Doctor Faust is disillusioned with academic disciplines. He learns black magic and makes a deal with the devil Mephistopheles, promising him his soul if the latter accepts to serve him for twenty-four years. Faust’s new domestic servant, Casperle, also learns to summon demons, and engages the services of the devil Auerhahn. However, he refuses to sell his soul to him. During the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Parma, Faust makes the Ancient Testament appear before them and attempts to seduce the duchess. But he is pursued by her husband, the Inquisition and the outraged people, because Casperle has used his links with the devil to carry out miracles. Faust flees to Constantinople and Auerhahn brings Casperle to Mainz. The final act relates Faust’s damnation. He does penance, but he is doomed when Mephistopheles promises him the most beautiful woman in the world – Helen of Troy. Faust is carried off by demons, while Casperle, now a night watchman, takes his revenge on his wife at the end of the play, for the domestic violence she inflicted on him.

String marionette

Not specified

Simrock Karl

Germany

Bonn

Printed

Scholar

Necromancy

Magic

University

Monkey

Pluto

Crow

Mainz

Perlike

Drink

Pigtail

Dragon

Seduction

Inquisition

Italy

Couch

Vanity

Repentance

Nightwatchman

Lust

Eternal punishment

Spousal abuse

Tragic

Humorous

German

Monologue

Dilemma

Off-stage voice

Tragic irony

Misunderstanding

Comic equivocation

Aside

Lazzi

Song

Pact with the devil

Versified passages

Dream

Apparition

Pyrotechnics

Chase

Theatre within the theatre

Domestic scene

Dance

Doctor Johannes Faust

After having locked the devil up in a box (in <a href="https://puppetplays.eu/en/oeuvres/5840/kasperl-und-der-teufel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kasperl und der Teufel</a>), Kasperl wants to throw him in the water. Suddenly, it is his wife who emerges from the box… and who starts to slap him many times to take revenge, for he wanted to get rid of her (<a href="https://puppetplays.eu/en/oeuvres/5777/frau-kasperl-und-die-k%C3%B6chin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frau Kasperl und die Köchin</a>)! Kasperl ends up throwing both his wife and the box out of the glove-puppet booth, and then goes to the inn. On the way, he encounters a curious animal peeping at him; he pets the animal, which bites him. He fetches a sausage to feed the animal, but decides to eat it and gives the skin of the sausage to the animal. The animal catches Kasperl’s arm with its maw, then catches him by the back of his pants… Kasperl goes to get his stick, which the animal tries to steal from him; the animal gets beaten and runs away, followed by Kasperl who wants to knock it out.

Glove-puppet

Reinhardt Carl

Munich

Sausage

Animal

Beast

Stick

Mace

Woman

Devil

Nightingale

Crocodile

Tavern

Jaws

Glutton

Hunger

Tralala

Hits

Radirullala

Comical

Grotesque

Farcical

Carl Reinhardt, Das geheimnisvolle Tier, 1852.

Kasperl

Mrs Kasperl

Blow-with-a-stick

Slaps

Das geheimnisvolle Tier

The mysterious animal

As a conversation goes on between Cassandre and Pierrot (his servant), we find out that Arlequin wishes to marry Isabelle, Cassandre’s daughter. However, Cassandre wants her to marry someone else. Pierrot takes advantage of the conversation to talk about the rumours going around in town regarding a witch. Cassandre, sceptical, does not believe them. Later, Arlequin relates having met an elderly lady who turned out to be a witch. Shortly afterwards, the lady appears and promises Arlequin a magic power if he becomes her spouse. He refuses and runs away with Isabelle. Suddenly, l’Amour (Love), the Bon Génie (Good Genius), appears in front of Arlequin and Isabelle. He recommends that Arlequin searches for a hazel branch that will be their talisman. However, their plan is soon exposed: the whole Caverne du Sabbat (Sabbath Cave) quickly discovers Arlequin’s intentions. At the same time, Cassandre and Pierrot start looking for Isabelle and Arlequin. In the end, Arlequin manages to get the magical talisman and finds Isabelle. Pierrot and Cassandre, still looking for Isabelle, fall into the earth where an enchanted broom relentlessly chases them, but they escape it.
 Arlequin and Isabelle are still running away while Cassandre and Pierrot keep trying to catch them. However, it is almost midnight: the witch’s powers over Arlequin will soon disappear. At the last moment, the witch manages to capture the lovers, but the Génie appears and reminds her that the evil hour has come. Powerless, she disappears. The Génie promises to take Arlequin and Isabelle to a city full of happiness, and to bring Cassandre and Pierrot as well.

Young audiences

France

Paris

Manuscript

Servant

Father-daughter relationship

Wedding

Love

Sorcery

Talisman

Sword

Chasing

Happiness

Fantasy

Le Balai de la Sorcière, first page of the manuscript.

French

Cassandra

Arlecchino

Pierrot

Daughter

Genie

Witch

Music

Magical disappearance

Prologue

Apparition of a genie

Initiatory quest

Blow

Apparition of demons

Visual pun

Demons dance

Object magically appearing

Le Balai de la Sorcière

The Witch's Broom

Jan Klaassen meets with Langhals, whose neck inconceivably grows longer and longer. Langhals disappears when Jan Klaassen throws himself at him to break his neck. Jan Klaassen violently bangs himself. Katrijn, his wife, hears his screams and comes running: she tells him that she would have rather found him dead. Jan Klaassen wants to beat her with a stick. During their pursuit, Death appears in Katrijn’s stead. Jan Klaassen raises his stick and Death disappears. Jan Klaassen decides to go for a drink, but changes his mind at the last minute and ends the play with a song condemning alcoholism and its harmful effects.

All audiences

Netherlands

Monster

Argument

Burial

Alcohol

Dutch

Jan Klaassen

Long-neck

Death

Final song

Lengthening of a character

Langhals en de dood

Long-neck and Death

Marianne – the wife of a poor lumberjack – sends her starving children Hansel and Grethel in the woods, so that they pick some berries. But the children are captured by the cannibalistic naturalist Fleischmann, at the same time as the travelling tailor Kasperl Larifari, who believes he will find bed and board at his house. They are locked inside chicken coops and fattened. Kasperl is enraged. To calm him down, Fleischmann allows him outside the cage to drink some wine with him. He intends on eating him right after. But they both get drunk, while the professor’s maid, Katharine, helps the children escape and reports the cannibal to the police. Kasperl takes advantage of the general confusion to escape too. The professor chases him and then gives up. He wants to find the children but falls asleep in the end, exhausted. Kasperl finds him and sews the two legs of his pants together. Eventually, the court bailiff arrives with the children’s father, Peter. When they find Fleischmann, he is unable to move, and Peter kills him with an axe. The children come out of hiding and, at the end of the play, Kasperl declares that wickedness has been punished, virtue rewarded and that they all need to go to an inn now.

Pocci Franz von

Cannibalism

Natural sciences

Philosophy

Tale

Poverty

Misery

Cage

Forest

Justice

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Burlesque

Parodistic

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Night

Moon

Hidden character

Murder on stage

Animated natural element

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Confinement

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

Incredibly thirsty, Polichinelle and Niflanguille order a barrel of wine to the tavern-keeper Baillenflé, but they refuse to pay for it, fight him and then run away. To avenge himself, Baillenflé asks his brother the Sorcier (Sorcerer) to bewitch the barrel before gifting it to Polichinelle and Niflanguille as a sign of truce. When the two stooges open it, a Crocodile comes out and bites Polichinelle’s nose. To get rid of the Crocodile, Polichinelle offers it different objects before pushing Niflanguille towards it. The Crocodile takes Niflanguille away, Polichinelle closes the barrel and calls a Gendarme (Constable) for help. The Gendarme opens the barrel and the Crocodile takes him away as well. Polichinelle kills a Soldat (Soldier) with a cannon blow to feed the Crocodile. As soon as the reptile exits the barrel, Polichinelle enters it to get some wine. The Crocodile comes back, tries to catch Polichinelle, and moves towards his house. Worried for his family, Polichinelle and the Sorcier join forces to hang the Crocodile. When Polichinelle thinks that he can finally drink in peace, the Diable (Devil) arrives, locks him in the barrel and drags him to Hell.

Thirst

Wine

Theft

Cunning

Cannon

Cabaret

Polichinelle

Magician

Sorcerer

Constable

Soldier

Running gag

Final intervention of the devil

Character crushed by a barrel

Comical fall of a character

Character thrown in the air

Fight with an animal

Cannon shot

Hanging scene

Le Tonneau

The Barrel

With the hope of finding some gold, Pierrot and Polichinelle break into the Sorcier’s (Sorcerer) house, but they are caught by a Poule noire (Black Hen) that attacks them. Polichinelle runs away with the Poule, but Pierrot, trapped, hides in a cauldron. Panicked, the Sorcier calls his colleagues for help, and they all try to bring the Poule back using a potion prepared in the cauldron. Pierrot moves around in the cauldron (which makes the Sorciers run away) and uncovers himself. To punish him, the Sorcier turns his head into that of a donkey. Meanwhile, Polichinelle is starving and kills the Poule, making it disappear: the Diable (Devil) appears in its stead. To punish Polichinelle, the Diable gives him the head of a red donkey. Polichinelle and Pierrot come back and threaten the Sorcier into giving them their appearance back; the Sorcier tells them that he lost his powers when he lost his Poule. Pierrot searches through the Sorcier’s potions and finds a cream that gives him his head back. However, the Sorcier runs away with the cream, chased by Pierrot. A Cocher (Coachman) arrives, thinks that Polichinelle is gorgeous, whips him and wants to hitch him to his cart. Polichinelle defends himself with his stick and the Cocher runs away. Desperate to get his head back, Polichinelle tries another one of the Sorcier’s creams, but his head turns into that of a pig. A Charcutier (Pork butcher) sees Polichinelle and is in awe of the talking pig; Polichinelle thinks that he is insane and chases him away with his stick. Pierrot comes back with the remedy, and Polichinelle gets his real head back. Polichinelle leaves with Pierrot and encounters the Sorcier: he kills him with a single blow of a stick.

Naivety

Cauldron

Donkey

Fantastic

Coachman

Pork butcher

Metamorphosis

Apparition of the Devil

Whiplash

Death on stage

Unexpected turn of events

Disappearance

Characterisation through onomatopoeia

La Poule noire

The Black Hen

Heriwolf, son of the woodland fairy Waldminne, is forcing his attentions on Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood). He is surprised to see the sun rising, as he must only live at night, and he turns into a wolf. In the meantime, the dwarf Gübrich, who was sent by Waldminne in search of her son, is changed into a pug and finds a new owner in the person of Kasperl Larifari, a lumberjack. The wolf eats cattle, and we already fear for Rotkäppchen’s safety as she is walking through the woods from old Kathrin’s house, her grandmother. But after seeing her, Heriwolf becomes human again, and she confides in the young man she met at dawn. Unfortunately, his wolf’s appetite makes him eat old Kathrin. He is still hungry and is about to pounce on Rotkäppchen before being shot by the hunters. Waldminne appears and turns Heriwolf back into his human form. He marries Rotkäppchen.

Title page of the play illustrated by the author

Das Märchen vom Rothkäppchen

The tale of Little Red Riding Hood