Doctor Sassafras is pleased to have a client as hypochondriac as Steinreich. This rich and selfish man forbids his niece Marie from continuing to see his secretary Schreiber, whom he dismisses. Steinreich envisions a more beneficial match for his niece. Doctor Sassafras makes a deal with the devil to summon Death. Schreiber then attempts suicide, but a gravedigger saves him, as Death is detained in Sassafras’ enchanted chair. The Devil realises that his pact with Sassafras is detrimental to him and breaks their contract. Death comes fetch the doctor, who turns to God and hopes for His mercy. In the meantime, Steinreich converted: he has become charitable and, most importantly, no longer opposes Marie and Schreiber’s union.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Medicine

Knödel

Usurpation

Drink

Surgery

Prestige

Wealth

Champagne

Misery

Forced marriage

Hypochondria

Vanity

Cemetery

Faust

Bible

Suicide

Sentimentalism

Religion

Farcical

Satirical

Comical

Pathetic

Burlesque

Title page in the original edition of Pocci's comedies

German

oder Doctor, Tod und Teufel

Doctor

Kasperl

Secretary

Death

Devil

Peasant

Domestic servant

Gravedigger

Apparition

Parody of formal language

Dialect as a social marker

Versified passages

Allegory

Light effects

Pact with the devil

Song

Monologue

Off-stage voices

Philosophical dialogue

Final wedding

Doctor Sassafras

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.

Cannibalism

University

Natural sciences

Philosophy

Tale

Poverty

Cage

Forest

Justice

Hunger

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Fantasy

Parodistic

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Night

Moon

Hidden character

Murder on stage

Animated natural element

Chase

Caricature

Confinement

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

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.

Not specified

Gailler Gabriel

Scandal

Stock exchange

Bank

Embezzlement

Swindling

Money

Bavaria

Beer

Politics

Society

Peasantry

Popular class

People

Bankruptcy

Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873

Waiter

Shepherd

Police officer

Employé municipal

Flying machine

Spectacular turn of events

Inn scene

Catastrophe

Conversation

Political allegory

Slang

Argument

Brawl

Adele Spitzeder

Donna Anna turns Don Juan away – she prefers her more virtuous brother. Don Juan asks his father for three hundred ducats to win her over. When Don Pedro refuses and threatens to throw him behind bars, he loses his temper and murders him. Don Juan flees the town with his servant Kasperl, whom he pretends is the new sergeant, to fool the guards, and they hide in the woods. There, they meet a hermit and Don Juan wants to borrow his clothes to disguise himself. But Kasperl tells the hermit what crimes his master Don Juan has committed, and Don Juan eliminates this troublesome witness. In the meantime, the devil appears to Kasperl, who promptly gets rid of him. As they arrive to an inn, Don Pedro’s ghost appears to them and Don Juan invites him to dinner. The ghost agrees to the invitation and is poorly received by Kasperl, who go as far as throwing a chair on him. Don Juan refuses to repent. The ghost invites him back, then holds out his hand to him to seal their deal. At this moment, devils come and carry him into the air. Kasperl takes all of his master’s money and celebrates.

Schmidt Leopold

Austria

Vienna

Father

Lover

Brother

Jealousy

Parricide

Murder

Assassination

Tavern

Ghost

Phantom

Sausage

Woman

Love

Excessive drinking

Nature

Spirits

Dramatic

Tragic

Lyrical

Das nächtliche Gericht, oder Der steinerne Gast, oder Junker Hans von Stein

Don Juan

Don Pietro

Anna

Guard

Hermit

Waitress

Dance

Appearance

Final intervention of the devil

Role reversal

Word for another

Apparition of the Devil

Comic Equivocation

Running away

xDon Juan der Wilde

Don Juan the Wild Man

After performing a traditional guarattelle show, the puppeteer and his Pulcinella think they won’t have anything to eat as the audience left without paying. They both decide to leave Naples for France. When they arrive at court, the King carefully examines Pulcinella with a magnifying glass, and finds him too poor, so drives him away. Pulcinella beats the King with a stick and the guards come to arrest him. The puppet escapes from the puppet booth with the Puppeteer, who explains that if the puppet wants to eat, he must “change his face”.
The Puppeteer then turns Pulcinella into Polichinelle, giving him new, luxurious clothes decorated with ribbons and little bells, two bumps (one on the belly and the other on the back) and a white mask to hide his black half-mask. Thus transformed, Pulcinella moves and speaks far more slowly, but his new lazzi with a cock amuse the King greatly. The puppet and the Puppeteer are able to eat a big plate of pasta in front of the puppet booth and go to sleep with a full belly. Woken by the Marseillaise, they enter the puppet booth, believing a party is going on. On stage, in front of a guillotine, Robespierre and Danton debate whether the King should be tried. After cutting off the heads of Danton and the King, Robespierre also wants to kill Polichinelle, who is friends with the King. First, he cuts off one bump, and then the other, and finally the white mask. Polichinelle, who has now gone back to being “Pulcinella the revolutionary”, cuts off Robespierre’s head and then, like Napoleon Bonparte, proclaims himself emperor and uses a stick to beat, one after the other, the emperor of Austria and the Pope who has come to crown him. He shows his emperor’s crown to the Puppeteer: it means he’ll be able to eat for 200 years. The Puppeteer comes out of the booth for a last monologue at the end of which he dons the black half-mask and proclaims himself to be Pulcinella.