October 15, 2009
High Culture in a Low Place
There were three of us, and we were eleven or maybe twelve years old. We improvised an opera that we performed for an audience of zero down by a storm sewer near the school. The Devil was one of the principal characters. There was a precious ring. The ring went missing. One of the protagonists questioned another about its fate.
“The Devil has EATEN it!” [Sung in a child's imitation of an 'operatic' voice.]
Followed by a chorus: “Induce vomiting, vomiting, vomiting, vomiting — VO-mi-ting!”
Update: The approximate location of the storm sewer.
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thank you, Sheila.
De nada, Deron.
Wonder whether I could restage the performance.
And did somebody?
Did anyone in fact vomit?
No. It was simulated.
Robert Wilson would have some beautiful solutions for that. Perhaps a crescendo of cascading orange ribbons with little coloured things sewn into them, falling gracefully from her mouth, perhaps being thrown, like a gymnast?
Sound effect note: A cardboard tube can enhance the sound of simulated retching.
Oh, Lucy, I must restage this production. And I must secure funding in order that you may fly to Dallas as a special consultant for the Satanic Vomiting Scene.
Wow, so we’re restaging it in Dallas? By the storm sewer? With the caretaker behind the bushes, breathing shallowly? Um.
The storm sewer is critical.
I’m thinking a premiere in Dallas, followed by a tour.
Well it looks like the kitty wagon is going to ride another day. I can do my Ode to a Daisy performance on the same bill. Now we just need Cindy. Cindy?
Lucy, that will be most welcome. (I believe that a little fleshing-out of the bill can do no harm and will most likely help.)
Cindy must be willing to travel to the southwest edge of the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. I do hope she will join us.
As you can see from the satellite view I have added to my original post, the storm sewer site is served by public transportation, so I would hope we might draw an audience from the entire Greater Dallas Metropolitan Area.
We will have to put up posters.
Posters! Yes! We can use your staple gun to affix them to utility poles.
Goddammit yes.
And here’s the beauty part. That staple gun and the labor required for its operation will probably qualify as ‘in-kind contributions’ when we go writing grant proposals to secure arts funding.
We look at that the other way here. Here they would be ‘materials costs’ and also ‘research’.
Fuck me running. No wonder y’all funnel more money to artists.
Yeah, we’re no France or Germany, and hopefully after next month our artist exemption will be still intact, but there is some funding here, yes. And a LOT of artists.
I expect we can pretty well forget about tapping the Texas Commission on the Arts for a production featuring a Satanic Vomiting Scene. But I could be mistaken.
Don’t they have to support minority groups? So we will call it a Faustian Vomiting Scene instead and it will be Very Different.
It’s always good to work in a Faust angle.
I am also mulling over a curtain-raiser based on Cooper’s “All the way down to the devil”.
Who would play the devil?
I’ll be honest. Although I did not play the devil in the original production, I believe I have now matured into the role.
See, here’s the problem with traveling. I’ve been Internetting more or less on the run, and I didn’t see this until Sheila directed my attention toward it. Rock on.
When does “Rats in the sewer” come in?
Cooper, I am hoping that you will lurk in the bushes and drone “rats in the sewer” at moments of high dramatic tension.
I’ve been wanting to play here, but I thought play time had passed. Certainly the world premiere should take place at the original storm sewer. But what about when we take it on the road? When it comes to stage setting would you lean more toward Busby Berkeley or Isamo Noguchi?
Truth to tell, Rick, I’m leaning toward something evocative of a Saks window design.
Oh, Sheila, you make me want to find the white board where I once drew stick figures in the poses of the mannequins we had on hand and merely suggested to the staff, an idea. Once in a while, they bought it whole hog and brought it fully on. Most times, they embellished and made it much more than I doodled out. Way better than I could have imagined. Sometimes, in moments like now, I miss those days.
I’m always ready to drone.