One morning, in a house with a garden, two children walk a robot-dog and ask each other questions about the world: how can we measure love? why does the sky change colours? when a flower is plucked, does it hurt?
The children keep asking questions, and try to answer some of them: is a storm just an angry cloud? can we find infinity where the sea ends?
This journey in the world of whys is completed by several stories in which eccentric characters like a balloon-hippopotamus, a widow-caterpillar, and a cow-fish mix with Humpty Dumpty, Hansel and Gretel, and the Little Prince. The children tell their stories while doing household chores. The widow-caterpillar saw her husband die, run over by a bike, but she remains cheerful. The balloon-hippopotamus has been floating in the sky since the previous summer, but only the little girl can see it. As for the cow-fish, it appeared the day several cows fell in the sea and transformed after eating seaweed. The last story of the day chosen by the children is the one about Bicho Papão (Bogeyman) because he is not so evil after all.

Rod puppet

Full-view manipulation

Costume puppet

Actor and puppet

All audiences

Portugal

Porto

Printed

Friendship

Identity

Topsy-turvy world

Nature

Childhood

Animals, Mythical

Philosophical tale

Fantasy

Comical

João Paulo Seara Cardoso, A Cor do Céu, Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, 2004.

Portuguese

Young girl

Child

Teddy bear

Robot

Hans

Gretel

Bird

Prince

Animal

Butterfly

Caterpillar

Widow

Monkey

Pinocchio

Fish

Humpty Dumpty

Balloon

Bogeyman

Song

Characterisation through onomatopoeia

Talking animal

Metamorphosis

Narrator

Versified passages

A Cor do Céu

The Colour of the Sky

Convinced that there are people on the Moon, Pulcinella wonders where they are hiding. The Moon invites him to go to her on a funicular ship. He meets the lunatic Beniamino, who explains that everyone is terrorised and has been hiding since the American astronaut came. This astronaut claims that the Moon belongs to him, and he wants to kill Pulcinella. But Pulcinella sends him back to earth with a blow of a stick. Beniamino asks Pulcinella to look after a dead grandfather, who turns out to be a very beautiful baby. Death convinces Pulcinella to be his baby and sings him lullabies so that he falls asleep, but Pulcinella wakes up and fights Him. A monstrous dog plays with Pulcinella, but he is frightened when the cloned ewe Dolly bites him. Pulcinella kills Dolly and, as a reward, Beniamino offers him his wife Carlotta. Pulcinella chooses instead to marry their daughter Teresina, and he goes back to earth with her.