Voyages Extraordinaires
The play's most prominent thematic inspiration is Verne's "Voyages Extraordinaires" series, which it freely invokes and refers to; in addition to plot elements taken from "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", "From the Earth to the Moon", and "Around the Moon", the character of Doctor Ox reappears from the short story "Dr. Ox's Experiment," Mr. Tartelet is derived from a character in "The School for Robinsons", and the hero Georges is described as the son of Captain Hatteras from "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras". At the same time, the plot of the play sets it distinctly apart from the rest of Verne's work. While his novels are based on meticulously researched facts and plausible conjectures, and often end with an ultimate goal remaining unattainable, the play explores the potential of letting a character go beyond all plausible limits and carry out adventures in a domain of pure fantasy.