Kasperl leaves for America on a boat, but is swallowed by a whale that spits him out on an island inhabited by cannibals. They salt him and smear him in whale fat. Attracted by the smell of fat, an eagle kidnaps Kasperl on the verge of being eaten and takes him back to Europe. Kasperl manages to escape and meets a horseman who takes him back to his family. The play ends as a prologue with an invitation to take a seat in front of the puppet theatre for the start of the main performance.

Shadow theatre

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Boat

Navigation

Sea scene

America

Shipwreck

Fish

Leviathan

Unknown land

Island

Sausage

Beer

Thirst

Hunger

Cannibalism

Savage

Kidnapping

Horse

Family

Marvelous

Comical

German

Kasperl

Baleine

Cannibale

Eagle

Cavalier

Madame Kasperl

Child

Monologue

Play in verse

Chorus

Sung scenes

Macaronism

Unexpected turn of events

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Kasperl among the anthropophagi

The Viennese public attends a puppet show in the Prater. The play in question features a hero who is unwillingly involved in a foursome with his lover Liesl and the Duke and Duchess of Lawin. The duel between him and the Duke is cancelled, but he loses the interest of the Duchess and the love of Liesl in the process. Death comes. The audience, which has not stopped commenting on the play, intervenes more and more loudly and the performance turns into a scandal. It is no longer clear who is a spectator, who is a puppet, until a man in a blue coat enters the stage... and cuts the strings of the puppets with a sword, thus discriminating between animate and inanimate.

String marionette

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Berlin

Representation

Unfaithfulness

Duel

Self-consciousness of puppets

Local color

Argument

Wrangle

Hanswurst

Uproar

Lust

Entertainment

Burlesque

Satirical

Marionetten

Burleske in einem Akt

Director

Poet

Bourgeois

Fille

Comte

Soldier

Serveur

Duke

Le père

Husband

Raisonneur

Wrestler

Dead woman

Valet

Death

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Address to the public

Pantomime

Parody of formal language

Prologue

Versified passages

Stichomythia

Metamorphosis

Character thrown out of the scene

Zum großen Wurstel

To the big sausage

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.

Blümel Otto

Poetry

Gluttony

Bavaria

Radish

Beauty

Symbolism

George, Stefan Anton

Parodistic

Arts

Comical regional accent

Dialogue of the deaf

Song

Blow-with-a-stick

Murder on stage

Allegory

Der Dichter

The poet

Through various scenes that follow one another without necessarily being linked, The text evokes the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps through a poetic diversions. The common thread running through the entire play is the character of the little girl, about seven years old, who meets different characters, human or not: a Man who shrinks the sky, a Little Pile of Ashes, a Train, a Chimney. Each character appears as a metaphor charged with meaning, first and foremost the Little Pile of Ashes, which materializes in a macabre and at the same time "light" way the ashes of the victims burned in the ovens. At the end of the play, the little girl, who has lost both her innocence and her life force, also disappears, swallowed up by the little pile of ashes.

Actor and puppet

Cagnard Jean

France

Cannes

Shoah

Loss

Concentration camp

Lightness

Change of age of the characters

Poetic

Historical event

Pathetic

Lyrical

French

Petite-fille

Mother

Fils

Grand-mère

Transforming scenery

Change of size on sight

Active stage directions

Board

Les Gens légers

Th light people

Ondina Peteani was born in Trieste on 26 April 1925. As a teenager, she began to associate with the Fontanot family and attended communist meetings. At the age of seventeen, she chose to become an underground activist of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). She soon began to carry out her first resistance actions under the pseudonym "Natalia". During a police operation in a mountain refuge, Ondina managed to save herself with the help of comrade Cvetko. In June 1943, all the members of the resistance group to which Ondina belonged, Ondina herself, her mother and her sister were imprisoned because of a double agent. After the armistice on 8 September, they are all freed by the people. The informer turns out to be Ondina's sister, Santina, because she had a love affair with a young fascist. Santina is executed. Fighting against the Germans begins and the resistance fighters succumb after a fierce struggle. Ondine and comrade Stecchi are sent in pursuit of the traitor Blechi, who has caused the death of many resistance fighters after infiltrating among them. The comic sketch with the glove-puppets begins: Blechi notices the presence of Ondina and Stecchi and disguises himself as a priest so as not to be recognised, thus managing to escape. When he meets Ondina, he disguises himself as an old man, but she recognises him and Blechi is caught and killed. In 1944, Ondina is deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a political prisoner. She survives despite the physical and psychological hardships. The horror she experienced in the camp did not erase her conviction that she had to fight for resistance and freedom.

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Zum großen Wurstel

Burleske in einem Akt

Der Dichter

Les Gens légers

È bello vivere liberi!

Progetto di teatro civile per un’attrice, cinque burattini e un pupazzo