Kasperl is the knight Kuno’s squire. While hunting in the woods, he meets a hermit who offers him food and drink. As he is in a good mood, Kasperl slaps him in the face. The situation degenerates and he ends up skewering the hermit on his halberd. Kuno arrives, unaware of this. The magician Murischuripixtimixtistopheles sets out to capture them both and cook them in his wizard's kitchen. He transforms into a monster and wants to eat Kasperl: Kasperl feeds him the hermit's corpse, but this is not enough to satisfy him. Kasperl then hits him with his halberd until he collapses, dead. The knight Kuno finally arrives, but the magician suddenly reappears: the monster was only an illusion. Kuno runs away. Kasperl does not have time to follow him. The magician takes him into his service and gives him a cauldron to watch over, threatening to cook him in the cauldron if he does his job badly. But instead, Kasperl pushes him into the cauldron, which explodes: Kasperl flies to the moon and returns to Earth after visiting all the taverns there...

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Middle Ages

Knighthood

Troubadour

Squire

Dragon

Wood

Forest

Gluttony

Magic

Sorcery

Moon

Heroism

Assassination

Animals, Mythical

Tavern

Farcical

Parodistic

German

Ein Ritterstück aus dem finstern Mittelalter

Hermit

Kasperl

Knight

Der Zauberer Murischuripixtimixtistopheles

Magician

Devil

Sung scenes

Address to the public

Monologue

Versified passages

Metatheatre

Word for another

Parody of formal language

Blow-with-a-stick

Murder on stage

Apparition of the Devil

Pyrotechnics

Metamorphosis

Magic act

Stichomythia

Macaronism

Kasperls Heldentaten

The heroic deeds of Kasperl

Hans is drunk and comes upon the night watchman. He slaps him and beats him to take revenge for having arrested him earlier, when the curfew started. The watchman calls for help and a student arrives. But he also beats him with a cane, for the same reasons as Hans. At the end of the play, Grete comes fetch her husband to bring him home.

Not specified

Müller Alphons

Frankfurt

Night

Curfew

Village

City

Municipality

Public order

Drunkenness

Front cover of the collection Sechs neue Lust-Spiele für das Porzinell-Theater

Nächtliches Schauergemälde mit Mondscheinbeleuchtung in einem Akt

Night watchman

Student

Role reversal

Play in verse

Hans und der betrunkene Nachtwächter

Hans and the drunk night watchman

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.

Glove-puppet

Schnitzler Arthur

Austria

Vienna

Berlin

Spectator

Unfaithfulness

Duel

Self-consciousness of puppets

Local color

Argument

Wrangle

Hanswurst

Noise

Lust

Entertainment

Burlesque

Satirical

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

Pantomime

Prologue

Character thrown out of the scene

Zum großen Wurstel

To the big sausage

Casper is accused by a farmer of stealing his hay and the cart and cow that went with it. He tries to bargain over the compensation and settles the matter with a stick. In court, he insults the judge and beats the policeman. The peasant asks for him to be hanged, but Casper finds out and hangs him instead. Then he beats the policeman again. The judge wants him tortured and executed, but Casper beats him to death.

Sonneberg

Justice

Theft

Retribution

Punishment

Gallows

Torture

Police

Jail

Judgment

Prosecution

Violence

Embezzlement

Silliness

Wickedness

Insubordination

Ironic

Judge

Policeman

Peasant

Flying machine

Parodic trial

Foul language register

Comic Equivocation

Hanging scene

Epilogue

Casper soll ins Gefängnis kommen

Casper must go to jail

Casper goes to the magic factory to learn magic tricks. The magician shows him some, but Casper is so crude that the magician soon doesn't know what to say, whereupon Casper calls him a donkey. They fight, one with his stick and the other with his broom. Casper defeats the magician. A policeman comes to arrest him, but Casper knocks him out and hangs him on the gallows. His wife blames him, they argue and fight.

Triviality

Vulgarity

Rebellion

Household

Couple

Stick

Broom

Brawl

Domestic scene

Casper will Zauberer werden

Casper wants to become a magician

After a prologue in which Casper announces, among other things, that he is going to cut off the ears of children who are not well-behaved, the performance begins. Casper announces that, out of boredom, he wants to become a soldier. He shows his insubordination towards the non-commissioned officer who undertakes to train him by beating him with sticks. The non-commissioned officer sends him to the devil, who arrives: Casper kills him. He returns to his wife, announcing that he will be a general. She hits him with a broom, takes his stick back and they fight.

Army

Military

Spousal abuse

General

Madame Kasperl

Non-commissioned officer

Casper will Soldat werden

Casper wants to become a soldier

Don Juan tries to abduct Admirelles – the daughter of the governor of Barcelona Don Pedro, whom he turned away to his rival Don Philippo’s advantage. He is caught by Don Pedro and kills him, then he kills his uncle to rob him of his wealth and leaves town using the sewers. Don Juan and Kasper hide in a wood, where Don Juan kills a hermit to steal his trousers. Thus disguised, he kills Don Philippo, who was chasing him. The statue of Don Pedro appears to him. Don Juan invites him over for dinner. After a shipwreck, Don Juan and Kasper reunite at a wedding, during which one seduces the bride Zerlinchen and the other seduces her friend Berta. Don Pedro comes for dinner and insists that Don Juan visit him in his vault. Don Juan goes back to Barcelona during the night, enters the tomb and is damned. Kasper fled without further ado.

Apel Heinrich

Saxony

Manuscript

Seduction

Thief

Debauchery

Licentiousness

Future punishment

Parricide

Phantom

Abduction

Barcelona

Dramatic

Title page of Heinrich Apel's manuscript.

Der steinerne Gast

Don Pietro

Donna Marillis

Don Filippo

Don Juan

Guard

Landlady

Zerlina

Ghost

Song

Letter

Inn scene

Improvised scene

Lazzi

Disguise

Apparition

Light effects

Running away

Love rivalry

Aside

Don Juan overhears a conversation between Amarillis and Don Philippo, who agree to a romantic rendezvous. He sets out to kidnap Amarillis, when her father, Don Pietro, appears. Don Juan stabs him, and then robs his relative Don Alvaro Pantolfius, before fleeing Seville with his servant Schängche. The latter, tormented by a devil, is carried into the air on a giant sausage. After a shipwreck in which Schängche is swallowed and then spat out by a whale, the two fugitives wander through the woods. They meet a hermit, who, under threat, lends Don Juan a suit to disguise himself. Lost in the forest, Amarillis meets Schängche's fiancée, the innkeeper Greta de la Rosa. Don Juan finds the two women and tries to seduce them, but Don Philippo finds him in the meantime. Don Juan murders him. Schängche still has to fight a monster they meet in the forest. They arrive by chance at Greta's inn, where Don Juan seduces the bride of a wedding that has just taken place. At the cemetery, he invites the statue of Don Pietro to supper, who accepts his invitation. But Don Juan refuses to repent and is damned. Schängche, on the other hand, marries Greta.