Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: A Play - Softcover

The Chocolate Room. The Chocolate River runs across the stage, surrounded by trees and pipes. All enter as scene opens.

AUGUSTUS GLOOP: I’m tired! It seems like we’ve been turning left, turning right, turning left, and turning right again for a whole hour or so. When are we going to eat? I’m hungry! I want to eat right now! Do you all hear me? Now!!

CHARLIE: Did you notice that we’ve been going downward for the longest time, Grandpa Joe?

GRANDPA JOE: Yes, Charlie, I think I heard Mr. Wonka say that we were going underground and that all the most important rooms in his factory are deep down below the surface.

CHARLIE: I wonder why?

GRANDPA JOE: Well, I think he said that there wouldn’t be nearly enough space for them up on top. He said that the rooms we are going to see are enormous. Some are supposed to be larger than football fields!

WILLY WONKA: Here we are everybody! This is the Chocolate Room. This room is the nerve center of the whole factory. It’s the heart of my whole operation!

AUGUSTUS GLOOP: Uhh . . . I don’t see anything but that old river over there. Where’s the food? I’m hungry!

MRS. GLOOP: And just look at those enormous pipes over there. There must be ten or eleven of them. I wonder what they’re for?

CHARLIE: Gee, Mr. Wonka, what’s wrong with your river? It’s all brown and muddy-looking.

WILLY WONKA: Nothing wrong with it, my boy! Nothing! Nothing at all! It’s all chocolate! Every drop of that river is hot melted chocolate of the finest quality. The very finest quality. There’s enough chocolate in there to fill every bathtub in the entire country! And all the swimming pools as well! Isn’t it terrific? And just look at my pipes! They suck up the chocolate and carry it all away to all the other rooms in the factory where it is needed! Thousands of gallons an hour, my dear children! Thousands and thousands of gallons!

VERUCA SALT [Screaming as she looks over the edge of the river]: Look! Look over there! What is it? He’s moving! He’s walking! Why, it’s a little person! It’s a little man! Down there behind one of the pipes!

[Everyone rushes to the edge of the river to get a better look]

CHARLIE: She’s right, Grandpa! It is a little man! Can you see him?

GRANDPA JOE: I see him, Charlie!

[All now shout in turn]

MRS. GLOOP: There’s two of them!

MR. SALT: My gosh, so there is!

MRS. BEAUREGARDE: There’s more than two! There’s four or five!

MR. TEAVEE: What are they doing?

MRS. GLOOP: Where do they come from?

VIOLET BEAUREGARDE: Who are they?

CHARLIE: Aren’t they fantastic?

GRANDPA JOE: No higher than my knee!

CHARLIE: Look at their funny long hair! They can’t be real people!

WILLY WONKA: Nonsense! Of course they are real people! They are some of my workers!

MIKE TEAVEE: That’s impossible! There are no people in the world as small as that!

WILLY WONKA: No people in the world as small as that? Then let me tell you something. There are more than three hundred thousand of them in my factory! They are Oompa-Loompas!