to the sea-shore, where sailors sing a serenade, then he invites everyone to go to the official opening of the new street. The performance ends with a final song.

Glove-puppet

Nino Pozzo (Matteo Pozzo)

Verona

Typed or electronic text with handwritten annotations

Zarzuela

Madrid

Official opening

City

Spain

Nino Pozzo, La Gran Via (Cover page).

Knight

Thief

Mayor

Choir

Street

Prison guard

Prosopopoeia

Final song

Allegory

La Gran Via

The Main Road

The puppeteer apologises to the audience because he is not ready to perform Macbeth: instead, he will perform an unpublished comedy by Goldoni, The Jealous Emigrant (which is, in fact, a fake written on purpose by Brunello). But one of his glove puppets, Arlequin, disagrees and organises a rebellion, convincing the other puppets to perform Macbeth. The tragedy begins, but Arlequin, who has dared to step out of his role, must die like Macbeth. The same applies to his antagonist King Duncan, who - as we discover at the end - is no other than the puppeteer himself.