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.

String marionette

Not specified

Craig Edward Gordon

Italy

Marina di Pisa

Printed excerpts

Unfaithfulness

Latin Mythology

Hell

Monster

Evil

Descent into hell

Fantasy

Comical

Satirical

Parodistic

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

Worm

Cock, cockerel

Theatre within the theatre

Egg eclosion

Verbal imitation

Argument

Blind character

Disguised character (false identity)

Analepsis (Flash-back)

Anachronism

Avista

Hell (1916)

Enfer

A dirty and emaciated Agneau (Lamb) is alone and followed by a Vautour (Vulture) waiting for him to die to eat him. The Agneau arrives in a pasture where he hopes to be taken in by a new Troupeau (Flock). The Troupeau asks him questions and reproaches him for having lied: he said at first that he did not know what had happened to his own flock, before admitting that they had all been killed. The Troupeau therefore refuses to take him in, and the sheep send the Patou – the sheepdog that watches over them – to chase him away. But the Patou knows the lonely Agneau’s original flock. In fact, he was raised there by Bella the ewe, whom he thinks of as her mother. As a consequence, he is convinced that the Agneau is his brother. Patou kisses him, tells him that he can stay in the Troupeau and that dogs and sheep are not different. He starts bleating to prove it and he teaches the Agneau how to bark.

All audiences

France

Paris

Bourg-en-Bresse

Electronic text

Migrant

Refugees

Animal

Inclusion

Pity

Livestock

Identity

Hospitality

Dramatic

Anaïs Vaugelade, L'Agneau a menti, stage direction by Émilie Flacher, 2018.