Kasperl as a professor. A philosophical comedy
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| Title: | Kasperl as a professor |
| Genus: | Punch and Judy |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Franz von Pocci |
| Publishing year: | 1855 |
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Kasperl als Professor is a play written by Franz von Pocci from 1855 .
action
Kasperl works as a servant for Professor Wassermaier, who, true to his name, only drinks water to Kasperl's chagrin and actually hardly feeds on anything else (Kasperl: "I think his stomach must be full of spirit."). When the professor goes to sleep, Kasperl hears a student knocking on the door. He decides to rob him because he has starved through the peculiar asceticism of the professor. Disguised as his superior, Kasperl opens the student. He first gives him some nonsensical answers to his questions before demanding money from him. When the student refuses, Kasperl becomes aggressive and knocks him down. Then he takes his victim's money and takes it to the inn. The passed out student wakes up shortly afterwards and runs to the police. When the professor comes out of his room, there is a knock. It's a police officer who asks him if he's the professor. When Wassermaier replies in the affirmative, he is arrested for the attack on the student. Then Kasperl comes back, amused by the mix-up and now that he is ownerless, offers his services to the audience.
useful information
The piece is very similar to a later work by Pocci, Kasperl as a portrait painter . In both of them, Kasperl disguises himself as his supervisor in his absence in order to deceive a visitor and get his money by beating him up. His victim runs to the police, which then gets to the real superior who has come back. However, there is a difference between the two pieces that in "Punch as a Portrait Painter" the policeman finally meets the real Punch and interrogates him, but is chased away by him, while in "Punch as Professor" the real professor is actually arrested. In both cases, however, Kasperl's deceptions go unpunished, as he is not suspected at all in this play and in the other he drives away the policeman.