Plays for Young Audiences A PARTNERSHIP OF SEATTLE CHILDREN S THEATRE AND CHILDREN S THEATRE COMPANY - MINNEAPOLIS 2400 THIRD AVENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 55404 612-872-5108 FAX 612-874-8119 PIPPI LONGSTOCKING Story by Astrid Lindgren Adapted for classroom presentation by: Paula Berzal Gracia Delia Edo Rambla Raquel Lorente Puente Alba Sánchez Córdoba Mireia Soler Mañó Pippi Longstocking was first presented by The Children s Theatre Company for the 1982-83 season. All Rights Reserved.
PIPPI LONGSTOCKING (Exterior of Pippi s home: Villa Villekulla.) (Music of Pippi Longstocking) (The narrator appears and places in the centre of the place) In a little town in Sweden, there was a tumbledown house called Villa Villekulla. And in this house a girl with carrot-colored pigtails and shoes twice as long as her feet, has just moved to this town. This was no ordinary girl. She was the strongest girl in the world, and her name was Pippi Longstocking. Pippi lived there all by herself except for a monkey named Mr. Nilsson and a horse on the porch. There was no one to tell her what to do, so Pippi did just what she liked. (Bell of the school) (Surprise) Oh! Look! Tommy and Annika have just finished their school day. Tommy! Wait! What s the matter, Annika? I thought I just heard a (Another whinny: the horse) (Tommy is walking faster than Annika, and she runs behind him) ANNIKA & (In unison) a horse! (Horse pokes its head out of the window.) (Hopping excitedly.) A horse, Annika! There s a horse inside the in the house! (Rushing over to a sign) And look here!
ANNIKA & (In unison, reading) Villa Villekulla This sign was never here before. Annika! Annika! I bet someone s finally moved into this old place! Ja! And Tommy maybe they have children, too! Maybe someone for us to play with! They ve got a horse, at least. Only why is it in their house I wonder? (Unseen, from the rooftop.) Well, the bathroom s too small and the parlor is really much too formal for a horse, wouldn t you agree? (Pippi appears on the roof of the house, hands on hips and grinning. Tommy and Annika stare, dumbfounded.) But but but horses normally live in stables. Normally?! Normally?!! (With a gesture of distain.) Ach! (She hangs upside-down from the roof and hollers to the Horse.) Hey, Horse! When you get done with cleaning the dust, you can come out onto the porch, cause that s where you re gonna live! (She hops up, jumps down off the roof and marches up to the gaping children.) So where do you guys live normally? We? Ja, you. We live next door, Tommy and I.
(To Tommy.) Tommy, huh? (He nods.) Your sister? (Another nod.) Her name? Annika Annika Settergren. (She curtseys, nudging Tommy to bow. Pippi chuckles.) (After a pause.) Could you tell us who you are? Sure, I could. (A slight pause.) Well? Aren t you gonna ask? ANNIKA & (In unison.) What s your name? (Merrily shouting as she cartwheels and flips.) Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim s Daughter Longstocking! Oh, my! What a complicated name! Ja. So you can just call me Pippi Pippi Longstocking! Oh, tiddlelipom and piddleliday! I bet we re gonna have some real fun together, whadda you think? (A bit hesitantly, as Pippi disappears.) Ja. Sure. I think so, too. (They all stay in PAUSE as if it was a film; and the, the NARRATOR comes, and while he is speaking PIPPI leaves)
As you can see, Annika and Tommy were very astonished with this girl. By the way, how was her name? Oh yes! Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Bah, whatever. So, Annika and Tommy were used to live with their parents, as we normally do A very different way of life than Pippi don t you think? Let s see how this story goes on Pippi? (screaming loudly) Pippi! (screaming louder than Tommy) Pippilotta Windowshade Ephraim s Daughter Longstocking (Pippi sneaks up, unseen, behind them and taps Annika on the shoulder.) Looking for someone? (Annika, startled, gasps.) Pippi! You just disappeared! Don t you ever stay in one place? Not if I can help it. I AM USED TO THINGS APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING CHANGING AND REARRANGING FILL EV RY MINUTE CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE YOU MIGHT BE TOMORROW OR WHO YOU LL MEET OR WHAT YOU LL SEE OR WHERE YOU LL GO. And what about your parents? My Mamma is an angel, up in heaven.
ANNIKA & (in unison.) An angel? Yup. Suddenly, Mrs. Prysselius, also known as the teacher of the town, was walking by and she couldn t help it to listen to what they were saying. So, she decided to intervene and said: Sorry to interrupt, but I haven t been able to ignore your conversation. I was wondering about your father, what about him? Papa is a pirate ever since my mama went away to heaven it s been papa and me we sailed the seven seas together just papa and me. Standing out on a deck at night and looking to the sky, where mama lives in heaven. (Wide-eyed with excitement.) Your Papa is a pirate?! Really?! Oh my goodness! That s right! Captain Ephraim Longstocking The Terror of the Sea! And where is he? Could we meet him? I m afraid he disappeared in a storm on the Caribbean Sea Oh, Pippi, how awful! (Hesitating and sarcastic) Very interesting, but what about school?
What about it? You don t go to school, I take it? Take it and keep it, for all I care, lady. But Pippi! Every child needs to go to school! What for? Why, to learn things that are useful and worthwhile For example? For example, the multiplication tables and the capital of Portugal. The capital of Portugal is Lisbon. I ve been there with my Papa. And I get along fine without pluttifikation. Multiplication! Who cares? You should! How will you like it when you ve grown up to be completely ignorant? I don t know, do you like it? I can see you re not taking this too seriously. Nope, but you are. Aw, come on, lady have some fun!
No, thank you. Why don t we just say goodbye for now. Alright, goodbye for now. (Mrs. Prysselius searches for her hat. Horse appears through the window; the hat in his mouth. She is afraid to take it. Pippi steps forward.) Allow me. (Pippi grabs the hat, and unintentionally, pushes it a bit too far onto Mrs. Prysselius s head. She stumbles off.) I shall return! (Pippi waves, then goes to the window and pats Horse s neck.) Good old Horse you deserve some oats. (Pippi opens the lid to the oat bin and feeds Horse a handful of oats. Tommy and Annika rush onstage, excited.) Pippi! Pippi! There s a carnival in the village tonight! A carnival? Ja! Our Mama even gave us some money to spend! Come on! Oh, tiddlelipom and piddleliday! But, wait I better bring some money too. (She reaches inside the door and grabs a suitcase. She opens it to reveal hundreds of gold coins.) Do you think this ll be enough? (Awestruck.) Are you kidding?!
Gold? Real gold?! Of course. When your Papa s a pirate, you re rich as a troll. I ll say! You could buy the whole carnival! Well, maybe I will! Let s go! (Pippi goes running) (They exit as lights fade.) So Tommy and Annika were getting so close to Pippi little by little. They wanted to spend more time with her and enjoy her company. That is why they were kind of sad about her not going to school. (to Tommy) Oh! If only Pippi would go to school too, how much fun we could have! As they were so sad about it, they decided to try to persuade her. One afternoon in Pippi s house door, Tommy said to Pippi You can t imagine what a nice teacher we have. If you only knew what fun it is in school! I d die if I couldn t go to school. Pippi said nothing, but just wiggled her toes on the floor as pretending not to hear what they were saying. You don t have to stay so long. Just until two o clock.
Yes, and besides, we get Christmas vacation and Easter vacation and summer vacation. It is absolutely unfair! I won t stand for it! What s the matter? In four months, it will be Christmas, and then you ll have Christmas vacation! But what ll I get? No Christmas vacation not even the tiniest bit of one. Something will have to be done about that. Tomorrow morning, I ll begin school! Hurray! We ll wait for you outside our gate at eight o clock. Oh, no, I can t begin as early as that! And besides, I m going to ride to school. NARRATOR 2: And ride she did! (Everyone disappears and then the Narrator appears and behind her, Pippi taking her horse and galloping) The next day, at exactly ten o clock, Pippi lifted her horse off the porch. Then she galloped wildly through the town. When she reached the schoolyard, she jumped off the horse, tied him to a tree, and burst into the schoolroom. There, the teacher, Mrs Prysselius, was waiting for all children to come in. Hi there! Did I get here in time for pluttification? Tommy and Annika had told their teacher that Pippi was coming. She had decided to do all she could to make Pippi happy in school even though she did not like her that much. Welcome to school, Pippi. I hope you will enjoy yourself here and learn a great deal. Yes, and I hope I ll get some Christmas vacation. That is the reason I ve come. It s only fair, you know.
Well, Pippi, it is okay that you want vacation. But now suppose we test you a little and see what you know. Pippi, can you tell me what seven and five are? (shocked) Well, if you don t know that yourself, I m certainly not going to tell you! (gently) Pippi, we don t answer that way in school. (sincerely) I beg your pardon. I didn t know that. I won t do it again. No, let us hope not. And now I will tell you that seven and five are twelve. See that! You knew it yourself! So why are you asking? The teacher decided to act as if nothing had happened. Well, now, Pippi, how much do you think eight and four are? Oh, about sixty-seven. Of course not! Eight and four are twelve! Well now, really, that is carrying things too far! You just said that seven and five are twelve. There should be some rhyme and reason to things, even in school! The teacher decided there was no point trying to teach Pippi any more arithmetic. Tommy, if Lisa has seven apples and Axel has nine apples, how many apples do they have together? Yes, you tell her, Tommy, and tell me too, if Lisa gets a stomach-ache and Axel gets more of a stomach-ache, whose fault is it, and where did they get those apples in the first place?
The teacher decided to give up on arithmetic altogether. (getting frustrated) Pippi, maybe you would prefer to learn reading. Here is a picture of a wild goat called an ibex. And the letter you see in front of the ibex is called "i". That I ll never believe. I think it looks exactly like a straight line with a little fly speck over it. But what I d really like to know is, what does the ibex have to do with the fly speck? Everybody in the class felt very surprised with Pippi. No one had never answered that way to Mrs Prysselius. But Pippi, what are you going to do in the future if you don t even want to study and go to school? Easy, I will simply be happy! I want to be free and get to know the REAL world by myself and go beyond these BORING school books! I AM USED TO THINGS APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING CHANGING AND REARRANGING FILL EV RY MINUTE CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE YOU MIGHT BE TOMORROW OR WHO YOU LL MEET OR WHAT YOU LL SEE OR WHERE YOU LL GO. ANNIKA & Yay! That s it Pippi! We want to go with you! And in this way, a little and brave girl as Pippi Longstocking, could open all her friend s minds and make them think about the important things in life. (They three leave jumping happily) (Lights turn down progressively) (Music of Pippi Longstocking) stomach-ache they get have those Tommy, and apples together? Axel in if gets the Lisa has seven first more place? Yes, apples of you a and stomach-ache, tell Axel her, has Tommy, nine whose and apples, tell fault how me is it, too, many and if Lisa where apples gets did do a