Polichinelle wants to be loved while he is dressed as the shepherd Philemon, but is rejected by Issé. Doris accepts Pan's love for a while. Hylas is in turn rejected by Issé. Issé questions the oracle of the oaks of Dodona who tells her that she will fall in love with the god of light. Issé refuses because she prefers Polichinelle. Polichinelle reveals himself to her as Apollo.

Rod and string marionette

Not specified

France

Paris

Manuscript with songs and dialogue summaries

Oracle

God disguised as a mortal

Greek mythology

Shepherd

Unrequited love

Seduction

Rivalry in love

Parodistic

French

Polichinelle

Philémon

Mother Gigogne

Doris

The Interpreter

Pierrot

Hylas

Priest

Peasant (female)

Apollo

Misunderstanding

Unveiling

Spectacular turn of events

Ballet

Song

Dialogue with a character in the audience

Apollon Polichinelle

Apollo as Polichinelle

Florindo wants to marry Isabella, the daughter of a pork’s butcher. His father Balanzone opposes their union and wants Florindo to marry a baroness. Since his son refuses, Balanzone sends him to Venice for his studies, so that he will be far from Isabella. Florindo is hopeless and asks Brighella for help, and the latter takes him to the magician Arcaleus. The magician hands him two magic rings. Those who wear them will swap identities. The second ring falls into the hands of Fasolino, who owes a lot of debts in town. Florindo becomes Fasolino, and Fasolino, Florindo. After several misunderstandings and twists and turns, Fasolino, with the appearance of Florindo, ends up in jail, but people believe he is mad, and he is freed. Out of anger, he throws the ring on to the ground and thus regains his true appearance, which breaks the spell. Brighella reveals the plot. The story ends with a happy ending – Florindo is permitted to marry Isabella, and Fasolino expresses his joy because, while they swapped identities, Florindo repaid most of his debts.

Glove-puppet

Italy

Typewriting

Magic

Jail

Love

Magic object

Change of identity

Debt

Social classes

Comical

Emilian

Balanzone

Florindo

Brighella

Valet

Fagiolino

Sganapino

Guard

Monologue

Disguised character (false identity)

Aside

I due anelli magici

The two magic rings

The only spirit which the magician Negrocephalus is able to invoke on that day is the rooster spirit of Gockelhahn. The spirit informs him that his wife, the Gackerackack chick, is hatching a golden egg, which he promises to bring to Negrocephalus. The tired magician goes to his cabinet and asks his famulus Putzlmayer to keep watch. However, Putzlmayer prefers having fun by doing magic, thanks to Negrocephalus’s spellbook. He too invokes Gockelhahn, who comes back with the promised egg. Putzlmayer gets scared after hearing a voice coming from the egg and informs Negrocephalus before fleeing. Whoever is inside the egg keeps asking to be let out, and Negrocephalus starts worrying too. He swears to the being inside the egg that he will not eat it before daring to break the shell with his magic wand. After a series of thunderclaps and lightning, Kasperl comes out of the egg.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Manuscript

Birth

Nativity

Myth

Spirits

Wine

Donkey

Rooster

Sorcery

Learning

Faust

Laziness

Nonchalance

Cheekiness

Fantasy

German

Magician

Famulus

Cock, cockerel

Verschiedene Erscheinungen welche nicht zum Vorschein kommen

Apparition

Kasperl

Prologue

Magic act

Comical regional accent

Talking animal

Off-stage voice

Object coming to life

Address to the public

Versified passages

Pyrotechnics

Das goldene Ei

The Golden Egg

Heriwolf, son of the woodland fairy Waldminne, is forcing his attentions on Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood). He is surprised to see the sun rising, as he must only live at night, and he turns into a wolf. In the meantime, the dwarf Gübrich, who was sent by Waldminne in search of her son, is changed into a pug and finds a new owner in the person of Kasperl Larifari, a lumberjack. The wolf eats cattle, and we already fear for Rotkäppchen’s safety as she is walking through the woods from old Kathrin’s house, her grandmother. But after seeing her, Heriwolf becomes human again, and she confides in the young man she met at dawn. Unfortunately, his wolf’s appetite makes him eat old Kathrin. He is still hungry and is about to pounce on Rotkäppchen before being shot by the hunters. Waldminne appears and turns Heriwolf back into his human form. He marries Rotkäppchen.

Title page of the play illustrated by the author

Fairy

Dwarf

Little Red Riding Hood

Grandmother

Peasant

Hunter

The dream genie

Wolf

Improvised scene

Dream

Metamorphosis

Transforming scenery

Double identity

Love story

Chase

Deus ex machina

Das Märchen vom Rothkäppchen

The tale of Little Red Riding Hood

In the prologue, Laius asks the oracle about his son’s fate and, when he learns that his son will kill him and marry his mother Jocasta, he orders Creon to kill his son. Creon, however, abandons the child in a forest instead, where he is found by a shepherd named Faggiolino, who brings the infant to the king of Corinth, Polybus. The action of the play starts twenty years later. Oedipus consults the oracle about his fortune and he learns what was already predicted and told to Laius: he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus goes in search of his true parents and, on the way there, he fights Laius and kills him. Upon his arrival in Thebes, Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sfinge (Sphinx) who then kills herself. In return for his victory, Oedipus is made king of Thebes and the widowed Jocasta, his mother, becomes his wife. The gods, irritated by this incestuous union, start an epidemic in Thebes, which lasts until the prophet Esone explains its cause. Upon learning the truth, Oedipus, horrified, gouges out his own eyes and kills himself.

Bologna

Handwritten summary

Parricide

Incest

Destiny

Tragic

Italian

King

Laius

Queen

Jocasta

Creon

Oedipus

Minister

Augur

General

Duel scene

Self-mutilation

Suicide on stage

Edipo Re di Tebe con Faggiolino pastore

Oedipus king of Thebes with Faggiolino the shepherd

The Prologue begins where Molière’s play ended: Don Juan is going down the long stairway into Hell with the statue of the Commander. When he hears Sganarelle scream “My wages!”, he climbs back up to kick his servant, then comes back down. The statue of the Commander is surprised by his courage and offers to bring him back to life. But La Griffe du Diable (The Devil’s Claw) holds Don Juan back by his clothes. In the end, Don Juan is granted another ten years of life, as he makes a deal with La Griffe: during these ten years, he will continue to corrupt women and claim new victims. Ten years later, this extension is about to come to an end. Don Juan lives in Venice and believes that the Devil has forgotten about him. He is getting ready to have dinner and then go out. A puppeteer is passing in the street, and he invites Don Juan to his home, where he performs his show for him. From the glove-puppet booth, Polichinelle talks to Don Juan, who is reminiscing about the shows he saw as a child. Polichinelle kills Pierrot and Cassandre. He is bitten by a dog then attempts to seduce a doll, using Don Juan’s advice, and finally kills her. Don Juan asks that the puppeteer cut some scenes and get to the moment the Devil takes Polichinelle away. Then he provokes the puppet of the Devil by saying that he would not fear being carried off by him. The puppeteer leaves the booth, reveals that he is the Devil and sits at a table to dine with Don Juan. Don Juan enthuses over his conquests. He asks Sganarelle for the list of the women he seduced, which he then tears up. The Devil turns into a violinist and makes the scraps of paper dance: the Shadows of the one thousand and three women seduced by Don Juan arrive in gondolas. The Devil challenges Don Juan to recognise these women, but he gets them all wrong. Don Juan, who believed he had seduced and possessed all these women, realises that they had him wrapped around their fingers, and that even the tears they shed because of him were fake. He claims his victories, but he is told that he never did anything with them, and that he never knew how to love. Out of desperation, Don Juan reminds the Devil about the scale of his provocation when he gave a coin to Le Pauvre (The Beggar) “out of love for humanity”. But the Devil makes the Pauvre appear, and the latter throws the coin in Don Juan’s face and forbids him from claiming that he has embodied any kind of revolt. The Devil proves to Don Juan that he was only controlled by ribaldry, like Polichinelle. Rather than sending him to the fires of Hell, which is what the seducer proudly demands, the Devil sentences him to become a puppet in a booth.

Rostand Edmond

Cambo-les-Bains

Printed

Haughtiness

Woman

Lust

Suffering

Presumption

Death

Future punishment

Evil

Ridiculous

Revolt

Venice

Deal with the Devil

Lyrical

Satirical

Dramatic

Sketch by George Barbier for the Puppetteer's costume in Edmond Rostand's La Dernière Nuit de Don Juan, 1922.

Don Juan

Commander

Statue

Devil

Sganarelle

Poor

Ghost

Pulcinella

Cassandre

Doll

Play in verse

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Metonymy (mode of characterisation)

Apparition of the Devil

Blow-with-a-stick

Crowd

La Dernière Nuit de Don Juan

Don Juan's Last Night

Once again, Fagiolino borrows money from Polonia, Sandrone’s wife, and promises to pay her back as soon as he manages to marry Colombina, the niece of the wealthy Pantalone, and to collect her dowry. Meanwhile, Sandrone makes a deal to buy lands so that he won’t have to work for a landlord any longer. When he discovers that Polonia has taken money from his savings in order to lend it to Fagiolino, he beats her and swears to himself that he will do the same to Fagiolino. In the meantime, Bergnocla, a friend of Fagiolino, warns him that Arlecchino and Brighella are plotting against Pantalone: they have abducted Colombina in order to demand a ransom. While she is kept hidden in Brighella’s inn, they make Pantalone believe that it is the fearsome bandit Sebastian who has abducted her. Moreover, Arlecchino secretly wants to marry Colombina to obtain her dowry. Fagiolino, who is in love with Colombina, manages to foil Arlecchino’s plan: he intercepts Pantalone, who was headed to the bandit’s place with the money for the ransom, pretends to be the bandit himself and takes the money, so that it never falls into Arlecchino and Brighella’s hands. Those two are quarrelling because they each think that the other has betrayed them, and nobody suspects Fagiolino. They also think that the true bandit, Sebastian, is now angry with them because they have used his name for their own purposes. They beg Fagiolino to speak to the bandit and to talk some sense into him. Fagiolino accepts, in exchange for payment, and is delighted about the success of his plan. He pretends to have convinced the bandit to free Colombina and to leave Arlecchino and Brighella in peace. He finally goes to meet Pantalone so that he can be given credit for having convinced the bandit to free Colombina. Pantalone believes him and agrees to give him Colombina’s hand in marriage. Fagiolino goes back to Sandrone’s and pays him back the money he owed him.