Mrs Kasperl comes to ask her husband for money when Kasperl finds a cook to whom he has promised to marry her and who has just brought him a sausage and some wine. The two women argue with Kasperl and start fighting. Kasperl knocks them both out and locks them in a chest. Alerted by the noise, the night watchman comes to question him. Kasperl explains to him that the two women had a quarrel over some plums inside the chest, offers some to the watchman and closes the lid on the unfortunate man who has put his head in it. Then he leaves, announcing that he will throw the chest into the water...

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Reinhardt Carl

Germany

Munich

Printed

Sausage

Wine

Woman

Shrew

Couple

Household

Married life

Kitchen

Glutton

Plums

Quarrel

Unfaithfulness

Comical

Farcical

Satirical

Grotesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Night watchman

Blow-with-a-stick

Argument

Domestic scene

Frau Kasperl und die Köchin

Mrs Kasperl and the cook

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.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Manuscript

Train

Railway

Train station

Independently wealthy person

Military

Secretary

Civil servant

Bourgeoisie

Barber

Robinson

Shipwreck

Beer

Hunger

Lamb

Sheep

Professor

Metempsychosis

Reincarnation

Philosophy

Hinduism

Pantheism

Poacher

Loneliness

Parodistic

Burlesque

Humorous

Die Parthie nach Starnberg; Herr Casperl als Robinson

Die Parthie nach Starnberg

Lieutenant

Hunter

Mouton

Dream

Unexpected turn of events

Monologue

Talking animal

Scene of recognition

Criticism of actors' theatre

Off-stage voice

Address to the public

Aria

Caricature

Philosophical dialogue

Casperl als Robinsohn

Casperl as Robinson

While all poor people on the outskirts of Munich deposit their savings in Adele Spitzeder's bank, sometimes even selling their businesses to live on their income, Kasperl is looking for a job. Through his brother Baldhauser (also known as Baldes), a door-to-door salesman, he was placed as a doorman at Adele Spitzeder's house. He introduces the bank's customers to the bank office, where she receives them with her proverbial frankness. But at the end of his first day on the job, the police come and arrest the banker for fraud and close the place down: Kasperl beats down the poor people who come to claim their money. The fourth act or epilogue is a picture of country life: following a quarrel with his wife, Kasperl's other brother, Melchior, goes drinking with the town crier. Kasperl and Baldes enter the stage to conclude the play with a song.

Gailler Gabriel

Scandal

Stock exchange

Bank

Embezzlement

Swindling

Money

Bavaria

Politics

Society

Peasantry

Popular class

People

Poverty

Misery

Bankruptcy

Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873

Waiter

Peasant

Shepherd

Police officer

Employé municipal

Flying machine

Spectacular turn of events

Inn scene

Catastrophe

Conversation

Political allegory

Slang

Dialect as a social marker

Brawl

Adele Spitzeder

Martin is secretly in love with the beautiful Eleonora Lambriani, a mysterious dancer with a legendary reputation. However, he has already sworn his love to Sophie. When Martin prepares to leave in order to offer his life and his money to Eleonora, his cousin Cassian arrives at his house. Initially inconsolable because of the departure of her lover, Sophie changes from the virtuous girl to the woman expressing her desire for Cassian, then she elopes with him by jumping out of the window. Martin dies by the hand of Cassian, poor as a church mouse, as he has lost all his money in a dice game against Cassian.

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Berlin

Visit

Dice game

Death

Journey

Loyalty in love

Sadness

Nostalgia

Seduction

Encounter

Temptation

Confession

Lust

Luck

Deception

Battle story

Duel

Suicide attempt

Femme fatale

Der tapfere Kassian

Puppenspiel in einem Akt

Valet

Plot twist

Love story

Deceived naivety

Teichoscopy

Der tapfere Cassian

The brave Cassian

After a prologue in which a marionette summarizes the plot, the scene opens in Juno’s bedroom at 3 a.m. Jove and Mercury, drunk and dressed as burglars, break the window to get in. Jove drives Mercury away and tries to sleep but he wakes up Juno, who picks a quarrel with him. She is furious and she decides to go to Hell and fetch two snakes which will kill Hercules and his mother in retaliation for Jove’s unfaithfulness. At the gates of Hell, Juno orders snakes and meets Blind Boy and Columbus the Parrot, who are carrying a bag. They are introduced to Pluto and his favorite snake, Slimy-Go-Gurgle-and-Twirl. They are sentenced to boil in the cauldron of Hell, but Columbus states that he has a present for Pluto in his bag. Pluto asks to see it. The present is an egg containing six other eggs, which are all of different colours and are placed one inside the other. Out of the smallest one hatches the “Worm of Worms,” Cockatrice, who kills all the snakes in Hell and terrifies everybody. Pluto gives his ring to Blind Boy and asks him to take Cockatrice away, but Blind Boy informs him that he is his mother and offers to explain how it happened. They all sit in front of a small theatre, where the story of Cockatrice’s birth is narrated. In the cockney neighborhood of London, Jove, dressed up as a cock, steps into Blind Woman and Blind Boy’s shop in order to buy pigeon milk. He hands over an egg to Blind Boy, since he is blind and therefore cannot see Cockatrice, who is about to hatch, for a single glance at Cockatrice would prove fatal - it would even kill him to see himself in a mirror. Jove asks Blind Boy to be Cockatrice’s mother and to never reveal to him who his father is. After hatching, Cockatrice befriends Blind Boy, and they decide to travel the different worlds together. After the performance ends, Blind Boy, Cockatrice, and Parrot leave Hell in order to rescue Hercules from the snakes sent by that Juno sent.

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Marina di Pisa

Printed excerpts

Latin Mythology

Hell

Monster

Evil

Descent into hell

Fantasy

English

Jupiter - Parrot - Pluto - Cockatrice & Blind-Boy

1st version

Puppet

Juno

Jupiter (Jove)

Mercury

Worker

Blind Boy

Blind

Parrot

Pretty Polly

Columbus

Servant

Devil

Pluto

Slimy-Go-Gurgle-And-Twirl

Snake

Cockatrice

Basilic

Gusano (ver)

Cock, cockerel

Theatre within the theatre

Egg eclosion

Verbal imitation

Blind character

Disguised character (false identity)

Analepsis (Flash-back)

Anachronism

Avista

Hell (1916)

Enfer

The play is set in 2077, in a military dictatorship. Everything happens in the cellar of a common citizen – Joan. One day when she comes back from work, she finds Dummy in it. He broke into her apartment by breaking a window, as he was trying to hide from the army. He does not own papers and has been shoplifting to survive. At first, Joan believes that he wants to rob her and asks him to hand her his knife. But Dummy is homeless and undocumented: his knife is his only means of defence. What is more, he is emotionally attached to it. Joan then agrees to feed and hide Dummy. He relates his past and confides that he was forced by soldiers to kill one of his parents. Joan and Dummy call on a smuggler, Jack, who promises to forge papers for Dummy, which would allow him to cross the border. However, the money Dummy was keeping in a box has disappeared. At this point, Jack declares that he has links with the army and threatens to report them. Despite the help Joan offers him (she goes as far as trying to request a loan), Dummy turns down her offer to run away with her: he says he wants to leave with Jack and to continue to steal for a living. Joan’s life has radically changed since meeting Dummy, for whom she says she has sacrificed everything. She does not understand his decision and launches into a xenophobic monologue, during which she inflicts extreme violence on Dummy. She stabs him several times, steps on him and tears him up. At the end of the play, the actor dubbing Dummy’s voice walks among the “debris” of the puppets and speaks in a fictional language.