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Mix the Bard with rock 'n' roll and sci-fi and you get a fun-filled production from a Southern classical troupe.
SO, YOU'RE AN ACCLAIMED THEATER COMPANY DEVOTED TO THE BARD, and you want to spice things up a bit on your annual tour. What do you do this time out? An all-female Hamlet! Another Fascist-era Richard lift Or a revival of something a bit more obscure, like Coriolanus or Cymbelinel How about a rock 'n' roll musical?
That's the idea Jim Warren, artistic director of The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) in Staunton, Virginia, hit upon. Partly based on his own interests (Warren is a self-acknowledged "sci-fi geek"), partly on the ASC's mission to expand the Bard's reach and partly as an inventive way to promote the company's new branding, Warren selected the 1990 Olivier Award-winning Return to the Forbidden Planet for the Blackfriars Stage Company (ASC's touring arm's) current road show.
"It was the right time to go with something kind of outlandish, wonderful and unexpected," says Warren, who co-founded ASC predecessor Shenandoah Shakespeare in 1988. "This show mixes a sci-fi spoof, a Shakespeare review and a rock concert all into one."
The Bob Carlton musical, inspired by The Tempest and by a 1956 sci-fi film called Forbidden Planet (itself inspired by The Tempest), has gained an international cult following since its London debut in the 1980s. Return to the Forbidden Planet combines pop classics from the 1950s and 1960s, such as "All Shook Up" and "Good Vibrations," with Shakespearean blank verse (from a number of plays) and a healthy dose of sci-fi goofiness.
But don't expect to hear the squeal of electric guitars, lush synthesizer scorings or the thump, thump, thump of an amplified bass drum in the ASC production. This show, like all ASC work, is strictly nonelectric.
"People don't immediately think about an acoustic rendition of 'Great Balls of Fire,'" Warren admits. "But it's really fun. This is real unplugged rock 'n' roll,...