The Viennese public attends a puppet show in the Prater. The play in question features a hero who is unwillingly involved in a foursome with his lover Liesl and the Duke and Duchess of Lawin. The duel between him and the Duke is cancelled, but he loses the interest of the Duchess and the love of Liesl in the process. Death comes. The audience, which has not stopped commenting on the play, intervenes more and more loudly and the performance turns into a scandal. It is no longer clear who is a spectator, who is a puppet, until a man in a blue coat enters the stage... and cuts the strings of the puppets with a sword, thus discriminating between animate and inanimate.

String marionette

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Germany

Berlin

Printed

Representation

Unfaithfulness

Duel

Self-consciousness of puppets

Local color

Argument

Wrangle

Hanswurst

Noise

Lust

Entertainment

Burlesque

Satirical

German

Marionetten

Burleske in einem Akt

Director

Poet

Bourgeois

Daughter

Count

Soldier

Waiter

Child

Duke

Father

Husband

Raisonneur

Wrestler

Dead woman

Valet

Death

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Address to the public

Pantomime

Parody of formal language

Prologue

Versified passages

Stichomythia

Metamorphosis

Character thrown out of the scene

Zum großen Wurstel

To the big sausage

The poet meets Kasperl in the street. He proposes to him to attend his puppet theatre, leaving him alone in front of the puppet booth. The first character to emerge is Hanswurst, but he fails to amuse Kasperl, who kills him by hitting him with a stick. Next, an allegory portraying Art enters the stage and offers him fruits. Kasperl does not find them to his liking and spills the garbage can on the poor woman's head. Finally, Death comes for him, and Kasperl knocks his head off with a stick. The furious poet returns to chastise him, but Kasperl has had enough and beats him to death.

Blümel Otto

Munich

Poetry

Beer

Gluttony

Bavaria

Radish

Sausage

Beauty

Symbolism

George, Stefan Anton

Parodistic

Kasperl

Arts

Monologue

Comical regional accent

Dialogue of the deaf

Song

Blow-with-a-stick

Murder on stage

Chorus

Allegory

Der Dichter

The poet

Two marionettes are hanging in a theatre. After some morning stretches, the First One, in great shape, wakes up the Second One, who is sad and busy pondering. The Second Puppet, persuaded to have a deep soul, lectures the First One, and explains the principles of Good and Evil. He claims to be a living actor and to have been freed from God, his maker, who has become powerless. However, he still needs the First One’s help to untie his strings and be able to move freely. The First One declares that he was created after Buddha. This statement makes The Second One feel bad and he starts gasping. He asks The First One to open the window and then the landscape. A house in Burma appears, inside it is the Burmese master who created The First Puppet. He is very old and on the verge of dying.

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Florence

Burma

Freedom

Buddha

Creation

Revelation

Comical

Philosophical tale

English

The Scene

Puppet

Old man

Choir

Metatheatre

Appearance

The First Prologue

Premier prologue

The Real Lady enters a shop to buy a foil that will accompany her in her social engagements. The Shopman first recommends her a “Real Horror”, whom she turns down. Then, he introduces the Real Artist, the Van Gogh model (only his legs and shoes are visible), but he growls whenever he hears about money and the Shopman advises her against buying it in the end. He suggests a Marionette instead – The Real Gentleman. The Real Lady inspects it closely, buys it and gets out of the shop with it, carrying it around on a leash. From behind a window, art historian John Ruskin and naturalist Charles Darwin followed and briefly commented on the scene. The interlude concludes with other remarks, from Buddha and Ahha, who appeared in a version of The First Prologue and who, accompanied by Parrot, were supposed to travel throughout centuries in the Drama for Fools initial project.