Return to the Forbidden Planet I

Written by Bob Carlton, Return to the Forbidden Planet is based partially on Shakespeare's The Tempest and partially on the film Forbidden Planet (which was itself based on the play), the dialogue of the show comes from Shakespeare's plays (plus a sonnet, plus a bit of Keats, plus lots of more general references) and the songs are pop songs from the lates fifties/early sixties.

Based partially on Shakespeare's The Tempest and partially on the film Forbidden Planet (which was itself based on the play), the dialogue of the show comes from Shakespeare's plays (plus a sonnet, plus a bit of Keats, plus lots of more general references) and the songs are pop songs from the lates fifties/early sixties. Clearly, therefore, this has to be a show which schools should consider as a main musical production.

We've considered it for a long time, but we've had to wait until we've had the right people, because it needs a very experienced cast. And a talented cast too, for, without the right people with the right mix of talents, it could be a total disaster!

This year we had them. Most of the Year 11s have been with us from the moment they entered the school and three of them have been taking leads since they were in Year 9 (playing Toad, Ratty and Mole in Toad of Toad Hall, and six of them played leading parts in Godspell last year). All of them can sing and all but one play an instrument. We also have four Year 10s and three Year 9s who are instrumentalists as well as actors and singers, so the MD and I felt we were ready to tackle this very complex show.

We had the usual problem, of course: only two boys, one in Year 11 and the other in Year 9, so that meant that girls had to take male parts, something which I don't like doing if I can avoid it, but which was forced upon us this time and which - thankfully! - worked very well. Most parts can be male or female but three have to be male: Captain Tempest (the square-jawed hero), Dr Prospero (the mad scientist) and Cookie ("a simple homespun lad"). Our Year 9 boy was wrong for all of these parts, as he is still young and his voice is unbroken, so I cast him as Ariel. Our Y11 boy (John, who played Jesus last year) was Cookie, so two girls had to be Tempest and Prospero.

We had the usual problem, of course: only two boys, one in Year 11 and the other in Year 9, so that meant that girls had to take male parts, something which I don't like doing if I can avoid it, but which was forced upon us this time and which - thankfully! - worked very well. Most parts can be male or female but three have to be male: Captain Tempest (the square-jawed hero), Dr Prospero (the mad scientist) and Cookie ("a simple homespun lad"). Our Year 9 boy was wrong for all of these parts, as he is still young and his voice is unbroken, so I cast him as Ariel. Our Y11 boy (John, who played Jesus last year) was Cookie, so two girls had to be Tempest and Prospero. What you have to do in a situation like this is rely upon the audence's "willing suspension of disbelief", but you also have to help them along. You can't disguise the fact that they are girls, but you can send signals to the audience to make them think of them as men.

Prospero was the easier of the two. We dressed "him" in a suit, which concealed the female attributes (!), and pulled back the actress' shoulder length hair into a ponytail. That was enough. Tempest, however, was more difficult.

Kelly, who played the part, has long hair, so I decided to give Tempest a uniform cap (actually a black baseball cap with a badge on it - it looked enough like a forage cap to work well) and she simply pinned her hair into a tight bun on the top of her head. It was the aforementioned "female attributes" which caused the real problem. We had decided that the uniform worn by the crew should suggest Star Trek - The Next Generation, which meant wearing sweaters, so some method of concealment was necessary.

We used the traditional method (as used by Miss Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love): no bra and the whole chest area bandaged. It worked, and the audience were able to suspend their disbelief!

That left just one problem. At one point in the play, Tempest and Miranda are supposed to kiss. I don't know what other school audiences are like, but ours finds it hard to accept this happening onstage, even when it is a boy and girl kissing. To have two girls doing it would have been totally impossible. So instead they cuddled!

But these, in fact, are pretty minor problems: the next article will deal with the real biggies!

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV