The text was commissioned by the Neapolitan guarattellaro master Luca Ronga. Faced with the ancient tradition of Pulcinella, Brunello and Molnár chose to reinterpret some of its ideas. Pulcinella and Death, eternal enemies, confront each other here by virtue of a former love that ended in divorce. Teresina, Pulcinella's fiancée, is typically moves thanks to a rod hidden under her dress: the puppeteer does not put his hand directly into her body, which means that Teresina cannot move her arms and hands but only her torso. In the play, she begs San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, to give her a beautiful pair of hands like all the other puppets: her dream comes true, and so a different type of puppet (girdle puppet) is used on stage to interpret the character of Teresina.

Pulcinella and Death have a daughter, Baby, who suffers from the difficulties of her parents' separation: Pulcinella is now engaged to Teresina and wants Death to leave him alone. Death would like Baby to become a great actress, so she has enrolled her in an acting class: the end-of-year recital is the next day. During the night, Pulcinella steals the poem Baby was supposed to recite and she loses her voice. In an attempt to get it back, Baby enters Pulcinella's belly to retrieve the poem. When Baby emerges from Pulcinella's belly, Teresina, who had prayed to San Gennaro to give her a child with Pulcinella, thinks that Baby is their longed-for child. So, when Death is about to take Baby back, Teresina makes a jealous scene and gets angry at Pulcinella. Death begs Pulcinella to return, but to no avail. Finally, Baby grows up and manages to do the job she wanted: driver of the Neapolitan underground called "Circumvesuviana".