Dorisbe arrives in Rome with her servant Lucillo: she rejoices at the idea of meeting her future husband, Dottore Grisanto (Doctor Grisanto). Clorimeno, Grisanto’s servant, refuses to be enchained by love, but his master orders him to fall in love. Outside the Colosseum, Dorisbe meets Nisbe, sister of the Dottore; she guides her to her brother’s house. On her way to announce the arrival of Grisanto’s future wife, Nisbe meets Clorimeno and falls in love with him. As for Dorisbe, she despairs after meeting the Dottore: the man she must marry is old, hoary and stupid. In the grip of her sorrow, Dorisbe meets Clorimeno: they both fall in love at first sight, and the young woman asks her lover to spare her from this gruesome marriage. Grisanto learns about his future wife’s unhappiness and dismisses his students to go comfort her; the Latinist students begin to dance. Clorimeno tells his master Grisanto that he loves Dorisbe. Grisanto laughs until he understands that he is the unfortunate husband; he decides to take revenge. After turning the old Nisbe’s love down, Clorimeno meets Dorisbe on her balcony. But Grisanto asks the cowardly Lucillo to make the lover flee and then to take revenge for him, and he scolds his betrothed; she pretends to be madly in love with Grisanto. Unfortunately, Clorimeno relates the whole story to his master when he sees him: he will come back to his beloved before the sun rises. Grisanto hides to spy on the lovers: Dorisbe has seen him, and she makes an ostentatious declaration to Clorimeno, telling him that she is faithful to her husband. In the following scenes, Nisbe comforts herself with Lucillo, while Dorisbe tries to clear up the situation with her lover, who despaired at her last words. The old pedant and future husband practices curtsying, but he falls, and young dancers begin to dance instead. Grisanto offers Clorimeno to Nisbe, who agrees. Clorimeno, who tried to kill himself, falls into Dorisbe’s arms. The lovers reconcile and agree to meet at night; Grisanto overhears them and decides to spy on them. He orders Lucillo to kill any man or woman in his garden. At night, Nisbe is waiting for Clorimeno: Lucillo arrives instead, and he is about to kill her, following the orders he was given. Grisanto stops her just before he does, and he believes that when Clorimeno talked about his lover, he was in fact talking about his sister: he arranges for Nisbe and Clorimeno to marry. Overhearing them, Dorisbe expresses jealousy, which Grisanto interprets as worry over seeing him with another woman. When Clorimeno arrives in the garden, he understands that Dorisbe is his master’s future wife and apologises; Grisanto promises to forgive him, as well as to give him his properties and the woman of the house. When the young man enters the house, Nisbe welcomes him and tells Dorisbe that she will marry him. Clorimeno protests, which comforts Dorisbe and stops her jealous feelings. Grisanto learns the truth and tries to make Clorimeno flee. But Clorimeno answers that he only followed his master’s advice.

Not specified

Acciaiuoli Filippo (aka Gran Burattinajo)

Italy

Rome

Printed

Jealousy

Confidence

Promise

Pedant

Forced marriage

Burlesque

Farcical

Lyrical

Chi è cagion del suo mal pianga sè stesso, title page

Italian

Fiancée

Pupil

Schoolteacher

Old woman

Sister

Page

Dancer

Love story

Love rivalry

Music

Interlude

Classroom scene

Monologue

Situation comedy

Character leaning against the window

Spying scene

Hidden character

Night scene

Comic equivocation

Misunderstanding

Wedding

Final wedding

Chi è cagion del suo mal pianga sè stesso

Let him who causes his own suffering blame himself

A teacher recounts the feats of the Swiss army to his students. He begins with the Helvetians’ victory against the Romans, then mentions Guillaume Tell’s feats. The students are thrilled. He relates the battle of Sempach, Morat, and Marignano, then the Napoleonic occupation. The teacher ends his class by praising the generals Dufour and Herzog’s key role in the confederal construction of modern Switzerland.

Shadow theatre

All audiences

Switzerland

Geneva

Printed outline

Iconic battles

People and history

Capitulation

History lesson

Nationalism

Epic

Didactic

Shadow figure by Louis Dunki for L‘Armée suisse à travers les âges, published in Le Sapajou.

French

Teacher

Leader

Roman

Guillaume Tell

Hermann Gessler

Swiss

Charles the Bold

Napoleon

Soldier

General

Barker

Parade

Battlefield scene

L'Armée suisse à travers les âges

The Swiss army through the ages

An elementary school teacher teaches his pupils that, in order to be a good Englishman, you have to know how to never compromise yourself and always give vague answers. A bee stings one of the pupils who swears out loud and is then told off. A bull enters galloping, driven mad by the red tie of the teacher, who maintains his composure while the children start to panic. The bull runs straight into the school and throws it into the air with all the people still inside.

Glove-puppet

String marionette

Craig Edward Gordon

Marina di Pisa

Teaching

England

Composure

Indifference

Calm

Comical

Satirical

Edward Gordon Craig, School (cover), 1916.

English

or Thou Shalt not Commit (The 11th Commandment)

Comical pose

Offstage

Off-stage noise

Destruction of set elements

School

Jeannot, a child who has a third eye, is adopted by Clémence and Prudent. They take Jeannot to see a doctor who wants to perform surgery on him. Jeannot rebels and a temporary solution is found: his third eye will be blindfolded so that the child can get used to having two eyes and prepare for the future. For a week, Jeannot lives with his eye covered but becomes sick with melancholy. Clémence decides that he will go to school without covering his eye. On the first day, the other children are either surprised or scared, then they are impressed by Jeannot’s “supersonic” eye. Soon enough, they no longer pay attention to that eye, but they pay attention, rather, to what it makes him see. Jeannot contradicts the schoolteacher regarding Romeo and Juliet, and he is chased out of the classroom. Mariette, a classmate, tells him that she shares his point of view. The head of school tells Clémence and Prudent that their son has been expelled for a week. Mariette pays a visit to Jeannot who is stuck in the house, and she reveals to him that she also has a third eye. They dance together until they are interrupted by the arrival of Mariette’s parents. When Jeannot goes back to school, a student mocks him. Mariette defends Jeannot by showing her third eye to everybody in the classroom, which terrifies the schoolteacher, who thinks there is an epidemic. Some parents take legal action and sue for voluntarily contaminating other children. The judge, who is understanding, thinks that Jeannot can see the colour of the human soul thanks to his third eye. Jeannot asks to become an emancipated minor in order to leave on his own, without his parents. His request having been accepted, Jeannot leaves, although it is difficult to accept for Clémence and Mariette. The narrator reveals herself to be Mariette, who has grown old: it is the day of her birthday and she wishes to see Jeannot again more than anything.

France

Orphan

Convent

Adoption

Surgery

Vision

Childhood

Discrimination

Expulsion

Judgment

Separation

Birthday

Shakespeare

Dramatic

Fantasy

Narrator

Child

Father

Mother

Doctor

Director

Crowd

Judge

Avista

Light effects

Dance

Court scene

Jeannot trois yeux

Three-Eyed Jeannot

Whilst she is walking on a beach, Caroline, a puppeteer, tells Filip the story of how they met twenty years ago. The action of the play goes back to that time, when she was a student and was attending her last drawing class. The teacher gives them a horse as part of a teaching experiment. The horse suddenly bursts in the classroom. Sacha is then informed that her father, who lives in another country thousands of miles away, is dying. Caroline offers to go with her and so she can say her last goodbye. They drive there with Raphaël, whose girlfriend Marie lives close to their final destination. When they arrive at Marie’s house, Raphaël learns that Marie has been cheating on him with his brother. He still decides to stay with her. Caroline and Sasha leave and arrive in the holiday cottage of one of their classmates. There, Caroline meets Filip. They share a night of love, but at dawn, he is gone. Caroline and Sasha continue their journey where they witness an accident, and they arrive in the village where Sasha’s father lives. Sasha goes to join him whilst Caroline walks along the little streets and meets the villagers. Sasha comes back and announces that her father died. She’s holding a picture of herself when she was a child, and starts talking to the picture and telling it about her passion for puppets. The next day, Sasha and Caroline attend the funeral, and then take a plane to go back to France.

Direct Manipulation Bunraku-type Puppetry

Charleville-Mézières

Electronic text

Remembrance

Journey

Death

Passion

Future

Unfaithfulness

Love

Grief

Road-movie

Realist

Fantastic

François Cervantès, Attends-moi, Charleville-Mézières, 2010.