Theatre / Pinocchio: The Musical

Pinocchio: The Musical (also sometimes known as Pinocchio - The Great Musical) is an Italian theatrical adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio, made by Compagnia Della Rancia with songs written by the Italian band Pooh. It was first shown in theatres in 2003.

An ancestral pine tree is destroyed by a lightning, and pleads to the moon to get a second chance in life. The moon answers his call by coming to Earth in form of a blue-haired fairy, who gives it new life. The tree is picked up as material for a furniture builder named Geppetto, who is still thinking about the idea of making his own family. He then decides to make a puppet as a sort-of-child in order to ready himself to becoming a father, but the resulting puppet turns out to be alive...

The adaptation streamlines many aspects of the original story while at the same time it adds new material to the plot.

This adaptation contains examples of:

• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Lampwick appears way earlier than in the book. In fact, Geppetto decides to make a puppet rather than have a proper child exactly because he doesn't want to have a kid like Lampwick.
  • The Cat and the Fox have a brief cameo when Pinocchio leaves Geppetto's home for the first time and comes to town.
• Adaptational Explanation: In the original book, it's never explained how Pinocchio came to life: he is already capable of speech as a piece of wood and that's it. The musical adds a full introduction revealing he was originally a secular pine tree that was struck by lightning, fell down and was blessed with the gift of life by a passerby Blue Fairy.
• Adaptational Heroism: Lampwick tries to save Pinocchio from being drowned by the ringmaster in this version, only to be punished by being sold to a butcher.
• Adaptational Job Change:
  • Downplayed with Geppetto. While he's still a woodcarver as in the original book, he now works in what appears to be a furniture factory.
  • In the original book, Pinocchio is visited by three doctors while in the Blue Fairy's house: a crow, an owl and the Cricket. The scene is not in the play, but the crow and the owl still appear as jobless companions for the Blue Fairy (alongside a second owl that was not in the book).
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • The fishes who eat Pinocchio's donkey skin turning him back into are replaced with mermaids who transform him with their magic.
  • As in other adaptations, the Terrible Dogfish is turned into a whale.
• Adapted Out:
  • As with many other adaptations, this musical removes all the events between Pinocchio's meeting with the Blue Fairy and the Land of Toys. As a result characters like the snake, the weasels and the Green Fisherman are nowhere to be found.
  • In the book, the Blue Fairy has a bunch of anthropomorphic animals appearing around her: a poodle named Medoro as her butler, three doctors (an owl, a crow and the Cricket), a group of hares working as pallbearers and later a snail that acts as her housekeeper. In the play she has only two unnamed poodle butlers and three messenger birds (two of which are repurposed versions of the Owl and Crow doctors from the book).
• All Musicals Are Adaptations: The show is based on the book The Adventures of Pinocchio.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: While never said out loud, the show clearly shows that the Blue Fairy is the moon in human form that came down to aid Pinocchio.
• Become a Real Boy: Curiously, this adaptation doesn't give Pinocchio the objective to become a real boy until the very end, when he's ditched by Lampwick, who became more mature and is now ashamed by the idea of hanging out with a puppet that behaves like a small child and realizes that he can't grow up as a puppet.
• Being Good Sucks: Mangiafuoco clearly hates being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and takes a good chunk of his screentime complaining about how he's easily moved by other people's sad stories.
• Bookends: The play begins with Pinocchio (still as a tree) pleading the moon to get a second chance to live and the moon coming down as the Blue Fairy to help him. At the end, Pinocchio once again pleads the moon to turn him into a real human, and once again the Blue Fairy arrives to grant his wish.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Multiple moments feature actors appearing between the audience.
  • The scene of Pinocchio entering Mangiafuoco's show is rendered in a meta way: the main stage features Mangiafuoco's puppets acting their show, while Pinocchio appears in the actual crowd and climbs on the seats in order to be noticed by them. He also has a brief interaction with the audience member closer to the seat he climbed on.
  • The circus scene is set in a similar tone: this time it's the Cricket going through the audience searching for Pinocchio.
  • "Tutti in piazza" ("Everyone in the town square") has backup dancers running between the audience, encouraging them to join in their celebration.
• Canon Foreigner: The show adds a few characters that were not in the original story, such as Geppetto's coworker Angela and Lampwick's mother.
• Composite Character: The show combines the Coachman and the circus ringmaster into a single character.
• Compressed Adaptation: In order to fit into a 2-hour show, a large chunk of the story is removed, going straight from Pinocchio leaving the Blue Fairy's house to him and Lampwick going to the Land of Toys.
• Dastardly Whiplash: The Coachman's design clearly follows the archetype: he's tall, has a thin, curled moustache and is always seen with a hat on his head, whether he's a bus driver or a circus ringmaster.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?: The final part of the story is set on Christmas, but outside of two off-handed mentions of the fact and a single song themed around it it's not important to the plot.
• Distant Duet: "Voglio andare via" ("I want to go away") it's a rare 3-person variant. It's sung by Pinocchio, Geppetto and Angela, each singing about how they want to leave their current situation and live together as a family.
• Educational Song: The chorus of "Buongiorno" ("Good morning") has Angela teaching Pinocchio about the days of the week.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The Fox wears mismatched boots, with one of them being visibly shorter than the other.
• Friendship Song: "Un vero amico" ("A true friend"), a duet between Pinocchio and Lampwick before they're sent to die as donkeys.
• Gender Flip:
  • As in many other adaptations, the Fox is a female character in this version.
  • The Owl and the Crow at the Blue Fairy's house are also turned into females.
• Heroic BSoD: In the Land of Toys, the Cricket comes out and tries to save Pinocchio from the place, only to be ignored. The Cricket leaves the scene destroyed, declaring that Pinocchio doesn't have any kind of coscience anymore.
• Homesickness Hymn: "Voglio andare via" begins as such with Pinocchio's desire to leave the Land of Toys, until Geppetto and Angela's lyrics begin playing.
• Invisible to Normals: The cricket appears only to Pinocchio and vanishes as soon as anyone else enters the scene.
• "I Want" Song: "Un figlio perfetto" ("A perfect child"), where Geppetto sings about how his ideal son should behave. After Lampwick notices that "he's singing about a puppet, not a living child", Pinocchio's creation is kickstarted and goes on while the song continues.
• Karma Houdini: The Cat and the Fox completely disappear from the story after they try to kill Pinocchio to get his coins. They then reappear at the end and appear to be still around doing their business.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After Geppetto and Angela share their first kiss towards the end, Pinocchio asks what's happening. Angela's answer clearly alludes about her state as a Canon Foreigner:
  Angela: Whether you like it or not, Pinocchio, this time you get to have a mom too.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • After 5 months in the Land of Toys, Pinocchio realizes he did the wrong thing and wants to go back home, only to be stopped by the Coachman/Ringmaster as kids aren't allowed to go back home.
  • Lampwick feels immediately sorry to have forced Pinocchio to go to the Land of Toys with him after they are both punished with death by the Ringmaster.
• Mood Whiplash: Pinocchio and Lampwick are both sent to be killed after the circus accident, with a sad musical number and gloomy atmosphere all around. The musical number after that, "Galleggiando" ("Floating"), is a latin-inspired dance party with mermaids and sentient seaweed that feels almost out of place with what happened before.
• Mythology Gag: When Pinocchio and Geppetto are in the whale's belly, Pinocchio offers to sacrifice a foot to use as burning wood. This references how in the original book he briefly loses both feet while sleeping near a fire.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: At the end of the story, Pinocchio is ditched by Lampwick, who became a levelheaded teen and as such doesn't want a childish puppet around him to ruin his reputation. After asking what "growing up" means, he realizes that as a puppet he will never become an adult. This breaks him up until the Blue Fairy returns to turn him into a real boy.
• Obscured Special Effects: The scene where Pinocchio's nose grows has him behind a curtain the whole time, so that the trick is done by using only shadows.
• Opening Chorus: The show opens with "C'era una volta" ("Once upon a time"), a prologue song that tells the backstory of the piece of wood that would become Pinocchio.
• Parental Love Song: "Insieme" ("Together"), a duet between Geppetto and Pinocchio about their father-son relationship.
• Quarreling Song: "Il grillo parlante" ("The talking cricket") is a duet between the Cricket and Pinocchio, with the former trying desperately to make the latter follow him. A brief scene later, a reprise starts... and is abruptly interrupted by Pinocchio smacking the Cricket on his head with a pot.
• School for Scheming: The musical's interpretation of the Land of Toys is a fake school (also referred to as "Donkey High") where kids are encouraged to destroy the books and do nothing but eat junk food, dance and have fun for months until one day they suddenly turn into donkeys.
• Setting Update: While the original story was written and set in the late 800's, this adaptation is set in an ambiguous time period: Geppetto's house features a gas stove and a refrigerator, the carriage that brings kids to the Land of Toys is replaced with a bus, the proper introduction of the Cat and the Fox has them being chased by police cars and helicopters, the now mature Lampwick at the end wears a very out-of-place leather jacket and a few throwaway lines mention stuff that wasn't very much around in the '800 like drugs, plastic surgery or sushi, but everything else seems unchanged.
• Shout-Out: When the Cricket briefly appears to alert Pinocchio that the Fox and the Cat are scamming him, he looks at the audience and says "I tawt I taw a cwicket".
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • As in other adaptations, the Cricket doesn't die after his first appearance: he's just knocked out senseless the time Pinocchio needs to run away from home while Geppetto is out. He reappears a few times during the show.
  • In the original book, Lampwick is bought by a farmer while still in form of a donkey and dies of overexertion a short while after Pinocchio realizes it's him. In this version, when Pinocchio and Geppetto return to their hometown Lampwick is there too, somehow back as a human.
• Trophy Child: After assisting once again at Lampwick disobeying to his mom, Geppetto claims that he aspires to have a perfect, obedient child. As Lampwick makes him notice that what he's describing sounds more like a puppet than a human being, he decides to make a puppet to be his son.
• Unexplained Recovery: It's not explained how Lampwick manages to come back to town at the end of the story.
• Villain Recruitment Song: Both of the Cat and the Fox songs, "Gatto & Volpe S.p.A." ("Cat & Fox, inc.") and "Da così a così" ("From this to this"), are about them convincing other people (a nondescript audience in the former, Pinocchio in the latter) to join their fraudulent business.
• Welcoming Song: "Buongiorno", the song sung by the townpeople when Pinocchio goes in town for the first time. The song has Pinocchio learn how city life works, while the Cat, the Fox and Lampwick try to deviate him suggesting he shouldn't go to school as the other people told him.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: The Cricket's only musical number is initially styled after 90's Italian rap songs: while Pinocchio's bars in the song have a more classic melody in the background, the Cricket's are faster, more techno-like and feature stock 90's rap sound effects. As the song progresses, the Cricket's part of the song starts mellowing out and becomes the same as Pinocchio's. The sound effects still come back later to accompany the Cricket's later appearances.
• Will They or Won't They?: Angela passes a good chunk of her appearances trying to have Geppetto admit he loves her, until the end when he realizes that he needs a female presence in his house.