About the work
Die liebe fee pocahontas oder kasper als schildwache is a puppet play by the Austrian writer H. C. Artmann. The text was published in Vienna in 1961; the stage premiere followed only in 1971, at the Kleines Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna.
Plot
The soldier Kasper stands guard in 1865 at a captured camp in Georgia on the orders of President Johann Lincoln, while every other character except him is named Johann. A fairy named Pocahontas grants wishes and transforms objects, and the action moves from a military camp in Georgia to a forest clearing in North Dakota.
Cultural significance
Artmann combines puppet-theatre comedy with absurdist wordplay to satirise military conformity. The piece is one of his Kasperlstücke, through which he elevated Viennese puppet theatre into literary territory.