Going by the Book: An Excerpt from "James and the Giant Peach"

This excerpt from James and the Giant Peach begins just after James, berated by his aunts, meets a strange old man. The old man gives him a package of magic, thousands of tiny, wiggly little green glowing things and tells him to drink it, then disappears. James hurries away to follow instructions, but trips and falls, spilling the contents of the bag.

Roald Dahl’s 1961 first edition of James and the Giant Peach.

James felt like crying. He would never get them back now—they were lost, lost, lost forever.

But where had they gone to? And why in the world had they been so eager to push down into the earth like that? What were they after? There was nothing down there. Nothing except the roots of the old peach tree…and a whole lot of earthworms and centipedes and insects living in the soil.

But what was it the old man had said? Whoever they meet first, be it bug, insect, animal, or tree, that will be the one who gets the full power of their magic!

Good heavens, thought James. What is going to happen in that case if they do meet an earthworm? Or a centipede? Or a spider? And what if they do go into the roots of the peach tree?

“Get up at once, you lazy little beast!” a voice was suddenly shouting in James’s ear. James glanced up and saw Aunt Spiker standing over him, grim and tall and bony, glaring at him through her steel-rimmed spectacles. “Get back over there immediately and finish chopping those logs!” she ordered.

Aunt Sponge, fat and pulpy as a jellyfish, came waddling up behind her sister to see what was going on. “Why don’t we just lower the boy down the well in a bucket and leave him there for the night?” she suggested. “That ought to teach him not to laze around like this the whole day long.”

“That’s a very good wheeze, my dear Sponge. But let’s make him finish chopping up the wood first. Be off with you at once, you hideous brat, and do some work!”

Slowly, sadly, poor James got up off the ground and went back to the woodpile. Oh, if only he hadn’t slipped and fallen and dropped that precious bag. All hope of a happier life had gone completely now. Today and tomorrow and the next day and all the other days as well would be nothing but punishment and pain, unhappiness and despair.

He picked up the chopper and was just about to start chopping away again when he heard a shout behind him that made him stop and turn.

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A Peach of a Production

Set design for James and the Giant Peach by Francois-Pierre Couture

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The hero of our story is James Henry Trotter—a lonely nine-year-old orphan who has lived with his ghastly aunts, Sponge and Spiker, ever since his parents met their fate in the mouth of a rampaging rhinoceros. These crotchety old crones make poor James slave for them and never let him play with other children. One day, a mysterious stranger presents him with a bag of glowing green crocodile tongues—the strongest magic the world has ever known. When he accidentally spills them on the ground near the barren peach tree in his yard, the most marvelous things start to happen.

Centipede costume design by Angela Balogh Calin.

First, a luscious ripe peach suddenly appears on the shriveled-up tree and starts growing and growing till it’s as big as a house. Then, just as James is trying to sneak a quick bite, he finds his way into the center of the fruit, where he encounters a cadre of kid-sized insects who become his instant friends: cocky Centipede, grumpy Earthworm, musical Grasshopper, fashionable Ladybird, and industrious Spider. To escape his evil aunts, they snip the stem and the giant peach starts rolling away on a fantastic voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way, James finds his voice and becomes the head of the motley crew. All of his friends have special talents and James learns how to become a true leader—inspiring each of them to draw upon their strengths and function as a team. 

Director Casey Stangl is approaching David Wood’s adaptation in a way that emphasizes the humanity in the story. Angela Calin’s costumes anthropomorphize the insects, retaining a sense of the human actor beneath them to evoke the characters bug characteristics rather than literally displaying them. Francois-Pierre Couture’s set will feature the giant peach in all its glory, accompanied by Tom Ruzika’s lighting design and Peter Bayne’s sound design and additional compositions. The poems found within Dahl’s original are present and set to music by Josh Schmidt, with musical direction by Deborah Wicks La Puma. Director Stangl has also assembled a fantastic cast of SCR veterans—that happens to include two married couples! You can read more about the cast here.

Roald Dahl

Inspired by Dahl

The name Roald Dahl inspires fans from small children to their parents and grandparents. Many people have affectionate memories of squirreling away with a story or two, reveling in the magic and quirky fun.

Dahl’s work sometimes can be challenging for parents. He was never afraid to tackle dark subjects, often with children facing difficult (if not impossible) circumstances. Many of his protagonists lack caring parents (James is an orphan) and the adults charged with caring for them are antagonistic, if not downright horrible.

Many of Dahl’s stories have inspired adaptations in film, musicals, and even opera—much like this stage version of James and the Giant Peach—often with celebrities involved. Though Dahl declined many offers during his lifetime to have a film version of James and the Giant Peach produced, his widow, Liccy Dahl, approved an offer to have a film adaptation produced in conjunction with Disney in the mid-1990s, which was directed by Henry Selick and produced by Denise Di Novi and Tim Burton. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has been given the film treatment several times—the first in 1971 with Gene Wilder and again in 2005 with Johnny Depp. The Witches was adapted in 1990 (the year Dahl passed away) starring Anjelica Huston.

The long list continues—and these are just the highlights! There’s a musical adaptation of Matilda that premiered in London in 2010 and is currently enjoying a successful run on Broadway. It’s actually the second time Matilda has been given musical treatment; the first was in 1990 and toured the UK. The Witches was adapted into an opera by Norwegian composer Marcus Paus. Fantastic Mr. Fox has been adapted into an Academy Award nominated film by director Wes Anderson. It was made using stop-motion animation and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, and Bill Murray as Badger. Tobias Picker adapted Fantastic Mr. Fox into an opera (the only adaptation with origins in the US) which had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Opera in 1998.

Roald Dahl continues to inspire artists today and there are several new projects in the works. Dustin Hoffman and Dame Judi Dench have been announced as starring in a BBC adaptation of Esio Trot. DreamWorks has announced that they’ve purchased the rights to adapt The BFG.

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A “Peachy”-Keen Cast

THE CAST:  Top row, Geoffrey Wade, Richard Doyle, Jennifer Parsons,
bottom row, Derek Manson, Wyatt Fenner and Ameila White.

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James and the Giant Peach boasts a cast of South Coast Repertory veteran actors, who have decades of experience and a commitment to their craft. Richard Doyle, who portrays the Earthworm, has been part of SCR for most of the past 50 years. Jennifer Parsons is active with SCR and is married to Doyle. And to a person, the actors love great storytelling. For this production in particular, many in the cast cite Roald Dahl’s books as a childhood favorite. Learn more about the cast for James and the Giant Peach.

Richard Doyle (Earthworm)
Doyle has been acting since his teen years and has been with South Coast Repertory for the past five decades. He has portrayed hundreds of characters in all kinds of productions, but this is the first time he has portrayed an Earthworm. He is the Ghost of Christmas Past in SCR’s annual holiday classic, A Christmas Carol. Active in television and film, his credits include “Cheers,” Air Force One, “Ben 10,” “Justice League” “Lego: Clutch Powers.” He also has given voice to characters in CD ROM games, such as “Metal Gear Solid.” He also narrates the annual Pageant of the Masters each summer in Laguna Beach. He is married to Jennifer Parsons (Miss Spider).

Wyatt Fenner (James)
Fenner loves books by Roald Dahl; in fact, he has loved storytelling (and theatre) since he was a child, growing up in Washington, D.C. He has portrayed characters from many well-known, including the Sheriff of Nottingham, Mowgli, Linus and—one of his very first and favorite parts—the back end of the cow, who was sold for some magic beans. He also has performed in plays by William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Joe Orton, Ben Jonson and many more, and has appeared on two detective TV series: “Bones” and “Veronica Mars.” Here at SCR, he portrayed the spoiled Bentley Summerhays in Misalliance and Elder Thomas in The Whale. Fenner studied theatre at the University of Southern California.

Derek Manson (Centipede)
Manson returns to where he donned a tiger tail and rode a skateboard in the world premiere musical, Jane of the Jungle. As a child, one of Manson’s favorite authors was Roald Dahl. Manson grew up in Georgia—which is the “Peach State”—and now resides in Hollywood. He has an active career, with stage and television appearances in New York City, Chicago and Atlanta.

Jennifer Parsons (Miss Spider)
Parsons is a veteran actor in both Theatre for Young Audiences productions and other productions at SCR. In an earlier production of James and the Giant Peach, she portrayed the Ladybug. Her other SCR productions include Anastasia Krupnik, The Borrowers, Sideways Stories, Bunnicula, James and the Giant Peach, The Only Child, Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business, The BFG and The Brand New Kid. She also portrays Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol.  In addition, she has an active career in other theatre works, movies and television. She is married to actor Richard Doyle (Earthworm).

Geoffery Wade (Old-Green-Grasshopper)
Last season, Wade portrayed Anastasia Krupnik’s Dad, who was a teacher. In James and Giant Peach, he’ll bring the Old-Green-Grasshopper to life. Through his years in theatre, he has portrayed more than 100 different characters; Wade says that this is the first time he’s portrayed a bug. His television credits include “Scrubs,” “Num3ers,” “Law & Order” and “NCIS.”

Amelia White (Ladybird)
White was born in Nottingham, England. She been a stage actress since her teen years, went to college in Nottingham and then in London to learn all the different ways to enjoy being on stage. She previously was seen at SCR in a number of productions, including  The Importance of Being Earnest, The Heiress and Misalliance.