The Portuguese translation of this play is by Mário Montenegro and Marionet’s production of the text in the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra during the European Researchers’ Night 2009.

Isidore disguises himself as a chimpanzee in order to get inside the Zoological Museum run by the father of the girl he’s in love with. This Jules Verne operetta originally premiered in Paris in 1858, a year before the publication of Charles Darwin’s most famous work, which caused a huge uproar by allowing us to be related to other animals (namely other primates). Initially ill-received by Parisian audiences, the play remained unpublished until 1980, when a copy of the libretto was found in the censorship archives by Robert Pouvoyeur, a specialist in Verne and Offenbach.