A Book of Marionettes

by Helen Haiman Joseph

Of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have little positive data. Romantic subjects appear to have been used for the puppets, also history and fable such as The Four Sons of Aymon, Genevieve of Brabante, The Lady of Roussillon, and even Joan of Arc which was quoted in another piece performed in 1430.

Invariably the comic element appears in the puppet shows of all nations. In Germany and Austria the buffoon has always been a part of even the most tragic dramas, lending variety and relief by his good natured, if somewhat obvious jests. The first names by which he was known in Germany may have been Meister Eulenspiegel or Hemmerlein, later it became Hanswurst and Kasperle. The name Kasperle, so Rabe claims, came through Austria and Professor Pischel goes still further in his assertion that the prototype for Kasperle was brought into the land over two thousand years ago from India. Later, of course, Italian and French players introduced Pulcinella and Arlecchino with their merry company.

In Hamburg puppets have been popular from earliest times. It was in 1472 that a showman announced The Public Beheading of the Virgin Dorothea. This theme remained a favorite in the puppet plays of that city for centuries, while the long suffering martyr continued to be ever more and more elaborately but neatly beheaded, in full view of the audience. In the eighteenth century an announcement proclaimed: “Exceptional marionette players with large figures and, accompanied by lovely singing, the execution of Dorothea.” The play of The Prodigal Son was another great favorite. It gradually lost its religious character and became a rather gruesome affair producing with ingenious mechanical appliances metamorphoses of which the country has always been particularly fond. For instance, Reibehand, a tailor who set up a booth in the horse market of Hamburg, advertised in 1752: “The Arch-prodigal chastened by the four elements, with Harlequin a joyous companion of the great criminal.” This extra-moral piece, given in great style, displays the prodigal about to partake of fruit which turns into skulls in his hands, then water becomes transformed into fire, rocks rend apart disclosing a corpse hanging from a gallows. As it swings in the wind, the limbs fall off and then collect again, on the ground, and arise to pursue the prodigal, and so on with similarly pleasing surprises.

In 1688 another showman, Elten, advertised Adam and Eve and following it Jackpudding in a Box and later another announces: Elijah’s Translation into Heaven, or The Stoning of Naboth, followed by a farce, The Schoolmaster Murdered by Jackpudding or The Baffled Bacon Thieves.

There had been in Hamburg, however, French marionette troupes which gave very artistic puppet operas based upon mythological subjects, such as Medea, including in one of its casts a puppet who smoked! These plays were produced in combination with acts by living actors, jugglers, acrobats, and trick horses.

As far back as the sixteenth century scepticism and sorcery had become the order of the day with the Germans who have naturally a tendency toward philosophical reflections, as well as a leaning toward the occult and supernatural. It was then that Faust, embodying both of these tendencies, first appeared upon the puppet stage, with most significant consequences for German literature.

This puppet play might be sufficiently interesting in itself, but the fact that it became the inspiration for one of the world’s greatest dramas may lend an added justification for pausing a moment to trace its curious history. Early in the sixteenth century it is said that the Tokkenspieler presented, at the Fairs, The Prodigious and Lamentable History of Doctor Faustus. In 1587 the famous Spiesische Faust Buch was published in Frankfurt and recorded the adventures of a semi-historical charlatan who had wandered through Germany in the early sixteenth century. He was famous not only for his skill in medicine but in necromancy and other similar arts. He may have been identical with Georgius Sabellicus who called himself Faustus Junior, implying that there had been a still earlier Faust. He may possibly have been the Bishop Faustinus of Diez, seduced from the right path by Simon Magus, or the printer of Mainz, Johann Faust, who was declared to have been a sorcerer. Whoever he was, the disreputable conjurer tricked fate into granting him an immortal name. In 1588 two students of Tübingen and a publisher were punished for putting forth a puppet play based upon this Spies book. There are other versions of the Faust puppet show, that played at Strassburg, that of Augsburg, of Ulm and of Cologne, each varying slightly from the others. They were all first produced about the time of Marlowe’s famous drama on the same theme or only a trifle later.

The story of the Faust play has a tremendous appeal; it is a picture of man’s vain desires and vain regrets. We find the scholar Faust alone in his study, meditating over the wasted years of research and the wisdom of this world which is so limited at best. He turns to the black arts and summons up an evil spirit to serve him. In one version of the puppet play Faust calls up numerous devils and decides to select as his own particular servant the swiftest. Thereupon the evil spirits describe their speed. One claims to be “as swift as the shaft of pestilence”; the next is “as swift as the wings of the wind”; another “as a ray of light”; the fourth “as the thought of man”; the fifth “as the vengeance of the Avenger.” But the last, who is Mephistopheles, is as swift “as the passage from the first sin to the second.” Faust replies: “That is swift indeed. Thou art the devil for me.” Then he signs the pact with his blood. A raven flies in and carries away the message. Mephistopheles is bound for twenty-four years to provide Faust with all the pleasures of this world and also to answer truthfully every question asked him. In return Faust pledges his soul to the devil at the expiration of the time.

Mephistopheles carries Faust to the court of the Count of Parma where he entertains the count and countess with magical shows, calling up Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Throughout the play Faust is always taken seriously; Kasperle supplies the ludicrous element. His buffoonery is at times really amusing. As an assistant of Faust’s servant Wagner, he meddles with magic, on his own responsibility. Having picked up a few words of incantation, he uses them according to his own pleasure; but Kasperle is wiser than his master for he very shrewdly refuses to sign away his soul. However, he has discovered that by pronouncing the potent syllables “Perlippe” he can summon up demons and by saying “Perlappe” he can make them vanish. Thereupon he amuses himself (and the audience) by reciting “Perlippe, perlappe, perlippe, perlappe,” so often and in such quick succession that the poor demons get quite out of breath and very irritable.

In the last act we find Faust back after twelve years at his study in Wittenburg. He has had his fill of pleasures and is sick at heart and repentant. He asks Mephistopheles whether there would be a chance of a sinner like himself coming to God. Mephistopheles, compelled by his oath to answer truthfully, vanishes with a cry of terror which is an admission of the possibility. Faust, with new hope in his heart, kneels before the image of the Virgin in supplication. But Mephistopheles reappears with a vision of Helen of Troy to tempt Faust, who resists but finally succumbs. Forgetting the Virgin he rushes out with Helen in his arms. Immediately he returns and reproaches Mephistopheles for deceiving him, because the vision has turned into a serpent in his embrace. “What else did you expect from the devil?” asks Mephistopheles.