Hanswurst is thrown out like trash from the stage of the Berlin theatre following the success of Voltaire’s tragedy Alzire. He is exiled to Salzbourg, where he lodges at Stoffel Knips’ house and seduces his host’s wife. Stoffel Knips catches them in the act and throws them out. Hanswurst’s distress is such that he tries to kill himself. But thunder strikes the branch on which he was hanging. Two Turks pass by the unconscious couple and take them aboard their felucca going to Turkey. During the trip, Madame Knips gives birth to two children – a boy and a girl – who grow extremely fast. In Turkey, Hanswurst is castrated to be made a eunuch in the Sultan’s seraglio. Madame Knips fell in the sea with her son during the trip, but she manages to swim to shore. She competes with her daughter for the Sultan’s favours; Hanswurst takes offence and makes a scene. He is banished by the Sultan as a result, and returns to Berlin, where he meets a prostitute. He recognizes one of the brothel’s clients as his own son, who also escaped drowning and became a pedant professor of philosophy. During a lecture he gives on the German almanac Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, published by Friedrich Christoph Nicolai, all the characters on stage die from atrocious diarrhoea.

Not specified

Schink Johann Friedrich

Germany

Berlin

Printed

Turkey

Sultan

Seraglio

Unfaithfulness

Prostitution

Suicide

Education

Literary criticism

Sturm und Drang

Genie

Adventure

Navigation

Human castration

Mutilation

Childbirth

Storm

Tempest

Scatology

Colic

Fart

Fornication

Triviality

Obscenity

Satirical

Anonymous illustration on the title page of Johann Friedrich Schink's collection Marionettentheater

German

Hanswurst

Madame Knips

Turk

Sailor

Daughter

Physician

Slave

Lady

Old woman

Prompter (theatre)

Scene of recognition

Bawdy equivocation

Splitting of the body

Prologue

Address to the public

Love story

Hanging scene

Play in verse

Epilogue

Unexpected turn of events

Brothel scene

Foul language register

Allusion to current literary events

Hanswurst von Salzburg mit dem hölzernen Gat

Hanswurst of Salzbourg with the wooden arse

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

Munich

Boat

Navy

America

Shipwreck

Fish

Leviathan

Unknown land

Island

Sausage

Beer

Thirst

Hunger

Cannibalism

Savage

Kidnapping

Horse

Family

Fantasy

Comical

Kasperl

Baleine

Cannibale

Eagle

Horserider

Madame Kasperl

Child

Monologue

Chorus

Sung scenes

Macaronism

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Kasperl among the anthropophagi

Mr. Casperl, a wealthy man of private income, has an appointment with Lieutenant Säbelmaier and the wife of the secretary Federspitzen for an excursion to Lake Starnberg near Munich, but his barber comes too late and he has to leave in a hurry to catch his train, which had been announced late. In the second part of the play, the boat of the three excursionists is wrecked by a sudden storm on the lake. Säbelmaier and Mrs. Federspitzen probably managed to save themselves. Casperl has been living like Robinson for eight days in a deserted forest by the lake. He finally meets a sheep with whom he can talk about philosophy, because it is in fact the reincarnation of a professor and living proof of the truth of metempsychosis. But they argue and the sheep flees in the face of another coming storm. A hunter then finds Casperl passed out and wants to bring him to justice as a poacher, but ends up recognising him as the man who disappeared eight days ago, and Casperl concludes by recommending that the audience take the steamboat instead.

Hanswurst von Salzburg mit dem hölzernen Gat

Kasperl bei den Menschenfressern

Casperl als Robinsohn

Die Parthie nach Starnberg