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Curtain Theatre's 'Return to the Forbidden Planet' features (from left) Capt. Tempest (Phillip Percy Williams), Ariel (Melissa Claire), Cookie (Steve Beecroft) and Bosun (Phil Swanson). Photo by Russell Johnson
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The most surprising thing about "Return to the Forbidden Planet" is that it has a pedigree. A jukebox musical of rock and R&B classics from the 1950s and '60s loosely based around the 1956 B-movie "Forbidden Planet," "Return" sounds like something someone made up on the fly, especially when you find out that half the dialogue is random Shakespeare quotations. Curtain Theatre's loose and goofy production at Tamalpais High School's Caldwell Theatre only accentuates the impression of a bit of fun that someone threw together on a lark.

Maybe that was true originally, but it would have been a long time ago. Written by Bob Carlton, "Return" originated as an outdoor tent production with the London Bubble Theatre Company in the early 1980s. From there it made its way to Liverpool's Everyman Theatre, then London's prestigious Tricycle Theatre and finally the West End, where it won the Olivier Award for best new musical of 1989-1990 (beating out "Miss Saigon," among others). What madness is this?

Mill Valley's Curtain Theatre is a 13-year-old company that usually puts on free productions of Shakespeare in Old Mill Park. This year the company is branching out with an indoor production of this campy rock 'n' roll romp, to be followed in August by an outdoor show of a non-Shakespearean classic, Carlo Gozzi's 1762 play "King Stag."


The first thing you'll notice about Curtain's "Return," presented in association with Marin Onstage, is that it looks fabulous. The set by coproducer Gary Gonser and director Carl Jordan is a delightfully retro spaceship deck with flashing lights, mysterious doodads and portholes labeled, "Do not open in deep space." Good to know!

The chorus is a motley assortment of crewmembers with fanciful outfits by Jeanine Gray and individual character names in the program that make them look like they're going to have something to say or do in the story, which turns out not to be the case for most of them.

Combining "Forbidden Planet" with "The Tempest" (on which the sci-fi flick was loosely based in the first place) and plot points borrowed from other Shakespeare plays, plus silly segues into the songs, the meandering story is nearly incomprehensible. We're on an Earthling spaceship that lands on a far-off planet where crazy Earth scientist Doctor Prospero (Paul Abbott) has been marooned for decades. He's developed some mind-enhancing drug that he guards zealously, and his beautiful daughter Miranda (a blithe and bonny Maura Tang) falls in love with the ship's captain (Phillip Percy Williams as a cocky Captain Kirk/Han Solo type), while the crew's endearingly bumpkinish cook (producer Steve Beecroft) falls in love with her. Oh, and there's some nuttiness about a tentacled id monster and Prospero's long-lost evil wife, Gloria (cue the 1964 Them song).

The movie is remembered primarily for Robby the Robot, who went on to became a popular guest star. In this version Prospero's robot is Ariel (an amiable Melissa Claire), a clownish, roller-skating Borg.

Abbott mixes a sonorous voice with wide-eyed lunacy as Doctor Prospero, a composite of the wizard from "The Tempest" mixed with the movie's Prospero analogue Dr. Morbius, with some King Lear thrown in for good measure. When he speaks onstage, the overhead screen shows him making loony faces at the camera. The same thing happens with Sumi Narendran when she speaks as the narrator, which is only a couple of times. She's onstage the rest of the time as the ship's communications officer, one of the background noncharacters.

Shakespearean lines are tossed in willy-nilly, regardless of whether they're from "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar," "Twelfth Night" or what you will, loosely laced together to make some semblance of sense (and the occasional egregious pun). The delivery is often rushed and muddled, making it hard to understand what people are saying, and thus what's going on.

The songs fare better for the most part. Well played by a four-piece redshirt rock band under the direction of Amanda Morando, the cast whips through a hodgepodge of fare from James Brown and Connie Francis; the Exciters and the Animals; the Beach Boys and the Moody Blues. Some of the multipart songs don't quite come together, such as a version of Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up" split up between Prospero, Miranda and Cookie. But the soulful belting of Nicole Frydman's blasé science officer makes for a powerful "Go Now" and a lively duet of "It's a Man's World" with Williams's Captain Tempest, and Beecroft's Cookie tears up the Zombies' "She's Not There." There's also a charmingly boisterous dance number to the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" choreographed by Beecroft.

As loose and hectic as the staging is, this "Forbidden Planet" has plenty of entertaining moments and ultimately wins you over as silly, campy fun. I was on board once I heard Cookie holler, "Is this a monster I see before me with tentacles instead of hands? Don't let it clutch me!" Can't argue with that.



What: "Return to the Forbidden Planet"
Where: Caldwell Theatre, Tamalpais High School, 700 Miller Ave., Mill Valley
When: Through June 30; 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, 3 p.m. Sundays
Admission: $12 to $25
Information: 226-9353;
Rating: ***II