Melo-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee...

I keep listening to Merrily We Roll Along, and the more I listen, the more I like and appreciate it. The lyrics are actually rather clever, and it has a lot of really nice moments. I especially love when they meet with the producer Joe and play some of their numbers for him, and this is his (sung) response:

That's great...
That's swell...
The other stuff, as well!
It isn't every day
I hear a score this strong.
But fellas, if I may,
There's only one thing wrong:

There's not a tune you can hum.
There's not a tune you go bum-bum-bum-di-dum!
You need a tune to go bum-bum-bum--di-dum!
Gimme a melody!

Why can'tcha throw 'em a crumb?
What's wrong with lettin'em tap their toes a bit?
I'll let you know when Stravinsky has a hit.
Gimme a melody!

Oh, sure,
I know--
It's not that "kind of show".
But can'tcha have a score
That's kinda in-between?
Here, play a little more--
I'll show you what I mean.

(they play some more)

Listen, boys--
Maybe it's just me,
But that's not a humm-a-muh-mumm-a-muh-mumm-able
Melody!

Write more! Work hard!
Leave yer name with the girl.
Less avant-garde!
Leave yer name with the girl.
Just write a plain old melo-
(to the tune of "Some Enchanted Evening"...off-key)
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee...
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee...

Anyway, onto other things...I really buckled down this week and got most of my work done, so today it's pretty easy sailing. Now, if I can just force myself to exercise regularly...

Another round of Macbeth starting tonight! Apparently, we've got huge crowds coming, which will be great.

Now that I've finished my final re-write of Semblable (I may make minor revisions here and there, still)...time to pick up Beauty once more. I just need to keep picking away at the second act until I've got it done. So far, I'm liking the structure I've got going a lot better. The music feels less spare...which, for a second act, you usually want less music than the first, but before the music just mostly felt like transitional stuff, and everything happened too fast. There wasn't enough "meat" which was a problem when you have a second act that takes a whole different turn than the first. I've got to create enough level of development and new themes to justify having a whole new "concept" and setting in the second act, as the dreamscape.

But right now, it starts, as usual with the transition into the dreamscape: the police investigation seguing into a solo by Madame Fairfield coping with her despair by living "for a dream", and then of course Kathy and Christopher's duet together, which I like. I start the second act that way having an entirely new theme and song. I do use that theme ONCE late in the first act, but it's just a little bit, and it's incidental music, not a song.

Then, we've got the nice scene with Kathy finishing her novel and being in love with Christopher and dancing...

Empathos makes his presence and sets the mood for their dance, as he sings along with the Frank Sinatra that's playing...

The next sequence I've got is the whole "Success" sequence, and I've made it definitely feel more like a big, long musical sequence showing everything that's going great for Kathy and Chris.

Then I transition into the "Empathos and Necra" sequence showing what's become of Madame Fairfield, tormented by Empathos and Necra, and her dream of The Strange Man more or less raping her as Kathy signs the contract for the book. That, too, feels like a better, longer sequence. Empathos and Necra both have more of a presence and are better defined. They even have their own little mini-sequences where we hear them sing dissonant versions of themes previously heard (but only as incidental music, once again).

This is what the "song/musical sequence" list would look like for Beauty, I think...

Act I

Opening: The Sadist
"I Don't Know You"
"Contact"
Tension Floating (Rachel and Christopher)
1st Poem / "Very Different Lives"
The Next Chapter / "Words in the Darkness" / The Master's Warning
Tension Bursting (Rachel and Christopher II)
The Seduction
2nd Poem / "Falling Away"
The Birthday Party / Kathy's Cry
"What I Wish"
"Beauty"

Act II

Opening: The Masochist
"Close Your Eyes"
Townsend's Rave / "Success"
The Ballad of Empathos and Necra
"Malicious"
The Fate of Madame Fairfield
"Beauty" (reprise)
Finale

Yay, party at Trude's tonight! I wonder how many of the Shelterskelter people will be there - maybe Steve Krambeck will even be there. Who knows? Or as Melanie calls him, "Jesus."