The German play is a translation (or adaptation) of the French play Le Chiffonnier de Paris, by Félix Pyat. The file contains materials related to rehearsal and performance, including a published copy ([Berlin]: Both's Bühnen-Repertoir No. 130, n.d.), which has been annotated as a prompt-book; and 17 handwritten role books, for the following parts: Jakob Didier, Cassendiener; Vater Jean; Pierre Garousse, Lumpensammler; Clara Hoffmann; Heinrich Berville; Graf Frinlaire; Loiseau, Advokat; Lourdois, Journalist; Gripard/Louis, Bedienter (2 parts in 1 role book); Marie Didier; Madame Potard; Mazagran; Pauline; Turlurette; Laurent, Bedienter; and Polizei Commissair/Polizei-Agent (2 parts in 1 role book). There is also a second version of the role for Louis, Bedienter. (Apparently the additional roles of Louise and Rosine were either omitted in performance, or combined into the role of Mazagran.) The published copy, which might date from the early 1850s, has been bound into a homemade cardboard cover cut from an election placard for the 12th ward, Philadelphia, and is labeled by hand as the property of Theodor Bloch, who was active in German-language theater in Philadelphia from 1873 until at least the mid 1890s, first as an actor and later as a prompter, and who also ran a theater lending library. The title is listed in Bloch's catalog for his library, dated 1886 (see box 34). The last page of the role book for Vater Jean contains a draft (with the heading "Extempore") of a speech that an actor--evidently M. Hahn, in 1873--was planning to make before or after a performance; the speech concerns various matters, including efforts to raise funds to build a German theater in Philadelphia, and the testament of the American actor Edwin Forrest (he died in Dec. 1872). The role book for Heinrich Berville is signed and dated "Kreller / 1877 / Philad." by one of the actors who played the role. All except 3 of the role books are stamped "M. Dardenne," indicating that they originally belonged to, and/or were written out by the actress Marie Dardenne, who appeared in German-language plays in Philadelphia from the 1870s through the 1880s. Some of the names of actors and actresses noted on the covers of role books are familiar from the casts of other German-language plays in Philadelphia, and seem to reflect up to 3 casts, dating from around 1873, 1877, and perhaps the early 1880s. (The collection's holdings of theater newspapers and playbills contain no reference to this play.)
