Kasperl returns drunk from the tavern and his wife Grethl refuses to let him in. He meets the night watchman, whom he frightens by pretending to be a ghost. He picks up the halberd and the lantern that the watchman dropped in his flight. That night, the moon is off duty and wanders through the streets. Kasperl apprehends it for wandering at night: as the moon refuses to comply, he strikes it in the face with his halberd, which destroys it. He then meets death and beats it with a stick. Finally the rooster crows. Kasperl is annoyed that the rooster can't say anything except "cock-a-doodle-doo" and kills it, then brings it back to Grethl for a meal: when she sees the poultry, she lets him come inside.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Printed

Drunkenness

Drunkard

Couple

Night

City

Village

Celestial body

Phantom

Ghost

Halberd

Poultry

Chicken

Tavern

Fantasy

Burlesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Night watchman

Moon

Death

Cock, cockerel

Apparition

Disguise

Animated natural element

Personification

Domestic scene

Versified passages

Fight

Metatheatre

Kasperl als Nachtwächter

Kasperl the night watchman

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

Misery

Cage

Forest

Justice

Hunger

Cruelty

Perversity

Parodistic

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Hidden character

Murder on stage

Off-stage voice

Chase

Dialect as a social marker

Caricature

Confinement

Song

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

Unable to sleep, Casperl complains about his lot in life and even says that he is ready to appeal to the spirits, following the example of Faust, when a headless ghost appears in front of him. The ghost asks him to save him from hell by performing the necessary rites at midnight at the gallows. In exchange, Casperl will get hold of the treasure that the ghost buried at this location when he was still a bandit. The next day, Casperl, who has forgotten the ritual words, asks the witch Moosmayerin to help him: she gives him Holofernes’ magical belt. In the next scene, Casperl has become rich, but he considers that the money shouldn’t be used to pay his debts and he sends his creditors away with injurious words. When a police officer comes to arrest him, he manages to lock the police officer inside his house and goes to the tavern. When he returns to his place, he discovers that the police officer has hung himself by accident with the rope with which he tried to slip away. Casperl is thrown in prison, but he is freed by the ghost, who tells him that the police officer has not died and that he has resumed his work.

Beer

Melancholy

Faust

Spirits

Robber

Scaffold

Sorcery

People and history

Coffee

Market

Wealth

Scatology

Debt

Perlicke

Romanticism

Comical

Schicksalsdrama in vier Aufzügen

Tailor

Police officer

Shoemaker

Chimney sweeper

Monologue

Word for another

Thunderbolt

Chorus

Parody of formal language

Macaronism

Hanging scene

Transforming scenery

Board

Instrumental tune

Casperl wird reich

Casperl gets rich

Gretl complains about Casperl's absence, as he always comes home late and very drunk. When he finally arrives, she gets angry and wishes he would go to the Gold Star or the Silver Moon (these are the names of the taverns Casperl frequents) and never return. Her wish seems to come true when a small gold star appears to Casperl asleep and takes him against his will to the moon. At the end of an adventurous journey through different regions of the sky, Casperl is welcomed by the moon; but, exhausted, he falls asleep. When he wakes up, he is in his bed. Did his cosmic journey ever take place? No matter: Casperl resumes his tour of the taverns on behalf of the drinkers' association founded the day before and which has elected him inspector of drinking establishments.

Kasperl als Nachtwächter

Hansel und Grethel

Casperl wird reich

Schicksalsdrama in vier Aufzügen

Casperls Mondfahrt

Ein Casperlerlebnis in 3 Aufzügen