Pippi an unstoppable force as the founder of grrrl power

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This article was published 07/12/2002 (8660 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PIPPI Longstocking is the original home-alone kid who outsmarts crooks breaking into her home and outwits any adult attempting to tame her.

Astrid Lindgren’s fictional freckled supergirl was surely the prototype for Macaulay Caulkin’s character Kevin in the Home Alone movies which celebrated the resourcefulness of children left to fend for themselves. A boy, even Kevin, would be no match for Pippi, who is literature’s most rebellious, defiantly unconventional and capable girl.

The Manitoba Theatre for Young People musical stage adaptation of Lindgren’s child-empowering 1945 book brings Pippi vividly to life as the embodiment of pure anarchy. The sound of a deflating whoopee cushion, which had kids giggling loudly at a school performance this week, is her rude response to manners and authority.

Pippi’s a pistol who lives without the encumbrances of parents but with a horse and monkey. Her mother died, and is watching her through the clouds while her dad is a pirate lost at sea. The betting among contemporary parents is that she wore her mother out and her father fled this whirling dervish in mismatched leggings. It’s fortunate she is fictional because a real Pip today would be apprehended by the Child and Family Services, diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder and administered Ritalin.

The all-out 90-minute production — Pippi goes to the circus, to school and to a coffee party — is cheerfully cartoonish with an agreeable flavour of vaudeville. Set designer Craig Sandells presents a bright palette of limes, oranges and purples and Leanne Foley’s exaggerated costumes add to the visual fun. Old-fashioned title boards displayed on a stand inform viewers of the settings for the scenes. The hapless police officers, who are no match for Pippi, are slow-motion Keystone Kops.

The most energy surges out of Toronto’s Trish Lindstrom as Pippi, who scrambles, cartwheels and jumps like a virtual perpetual-motion machine.

In her oversized black boots, patched dress and hallmark hairdo, Lindstrom is that invincible, irreverent wild child. In their roles as thick-headed cops, bumbling robbers and genteel tea ladies, Chris Sigurdson and Stan Lesk impressively employ broad acting strokes, Three Stooges physicality and Tim Conway-esque Swedish accents. Jan Skene succeeds in making Mrs. Prysselius a dislikable padded figure of propriety.

Director Robb Paterson unleashes a dynamic display of Pippi power which speaks to boys and girls in a cheeky way that few other 20th century characters can.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca