"Years ago, something happened-
Let me explain it..."
-In Control
Lately, as anyone who reads this blog will probably remember, I have been hard at work on "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," my current musical project ("Caligari" for short). Today I spent a few hours at least with the script- not even the whole script, just the Word document of the first scene- open in front of me, struggling with the beginning. You see, beginnings are hard, and I am in the process of rewriting mine.
A few years ago, when I was still fairly early into my undergraduate career, I had a bizarre dream in which I was performing in a rather unique play. All of the characters were circus freaks and carnival types, grunting and shrieking music in a Brecht-meets-Tom-Waits sort of vein, leaping off the stage into the audience, upturning tables and generally creating theatrical chaos. The title of the show was "Freak Show Cabaret." I could remember just enough of the lyrics and music I had heard in the dream to write some of it out, and, after prettying up the intentionally ugly sound of the dream music, I had written the opening number for a show I knew nothing about that didn't yet exist.
Gradually, I thought of pairing up the "sinister carnival folk" show, which did not suggest any plot, with a play within a play story, in order to give it some structure that I could build the carnival stuff around. Eventually, I thought of "Caligari," which was in the public domain, suggested the right atmosphere, and seemed appropriate for loose musicalization. The tune I had written from the dream became "Dr. Caligari's Freak Show Cabaret," a bouncily sinister German cabaret-style number that would be performed in and around the audience by the sinister carnival folk to welcome them to the show. This motif would follow the titular Doctor throughout the show, and much later in Act 2, he sings a song with an identical melody to calm the heroine's well-founded fears, claiming that a doctor's primary responsibility and desire is to "Lend A Friendly Hand." (Followers of Team In Control should know that one- a very early version of this song was put into "Mermaid!" to be sung by UrLiza, a combination octopus, witch and burned-out cabaret diva, who parodied both Disney's Ursula and Liza Minelli.)
A few years ago, when I was still fairly early into my undergraduate career, I had a bizarre dream in which I was performing in a rather unique play. All of the characters were circus freaks and carnival types, grunting and shrieking music in a Brecht-meets-Tom-Waits sort of vein, leaping off the stage into the audience, upturning tables and generally creating theatrical chaos. The title of the show was "Freak Show Cabaret." I could remember just enough of the lyrics and music I had heard in the dream to write some of it out, and, after prettying up the intentionally ugly sound of the dream music, I had written the opening number for a show I knew nothing about that didn't yet exist.
Gradually, I thought of pairing up the "sinister carnival folk" show, which did not suggest any plot, with a play within a play story, in order to give it some structure that I could build the carnival stuff around. Eventually, I thought of "Caligari," which was in the public domain, suggested the right atmosphere, and seemed appropriate for loose musicalization. The tune I had written from the dream became "Dr. Caligari's Freak Show Cabaret," a bouncily sinister German cabaret-style number that would be performed in and around the audience by the sinister carnival folk to welcome them to the show. This motif would follow the titular Doctor throughout the show, and much later in Act 2, he sings a song with an identical melody to calm the heroine's well-founded fears, claiming that a doctor's primary responsibility and desire is to "Lend A Friendly Hand." (Followers of Team In Control should know that one- a very early version of this song was put into "Mermaid!" to be sung by UrLiza, a combination octopus, witch and burned-out cabaret diva, who parodied both Disney's Ursula and Liza Minelli.)