Planet of the Grapes
It’s an incredible journey into the unknown, albeit one familiar though only evolved into its final form of soft fruit in this, the anthropocene era, Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel La Planète des singes translated into English as Monkey Planet in early editions but better known under the dramatic title of the film adaptation, Planet of the Apes, now coming full circle as “an epic tabletop sci-fi adventure” in Planet of the Grapes.
The four person crew travelling in suspended animation five light years from Earth, while only six months passes for them subjectively back home seven hundred years have passed, but as they approach touchdown a malfunction in the computer leads to disaster, the sole woman in the team, Stewart, who was to serve as, erm, breeding stock, killed in the crash.
Taylor, Landon and Dodge fleeing the vessel as it sinks in the lake, the fertile world they hoped for is found to be almost barren but not uninhabited, primitives stealing their clothes leaving them naked, then other more dangerous forces capturing them, a variety of grapes, the kindly intellectual seedless greens and the righteous hypocrites of the purples, keen to use the men as examples of failures of evolution to be experimented upon.
Performed in miniature by creator and designer Peter Michael Marino alongside his shipmate Cecilia Arana, Planet of the Grapes is as silly as it sounds but is an undeniably entertaining hour of Fringe time, though despite the myriad of miniscule characters and detailed sets, sometimes replicated in larger scale with expressive South Park eyes for detailed work, it is the spectacle of the opening scene of the dynamic cosmic disturbance which sets the bar.
The arguments defending Taylor by his advocates Zira and Cornelius against the conservative prosecutor Zaius who refuses to allow evidence to overrule doctrine aping the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925, Michael Harren’s sound design adds scope and atmosphere while, in whatever format it is presented, the story of the self-destructive bigotry, ignorance and hubris found in all species remains relevant, captured in the updated iconic final moments of the show.
Planet of the Grapes continues Below at the Pleasance Courtyard until Sunday 30th August
