Balloon: I don’t know how they did the balloon in the film, and there may be more ingenious ways of realising it than mine. This is how I did it: I got a large, strong, red, round, helium-filled balloon; attached a lightweight stiff cord (dressing-gown cord) to its nozzle, sellotaped one end of a couple of metres (the armspan of the operator/puppeteer) of invisible thread (fishing line) 20cm from the nozzle, passed the other end of the line through a hole at the end of a thin, strong wooden rod, just under a metre in length, and tied it to the end of another rod of similar length. The operator/puppeteer held the rod in his/her hands. By placing the rod with the hole wherever the operator/puppeteer wanted the balloon to go, and pulling or releasing the tension on the line with the other rod, it was possible to control the balloon’s movements and give the illusion of independent flight.
At one point in the text the balloon is required to write on a blackboard. This was done by attaching a small piece of chalk to the rod with the hole at the end. This rod was placed right under the nozzle of the balloon by pulling the line away with the other rod. Thus it was possible to mask the chalk. At the end of the story the balloon should ‘die’ very slowly. After losing lots of balloons, we discovered the best way to do this: after the ‘pack of children’ had all fired their catapults at the balloon, they would rush Pascal who was holding the balloon, triumphantly, and mask him while he cut a very small hole near the nozzle of the balloon with a small pair of nail scissors. They then broke away from Pascal as he released the balloon, and watched it deflate. The effect is moving, and capable of creating an extraordinarily tangible silence in the theatre.
The Revolt of the Balloons, in the closing minutes of the musical, was done equally simply. Fishing lines were attached to various points on the set and stretched to hidden points in the auditorium. Balloons with weighted strings (large curtain rings did the trick) were then set down the lines and collected by the cast. The strings were pulled through the curtain rings by the cast and handed to Pascal. Where flying was available flying wires were attached to Pascal while he was surrounded by hundreds of floating balloons and he then took off, to spontaneous applause.
The Company: This musical can be performed by as few as eleven actor-singers or as many as you like. I saw it produced in Holland in 1998 with fifty children and two adults, to great effect.
Antony Clark, 1999
A version of this script of The Red Balloon was first performed at the Contact Theatre, Manchester, in December 1989, with the following cast:
Louise Yates, Amelia Bulmore, Jane Cox, Philip Rham,
Claude Close, Kieran Cunningham, Andy Crooks,
Rachel Spry, Chris Garner, Jane Lancaster and
Philip Aldridge.
The Royal National Theatre cast included:
Nicky Adams, Malcolm Shields, Jane Howie,
David Rubin, Rashan Stone, Lucy Dixon, Nigel Betts,
Naomi Radcliffe, Daniel Crowder, Joanna John,
Natascha Bain, Graeme Henderson, Katherine Oliver,
Rachel Spry and Simeon Truby.
Characters
RED BALLOON
PASCAL LAMPLIGHTER
TRAMP
MAMAN
PAPA ALBERT
a caretaker
MLLE ELAINE
a teacher
HEADMASTER
GIRL
in the white dress
BUS CONDUCTOR
PICTURE SELLER
CYCLE SELLER
PHOTOGRAPHER
BLUE BALLOON
SCHOOL CHILDREN
AND PEOPLE OF PARIS
MUSIC / SONGS
PART ONE:
1. Prologue
2. Every Morning the Same
3. Hopscotch
4. Every Schoolday the Same
5. Every Evening the Same
6. Every Evening the Same (reprise)
7. The Argument
8. Put Him Back
9. Always the Same (reprise)
10. Going Out
11. Balloon Theme
12. Waiting for the Bus
13. Running to School
14. Frères Jacques (trad.)
15. Go Home
16. Please Can We Share Your Umbrella
17. Back Home
18. At the Window
19. Next Morning
20. The Balloon Game
21. Don’t Get Lost
22. My Red Balloon
PART TWO:
23. Where’s the Red Balloon Gone?
24. The Classroom
25. Out of School
26. The Games They Play
27. We Want the Red Balloon
28. Don’t Get Lost (reprise)
29. The Market of Memories
30. Clearing the Market
31. We Saw You Talking to Him
32. Red and Blue
33. The Chase
34. I Will Miss You
35. The Revolt of the Balloons
36. Encore
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