"My life's a pattern..."
-In Control
So, full disclosure time: I'm working on a new project. Except, by "new," I mean "it's been on the back burner for a few years now," and by "working" I mean "doing my best to resuscitate before it's too late." This project, based LOOSELY on the German silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," continues my long-standing tradition of somehow winding up creating work that is somewhere in the great divide between "original" and "adaptation."
Let's begin at the beginning, disregarding juvenilia. My first produced work, "In Control," was an original story full of fictional characters and events, but its genesis was based in a series of autodramas (autobiographical solo performances, for those of you who didn't go to a theatre school). These performances, written and performed by the chief composer David M. Mahokey, dealt with the sense of loss, mourning and rage felt as a survivor of childhood and adolescent cancer, crippled in one leg by the removal of a large malignancy. Initial drafts of the show were extremely autobiographical and heavily based in nonfiction, telling two stories at once: Mahokey's cancer aftermath, and my confusion and disappointment about the absence of two of my best friends, who both cut all ties and ended communications without warning around the same time. Over time, the autobiographical elements became more and more "influences" than "elements," leading to a fictional show about people who dealt with the same things we dealt with ourselves.
The next two shows in a row were commissions for Stage Right's "princess shows" series, new musicals adapted from classic fairy tales. I wrote lyrics and collaborated with Mahokey on music for "Mermaid!," which was a somewhat parodic musical spoofing the "Disney princess musical" genre, specifically the work of Menken, Ashman and Schwartz. When our music joined Anthony Marino's libretto, the show became more specifically a pastiche of Broadway cliches as well as Disney ones- the diva number, the power ballad duet, etc.
When "Mermaid!" (originally titled "The Little Mermaid") met with huge success, Marino commissioned Team In Control to write a second "princess show," based on the Snow White fairytale. This time, I worked with Marino as co-librettist, and as such I had greater creative control than I had on "Mermaid!" in the winter. I had initially wanted a pleasantly gritty high-fantasy style for the show, reminiscent of the "Game of Thrones" style, while Marino wanted a more kid-friendly, Disney-influenced style (during one phone meeting with Mahokey, he allegedly requested "more baby animals" as a metaphor to get us not to write too dark). Gradually, we compromised and found a tone in the middle, chiefly influenced by the less-gritty high fantasy of "The Hobbit," and the cheerful seriousness and character archetypes of Hayao Miyazaki, auteur behind legendary films like "Nausicaa," "Princess Mononoke," and "Laputa: Castle In The Sky."
Let's begin at the beginning, disregarding juvenilia. My first produced work, "In Control," was an original story full of fictional characters and events, but its genesis was based in a series of autodramas (autobiographical solo performances, for those of you who didn't go to a theatre school). These performances, written and performed by the chief composer David M. Mahokey, dealt with the sense of loss, mourning and rage felt as a survivor of childhood and adolescent cancer, crippled in one leg by the removal of a large malignancy. Initial drafts of the show were extremely autobiographical and heavily based in nonfiction, telling two stories at once: Mahokey's cancer aftermath, and my confusion and disappointment about the absence of two of my best friends, who both cut all ties and ended communications without warning around the same time. Over time, the autobiographical elements became more and more "influences" than "elements," leading to a fictional show about people who dealt with the same things we dealt with ourselves.
The next two shows in a row were commissions for Stage Right's "princess shows" series, new musicals adapted from classic fairy tales. I wrote lyrics and collaborated with Mahokey on music for "Mermaid!," which was a somewhat parodic musical spoofing the "Disney princess musical" genre, specifically the work of Menken, Ashman and Schwartz. When our music joined Anthony Marino's libretto, the show became more specifically a pastiche of Broadway cliches as well as Disney ones- the diva number, the power ballad duet, etc.
When "Mermaid!" (originally titled "The Little Mermaid") met with huge success, Marino commissioned Team In Control to write a second "princess show," based on the Snow White fairytale. This time, I worked with Marino as co-librettist, and as such I had greater creative control than I had on "Mermaid!" in the winter. I had initially wanted a pleasantly gritty high-fantasy style for the show, reminiscent of the "Game of Thrones" style, while Marino wanted a more kid-friendly, Disney-influenced style (during one phone meeting with Mahokey, he allegedly requested "more baby animals" as a metaphor to get us not to write too dark). Gradually, we compromised and found a tone in the middle, chiefly influenced by the less-gritty high fantasy of "The Hobbit," and the cheerful seriousness and character archetypes of Hayao Miyazaki, auteur behind legendary films like "Nausicaa," "Princess Mononoke," and "Laputa: Castle In The Sky."
Definitively choosing the tone of the piece enabled me to sink into the writing process, and made a lot of changes to the "original" part of the material. For all its fame and legendary prominence, "Snow White" is not a great, deep story. The heroine disappears for almost the entire tale, and for a big chunk of it she's dead on a slab. Thus, we had to flesh out the plot and cast of characters in order to make it a well-developed story. Here, the Miyazaki influence paid off: we have a smart, not-quite-conventionally-beautiful heroine who finds herself actualized, not distressed, when put in danger, a kind-hearted but amoral group of lovable antiheroes, and a conflict of rustic and civilized cultures. During the writing process, the original characters in the piece sometimes changed drastically- Dogsbody, the prince's comic sidekick, changed from a brainless "village idiot" type into a cunning schemer and the Prince's equal, and Rose Red, Snow White's sister changed from an amoral sexpot into a lovely but vapid narcissist.
So, here I am again, working on a new variation on a public domain story. Every day, the Caligari musical moves further and further away from the very slight plot of the original story and silent film, but I think that's a good thing. There have been a few attempted stage adaptations of Caligari before, but none have been notable. All of them, whether ballet, musical, play, opera or puppet show, have had one thing in common: a reliance on, almost a reverence for, the legendary original work and its German Expressionist style. These adaptations mimicked the silent-film overacting of the Expressionist era, along with the film's notable images, one-dimensional archetypal characters, and lack of dialogue. Instead of following in this traditional path, I am running in the opposite direction. Rather than creating merely a tribute to the legendary film, I want to create something almost entirely new from the framework of story and characters provided. I want people to see the show and think "I can't believe that was a movie once- it feels so new," instead of saying "Ehh, they tried too hard to be the movie, and you can't beat the classics."