A young alchemist, Émile, and his assistant Guignol are preparing for their final experiment—to create a man. Instead of a man, however, a Monstre (Monster) rises out of the cauldron, scaring the two men as well as Émile’s fiancée, Amélie, the daughter of Baron de Valbreuze. Émile and Guignol go to a cemetery, where they are advised by a Squelette (Skeleton) to question an old Alchimiste (Alchemist), who can teach them how to get rid of the Monstre. The Monstre is devoured by ghosts and disappears. Guignol and Émile go back to the Baron and to his daughter, and the young couple signs a marriage contract.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

France

Lyon

Printed

Alchemy

Creation of a living being

Fear

Sorcery

Fantastic

Comical

Le Monstre et l'alchimiste, censorship archives (first page of the text)

French

Le Monstre et l'alchimiste

Alchemist

Guignol

Monster

Skeleton

Undead

Monologue

Word warping

Apparition of a monster

Graveyard scene

Dead talking character

Apparition of a ghost

Engulfment

Pyrotechnics

Final song

L'Alchimiste

The Alchemist

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.

Actor and puppet

Shadow theatre

Italy

Brescia

Consumer society

Meat

Pollution

Famine

Cannibalism

Love

Death

Ecology

Evil

Tragic

Grotesque

Lyrical

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

Italian

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

Actor

Butcher

Apprentice

Mother

Father

Student

Police officer

Fool

Smuggler

Puppet

Butterfly

Shadow

Voice

Emperor

Minister

Valet

Angel

Interlude

Prologue

Song

Metatheatre

Political allegory

Double characters

Hidden corpse

Dialect

Blow-with-a-stick

Fight

Flying character

Masked characters

Apparition of the Devil

Apparition of an angel

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Chase

Tragic irony

Stabbing

Murder on stage

Scene of recognition

Splitting of the body

Revelation

Scene in the dark

Seduction scene

Dream

Thunderbolt

Fantastica visione

Fantastic vision

Clara, a young teenage girl, has killed herself. The day after, the Arpenteur (surveyor) questions several of her relatives to try and understand the circumstances of her death. Whilst he looks for the reasons that led to this act, he also tries to grasp the reasons that motivate him to live. Each of Clara’s relatives describe memories of her and provide contradictory stories of her last moments. Dylan, her boyfriend, admits he felt that she had no desire to live. From the hereafter, Clara observes the same feeling in others. She hears the song that Dylan hums for her and tries to call for him, but to he can’t see her. Adrien, Pierre, and Sylvain, whose job is to start fires, say that they saw Clara with the Passeur (the ferryman). In a flashback, we can see Clara asking the Passeur to choose how she is going to die. A chorus of naiads then describes how she drowned in the river. The Arpenteur asks the Passeur to bring Clara back from the dead. The Arpenteur solves a riddle, and the Passeur allows Clara’s relatives to see her one last time. Clara appears and sees how they all suffer, but she assures them that she is happier dead than alive.

Paris

Suicide

Mysterious death

Remembrance

Grief

Quest

Afterlife

Lust

fleuve

Philosophical tale

Éloi Recoing, Un instant suicidaire, Théâtre aux Mains Nues, 2008

Concerto pour marionnettes à la mémoire d'un ange

Dead woman

Lover

Naïade

Analepsis (Flash-back)

Dance

Aria

Chorus

Ghost

Un instant suicidaire

A suicidal moment

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

Human sized puppet

Charleville-Mézières

Electronic text

Journey

Passion

Future

Unfaithfulness

Road-movie

Realist

Dramatic

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