A synopsis of the original play.
ACT I
The sequel continues immediately after the destruction of the planet D’Illyria
“Science Fiction/Double Feature” is performed as “Science Fiction/Cult TV Show” to better reflect the influences on the current work.
A Narrator appears on videoscreen to describe the events of the previous play and explain that although Prospero’s physical form has been destroyed, his mind continues to exist and has become nearly omnipotent. The Prospero entity, now calling himself “P” sings “Iron Man“, with a member of the play’s Chorus, describing this condition. (Many of the songs will be sung not by characters, but as solos by individual members of the Chorus, in such cases the Chorus member sings the descriptive portions of the lyrics while the character joins or takes over for the refrain or in some interjection. In this case, P just states via God mic “I AM PROSPERO!” at the beginning.)
Elsewhere, the Narrator explains that an expedition is setting out from the Mars Port Authority Space Terminal to investigate the mysterious blackout of communications with the colony on the planet “La’Bohemia”, as well as the mysterious disappearance of the previous six expeditions. Sgt. Dogberry allays Corporal Verges’ misgivings about the expedition by singing “What I Am” (“I’m not aware of too many things.”)
The scene now cuts to the spaceship of Captain Tempest which is ordered to investigate the loss of contact with La’Bohemia and the disappearance of seven expeditions to find out what happened. They fire up their faster than light drive. (“One of These Days“. It is never explicitly stated but the ship uses music as a means of propulsion. Iambic Pentameter is the auxillary power.)
The ship arrives in the system of La’Bohemia and the crew is amazed to find that a Black Hole has appeared in orbit around the planet, which is now rotating at a frightening speed. (“Black Hole Sun“) Captain Tempest decides to take an away team via shuttlecraft to skim the planet’s upper atmosphere and look for survivors. His wife Miranda, Cookie, Ariel the Robot, and the female Navigation Officer join him. There is a malfunction and the shuttle is forced down. (“Space Oddity”)
They are greeted by the inhabitants of La’Bohemia, which is trapped in a time distortion caused by the Black Hole, and has not been able to contact Earth for several centuries of local time. As the senior officer present, Tempest is immediately declared military governor of the planet. He sets about the task of attempting to re-establish communications with Earth or his ship. (“Hey You/Is There Anybody Out There“)
This switches immediately back to the ship where Gloria the Science Officer is in command and the Communications Officer is trying to hail the shuttle. (“Comfortably Numb“) The Bosun wants to return to Earth to get help. They decide that they need more information before heading out, but are interrupted by P, who appears on the Bridge out of nowhere and taunts them that they are now on trial. He sings a quick song to introduce himself (“Sympathy for the Devil“), and warns that they are in his power. He tells them that Gloria will destroy the Universe if she is not stopped. He informs them that they may not break into song at any time while they are being watched by him or he will destroy the ship.
He suddenly transports Gloria into the past where a Black Hole the size of a quarter of the Galaxy is consuming Earth. He then transports her back to her own past at the beginning of the original “Return to the Forbidden Planet”, where the crew under the (past) Captain Tempest is told that they’re mission plan has been changed and the ship will now travel to the vicinity of La’Bohemia to investigate the disappearance of the Star System.
P then transports Gloria back to the present with strange menaces and warnings.
ACT II
Meanwhile, back on the planet.
15 years or so have passed. (“Fly Like an Eagle”) A son has been born to Tempest and Miranda, called Mercutio, and is now a teenager. (He should probably be a doubled part with Flowerboy from the third act.) A political dispute over Tempest continual autocratic rule has broken out and Cookie becomes the leader of the disestablismentarian faction. Cookie leads a group of colonists to form a commune on a remote and uninhabited wild continent on the far side of the planet, where a primitive native species called the Denebian Slime Devils destroy all advanced technology they find. (“I Won’t Back Down”)
Tempest is led to suspect that the again pregnant Miranda’s child is the product of an affair with Cookie by P (singing “Maneater“), who has disguised himself and become one of Tempest’s principal advisers, let’s call him “Jacob’” The again pregnant Miranda tries to mediate between the two factions and Tempest muses on his increasing suspicions of her. (“The Gypsy Wife“)
Tempest puts her on trial on charges of infidelity and treason immediately after their daughter, Gloria Jr, is born. (“Heard It Through the Grapevine“) He orders Ariel the Robot to take the child to Cookie’s commune and kill it there, and orders him not to accept any new orders on the subject and evade all attempts at interception. Although Ariel can not disobey, he decides the instructions give him the latitude to go extremely slowly, hoping to be stopped at some point.
The trial takes place and Tempest sends for a blood analysis on a sample taken from Gloria Jr to prove his lack of paternity. In the meantime he accuses her and she tries to defend herself. (“Oh Darling“) He is about to sentence her when the scientists announce her innocence and that Mercutio has contracted a severe case of Hemorrhagic Melodramatic Flu, which will cause him to sing with extreme passion and die in about seven or eight minutes. He thus sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” and then promptly expires. Tempest is (more) mad with the new tragedy and will not believe Miranda is innocent and shoots her with a stun gun. She is taken off stage. The Navigation Officer announces that the gun was set to kill, she is dead and that a statue is being made in her honor.
Ariel, already having disappeared into the hinterland with the baby sings a non-interactive duet about Tempest’s crime and Ariel’s mission. (“Hey Joe”)
Time passes. (“Fly Like an Eagle”)
Having destroyed his family, and with Ariel having followed his orders to the letter and disappeared, Tempest grows older bemoaning his foolishness but still furious with Cookie for his betrayal having indirectly brought about this tragedy. (“The Unforgiven“)
About 8 years later, Ariel has finally arrived at the distant Hippy Continent, and reluctantly prepares to bind Gloria Jr, who he has raised as his own daughter during the journey, and sacrifice her to his programmatic instructions. Then, abruptly a Denebian Slime Devil (which is a Gigerian Horror that resembles, but for reasons of international copyright definitely is NOT, a Xenomorph from the Alien movies) and informs Ariel, “Welcome to the Jungle, Robot, you’re gonna die!” (“Welcome to the Jungle” obviously…)
Ariel exits pursued by a Denebian Slime Devil. Perhaps a robot head is thrown from offstage to indicate what has become of him.
Gloria Jr is then discovered by some random hippies Slime Devils and will be raised as a flower princess.
ACT III
Another 10 or 15 years pass, and Gloria Jr. grows into a young woman. (You guessed it kids, “Fly Like an Eagle” again!)
In a field with her fellow flower child Denebian Slime Devil friend Camilla and a hippie Denebian Slime Devil chorus, she plays an old Piano and bemoans Tempest’s destruction of the Planet’s native Ecosystem. (“After the Goldrush“) her lonely single status and the death of her robot foster father. (“Winter”) Camilla goads out of her the fact that she has become infatuated with Cookie’s son Flowerboy. (No way I’m using Florizel and it fits with the the hippie chic.) Flowerboy comes onstage and sings about his own loneliness. (“Heart of Gold“) Camilla teases Gloria Jr for hesitancy to approach Flowerboy herself. (“Gloria”)
At the same time Flowerboy is agonizing over his infatuation with and is encouraged to “Tell Her About It” by his mentor Autolycus. (P again…) The two erstwhile lovers both confess their affection simultaneously. Flowerboy, Gloria Jr, and a chorus of hippies Slime Devils sing to about their love for each other. (“Nights in White Satin“) Gloria Jr returns to her keyboard, now a harpsichord, and sings about life and love. (“Both Sides Now“) The two lovebirds wander offstage. There is much rejoicing.
Abrupt scene change! The Navigation Officer talks to random persons about the impending attack Tempest is organizing on the hippie Slime Devil/Rebel colony beside Miranda’s lifelike memorial statue over the opening strains of “Stairway to Heaven”. Gradually the people around the statue speed up as the statue starts to move, it being revealed that Miranda has created a small temporal distortion of normal time around herself using old science tricks she learned from her father. Now in sync with the ship, she prepares to use her communicator to summon help. (That’d be the “Stairway to Heaven”)
Meanwhile, back on the ship!
Gloria, the Bosun and the Communications Officer receive Miranda’s distress signal. They realize to their horror that time is passing on the planet’s surface at a rate of 525600 minutes for every one minute that passes in undistorted spacetime. A keyboard chord is played out and the crew begins to break into “Seasons Of Love” before the day is saved when a gunshot rings out and it is revealed that Miss Beth, the backup keyboardist, has killed the offending first keyboardist. She is duly rewarded by right of caste.
The crew begins to plan a method of projecting a large enough time distortion to the surface to extract their compatriots by making a slight warp jump to the left, reconfiguring the plasma field 10 degrees to starboard, calling for assistance from all nearby ships, and initiating an impulse thrust. When Gloria summarizes this course of action to herself, the chorus, now dressed as Transvestite Transylvanian Tourists bursts onto the bridge with cries of “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.” (“The Time Warp”) These bizarre interlopers are duly shooed away, and Gloria realizes that the Black Hole is causing an increasing breakdown probable normality. At this point, a man in Elizabethan dress climbs out of the audience, identifies himself as Sir Phillip Sidney and starts angrily criticizing the play’s wholesale rejection of the Aristotelian unities, genre consistency, and general lack of sanity. Gloria has him beamed into space and prepares for their rescue attempt.
Now back at the hippie colony Tempest’s soldiers have surrounded all the inhabitants in a corral. Tempest orders them to surrender but Cookie is defiant as ever and taunts Tempest with stories of glorious heroic last stands. (“All You Zombies“) Flowerboy slips Gloria Jr a dagger and tells her to get close to Tempest and kill him like Judith did to Holofernes. Tempest is fascinated by Gloria Jr and asks where she comes from. She tells him the story of her near sacrifice by and sudden rescue from her beloved robot father. (“The Story of Isaac”) Tempest realizes that she is his long lost daughter and embraces her. She considers what to do and drops the dagger. (“I will kill you if I must, I will love you if I can…”) Cookie and Tempest are now reconciled in Tempest’s newfound joy and everyone goes back to the capital to pay their respects to Miranda’s statue monument.
Now the Navigation officer deactivates the time distortion and frees Miranda, who is reconciled to the repentant, and now somewhat senile, Tempest. They sing a duet to renew their commitment to one another. (“Time After Time”) At this point, time resolves itself to normality on the planet, Gloria and the Bosun beam down and get the rest of the crew beamed back up to the spaceship. (May need a chorus song to kill time for a scene change.)
Back on the ship, Gloria Sr begins analyzing the nature of the Black Hole while Tempest learns of P’s statement that it will destroy the universe if left unchecked. Gloria suggests they might be able to destroy it using the ship’s deus ex machine. Tempest orders this action to be taken. The ship is jarred, several panels blow up, bulkheads fall, everyone but the two Glorias dies.
Gloria Jr leaps up from behind the control panel having procured a horned helmet and sword from somewhere or other, and proceeds to explain in rock operatic terms (Brunnhilde’s immolation aria from Act III, Scene 3 of Gotterdammerung) that the Black Hole is in fact a massive Plot Hole, first place by the shear absurdity of the deus ex machine and expanding backwards and forwards through time. To prevent reality from unraveling the products of the temporal paradox, to wit Gloria Jr and Flowerboy’s corpse must fly into the Plot Hole, and Gloria Sr must reverse the polarity of the deus ex machine to make it a daemonin device. Gloria Jr calls on her grandfather as the cause of this entire debacle to help her put it right. As her shuttle craft barrels into the Plot Hole to its explosive demise, the Wagnerian music segues into “A Day in the Life“. Gloria Sr sees weird psychedelic visions including Cookie singing McCartney’s part and acting out the sequence of David Bowman’s scene in the alien hotel room from 2001. She is constantly tempted to turn on the device but resists until the climactic chord of the song, with a spotlight on her hand followed by a blackout.
When the lights come back up the ship is exactly as it was at the beginning of the show. They arrive at La’Bohemia and receive a communication that all the expeditions have found everything distinctly normal on the planet. P appears to Gloria Sr and stops time. He explains he is not the first nor will he be the last person in the history of the universe to discover the X factor, and that many alien civilizations have already transcended mortal form entirely. He has been sent by them as ambassador, guardian and judge of humanity. She asks if the entire adventure had been a test. P responds that all of life is test and that the test always goes on.
Gloria Sr returns to normal time and Tempest announces that they have just beamed up two cadets from one of the survey expeditions who were scheduled to join the crew. In contravention of logic they are Flowerboy and Gloria Jr. Flowerboy is asked to make a report on their findings on La’Bohemia. He picks up an acoustic guitar and proceeds to lead the crew in a summary of the events of the play. (“Walk On the Ocean“) The play concludes with Gloria Jr. leading the cast in “Major Tom” during their return flight to Earth.
THE END!
For an encore, the crew and its Transylvanian chorus perform the full version of “The Time Warp”.
