Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Return Of Pinocchio

The Return Of Pinocchio

Nelson, Richard

Paperback

Plays

ISBN10: 0881457175
ISBN13: 9780881457179
Publisher: Broadway Play Publishing
Published: Nov 22 2017
Pages: 56
Weight: 0.17
Height: 0.12 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

Nelson's brief play takes place in a tiny Italian village after the Allied victory in World War II. This village is the birthplace of Pinocchio, the puppet who became a real boy--a fact advertised on a huge billboard decorated with the toy boy's famous smiling face. But the billboard is dilapidated and defaced now; and the pretty town we remember from the opening frames of Walt Disney's movie has become a cesspool of corruption and poverty. Geppetto has been knocked off by black marketeers; Jiminy Cricket is squashed by a bored townsperson before our eyes; theft, abortion, and murder are common occurrences. Pinocchio, now an all-too-human grown-up U S O entertainer (like so many one-time movie stars), arrives at his birthplace with pockets full of U S dollars and cigarettes and dreams about America, where anyone can become a millionaire. Once easy prey for wicked foxes and donkey-boys, Pinocchio is still a gullible naïf, and he is soon easily victimized by various villagers. But underneath his easygoing exterior, he's also a dark and frightening figure capable, it is implied, of cruel violence. The script's peak is a long monologue in which Pinocchio tells a village girl about the American dream: becoming a millionaire. All you need is to be ruthless, dishonest, and hardworking. Pinocchio's lecture includes tips on working the night shift (so you can sleep when no one's looking), loan-sharking, cutthroat business practices, secret takeovers, and insurance fraud. This information is delivered with good-natured casualness as Pinocchio sweeps a barroom floor to pay off his debt--except, we notice, he doesn't really do any work, but spends all his time spinning his vision of success American-style...a study in ironic contrast between the surface brightness of Pinocchio's image and the underlying darkness of his reality.
Albert Williams, Chicago Reader

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