Berlingue asks his wife to keep his travel trunk during his day of absence. The wife, jealous that the trunk receives more attention than she does, takes advantage of his absence to go party with Arlequin. After an unfortunate blow of the stick from Arlequin, Mme Berlingue drops dead. Arlequin hides her corpse in the trunk, makes the husband’s doubts vanish, and gets rid of the Apothicaire (Apothecary) who had come to visit him. On his way to the boulangerie, where he is planning to destroy the corpse by putting it in the oven, he encounters Pierrot who steals the trunk and discovers the body. Pierrot sells the trunk to a merchant who sells it back to Arlequin, who wants the merchant to take it back. The merchant’s screams alert the Gendarme (Constable) who arrests Arlequin and wants to hang him. Arlequin runs away and pushes the Gendarme (who gets run over): the trunk opens in the impact and brings Mme Berlingue back to life. As the merchant claims ownership of the trunk, Mme Berlingue goes back home to relate everything to her husband. The Commissaire (Superintendent) arrives and, in disbelief of the merchant’s tale, requisitions the trunk. Berlingue arrives and wants his trunk back. The Commissaire accuses him of murdering the Gendarme and wants to hang him. The Gendarme comes back to life. Mme Berlingue convinces the Gendarme to un-hang her husband and to take his place. When the Commissaire returns, he finds the Gendarme hanged but still alive; they both abandon any hanging plans, for no one was murdered.

Glove-puppet

All audiences

France

Paris

Printed

Trunk

Silliness

Trade

Corpse

Resurrection

Accidental murder

Error

Comical

Farcical

Duranty, illustration for "La Malle de Berlingue" (Théâtre des marionnettes du Jardin des Tuileries, 1862)

French

Arlecchino

Apothecary

Pierrot

Constable

Police Superintendant

Spectacular turn of events

Unexpected turn of events

Hanging scene

Hidden corpse

Fake death

Death on stage

Blow-with-a-stick

Misunderstanding

La Malle de Berlingue

Berlingue's Trunk

Saint Peter comes down to earth to grant three people of his choice the fulfillment of three wishes each. The first, a blacksmith, wishes that anyone who climbs into his pear tree to steal his pears can no longer come down without his permission, that people can only enter his house to disturb him through the keyhole, and that his bag fills with everything he wants to have in it. Peterle, the young boy who assists him at the forge, wishes to see his parents again in paradise, to have health, and to always be in a cheerful mood. Kasperl, in turn, goes to see Saint Peter and obtains that three wishes be granted to him, but asks to consult with his wife Gretl beforehand. However, they are unable to agree. Gretl finally blurts out that she would like sausages, which immediately appear on the table. Out of spite, Kasperl wishes that the sausages hang from his nose, but then he can't get them off, tries to shoot them off with a pistol, and accidentally kills his wife. A policeman arrives, whom he murders by suffocating him in the box where the policeman discovered Gretl's body. When he is about to throw the boxinto the water, the devil emerges, resurrects his wife, and beats him up. Now it is the blacksmith's time to die. Death, with a nail through his skull, comes to see him. The blacksmith asks him to pick a pear for him before following him. Death climbs into the tree and cannot come down until he has promised the blacksmith never to come back to see him again. However, he touches young Peterle, who had laughed at seeing him in such an awkward position, and he enters paradise. Then Death sends the devil to torment the blacksmith, but the latter, in the company of Kasperl, catches him in a bag as he passes through the keyhole and giveshim a severe beating. To avenge the devil, Death waits for Kasperl outside, but he manages to nail his skull to a tree and only releases him on the condition that he leaves him alone from now on too. After theFirst World War, however, neither the blacksmith nor Kasperl have any more taste for life. However, they are refused entry to both Heaven and Hell. The blacksmith then throws his bag over the wall of paradise and wishes to be there himself: he thus deceives Saint Peter. Kasperl has one last wish: he asks for theresurrection of the policeman, so as not to have his death on his conscience any longer. Entry to paradise is finally granted to him, but after a few years of purgatory: he will haveto return to his wife.

Rod and string marionette

String marionette

Not specified

Rokos August Franz

Czechia

Cheb

Smithy

Devotion

Wishes

Saints

Catholicism

Happiness

Beatitude

Sausage

Cold cuts

Knödel

Tavern

Heaven

Eternal punishment

Devil

Perlike

Police

Assassination

Feminicide

Hell

Child

Children--Death

Beer

Vanity

Inflation

Fantasy

Burlesque

Grotesque

German

Nach einer alten Erzählung für das Kasperltheater bearbeitet

Saint Peter

Blacksmith

Kasperl

Mrs Kasperl

Death

Angel

Policeman

Word for another

Versified passages

Domestic scene

Murder on stage

Light effects

Allegory

Apparition

Political allegory

Naive character deceived

Trap

Der Schmied von Jüterbock und sein Geselle Kasper

The Blacksmith of Jüterbock and his companion Kasper

Testafina and the aged Mrs Carlotta wish to enlist as volunteers in the hunt for the hyena, a beast that devours the young women of the village of San Giorgio. Giorgio Orsolano, the village delicatessen owner, immediately reveals himself to be the hyena: in his first appearance, like a good shopkeeper, he thinks about how many victims he needs during the San Giorgio fair to meet the demand for fresh sausages. After introducing himself, Giorgio Orsolano takes action and, at the end of the first act, drops the young Bianca and Colombina into the trapdoor connected to his workshop. The latter is engaged to Gianduja, who, together with Testafina, is the protagonist of the hunt for the hyena. It is Gianduja who, after buying sausages from Orsolano, finds a piece of a woman's finger (which he recognises from the nail polish) in his plate and realises who could be hiding behind the hyena. While Testafina calls everyone together, Gianduja breaks into Orsolano's shop, who was about to kill Colombina, and knocks him out with his stick. The mayor and the guards then take care of bringing the delicatessen owner-hyena to justice, to everyone's satisfaction.

Niemen Gualberto

Italy

Hyena

Criminal

Butcher

Blood

Cannibalism

Legend

Rewriting

Tradition

Italy (north)

Italian

Storia di una vecchia leggenda.

Capitano Carletto dei cacciatori volontari della iena

Testafina

Gianduja

Colombina

Colombine

Mayor

Guard

Dialect

Unveiling

Comical regional accent

La Iena di San Giorgio

King Victor Emmanuel II despairs to Garibaldi because the notorious criminal nicknamed ‘The Hyena of San Giorgio’ is stealing the limelight in the newspapers: more and more young girls are being kidnapped and then disappearing. When the Savoyard people (identified as ‘Cri de douleur’) beg him to free them from the Hyena, Victor Emmanuel takes his time and goes to San Giorgio because it seems that there is a butcher there, Barnaba Caccú, who makes the best sausages in all of Piedmont. Meanwhile, the nobleman Femorino wants to make sure that his fiancée, Angiolina, is a virgin, but when asked the question, Angiolina explodes in a fit of vulgarity and then reveals that she wants to marry a certain ‘Pensive Knight’ who secretly sends her love letters. Angiolina realises that her secret lover is the wanted criminal and, rejecting Femorino, agrees to marry him. Meanwhile, at Angiolina's house, her parents have invited Femorino to dinner: on the table is a sausage from the famous butcher of San Giorgio. Femorino finds a ring still attached to a piece of finger on his plate. No one suspects anything, however, and Femorino goes to the butcher's to return the ring. Meanwhile, in the butcher's hidden workshop, Caccù, with the help of his servant Crimea, has tied Angiolina to the table to turn her into sausage, but when he hears someone coming, he runs away. So when Femorino enters the workshop and finds Crimea with Angiolina tied up next to him, he immediately mistakes him for the Hyena. Meanwhile, in order to escape, Caccú has gone to the station disguised as a nun and expects the whole army to be sent after him. However, no one pays any attention to him. Outraged at not being recognised as the great criminal he is, Caccú confesses everything, even to King Victor Emmanuel II, but no one believes him. Left alone on stage, he shouts in vain, ‘It's me, I am the Hyena of San Giorgio.’

Gloved hand

Ceronetti Guido

Albano Laziale

Piedmont

Guilty

Evil

Tragic

Ironic

Tragedia per marionette

King

Vittorio Emmanuele II

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Prophet

Blind

Count

Doctor

Slave

Bourgeois

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Emperor

Maid

Vicar

Judge

Carabiniere

Stationmaster

Caricature

Disguise

Implausible

Hyperbolic action

The Hyena of Saint George

The play opens with a “Prologo in cielo” (prologue in the sky) during which the Teatro Vagante (an itinerant theatre) is brought down from the fly towers to the stage: the Teatro Vagante is at once a cave, a house, a cradle, a cart and a theatre. The actors have seen the theatre of the gods, which they have to try recreating now because “a mystery must be revealed”. The mystery is about a country where people are insatiable and keep wanting to eat fresh meat, even though resources are scarce. There are no cattle, an epidemic has broken out in the countryside and rubbish produced by their residents is piling up in the suburbs. This jungle of metal is thought to be the home of spirits called “rottamat”, which people believe to be responsible for the disappearance of several villagers. Everyone praises the butcher for his excellent meat, but he turns out to be an evil character who commits murders to supply meat for his shop. Just like the devil, he takes on numerous shapes: he is simultaneously the Butcher, the Father, the crazy man Matteo and the Emperor. Every morning, the Mother and the Father (the Butcher himself) wait for the butcher’s shop to open so they can buy the best meat, even when their son is in a hospital after having been attacked by the Father. The Mother flirts with the Butcher – who embodies her erotic ideal – until she becomes his victim. Nobody suspects the Butcher. Or maybe everybody keeps quiet so they can keep enjoying his excellent meat? The killings go on until all the villagers have eaten one another. Ultimately, only the Watchman understands that the Butcher is behind the murders, but even he is killed in the end. According to the actors of the Teatro Vagante, only hope remains: “even hell can be transformed – I hope”, one of the actors declares.

Shadow theatre

Brescia

Consumer society

Meat

Pollution

Famine

Love

Ecology

Lyrical

Giuliano Scabia, Fantastica visione, stage direction by Alessandro Marinuzzi, 1993.

sopra il taglio e la vendita di carne con cenni alla questione degli attori, dell'arte, del teatro e del mercato generale degli oggetti nel disarmonico presente