Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Retirement: The Musical



[Warning: If you didn't read the earlier post "The Halls Are Alive with the Sound of Music" this will make very little sense to you.]
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Act One. Final Scene.


(LK exits stage left, unaware of DK's hidden love for her, a younger woman. DK stands center of a dark stage, lit by a single, slightly yellow spotlight. A single violin softly plays as he looks forlornly at the departing LK. He turns to face the audience. Speaking, more than singing, he begins softly:)

You're young and unlumpy
(pause)
And I'm old and dumpy.
(pause)
Together we neutralize each other.

(He sobs, the full orchestra plays with volume. Stage to darkness. Curtain. End of Act One.)

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As I said a few posts ago, there are a few songs written for the musical of our formerly private life. I haven't written anything else for Act One, but you know how it goes. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl doesn't get it and the first act ends with the heartbroken boy singing of his unrequited love.

Of course, in this one, it's old guy meets younger woman, etc, but you get the message.

I see a raucous dance number beginning Act Two, done to the tune of "Evita" but called "Mojito". The chorus begins chanting, "Mojito, mojito" and then begin dancing wildly as they sing, "Let's all get drunk/ on mojitos. The truth is/ I need another."

It should revive the audience from the downer that ends Act One. And those who hit the lobby bar during intermission will feel a kinship with the song.

There's more written for Act Two, including what I believe are a couple of surefire hits. They are the songs that define the hero and heroine and bring them together.

The first, Linda's Theme, is sung by LK to the tune of Dion's "The Wanderer":

Oh, I'm the kind of girl
Who washes clothes all night.
I never toss in coloreds
When I do a load of white.
They call me the launderer.
The launderer.
The clothes go round and round and round.

But the breakout hit is DK's. It's sung to the tune of the Candy Man (the old Sammy David jr hit from "Willie Wonka", not Christine Aguilera or Roy Orbison songs of the same name). The song was inspired when Linda noticed during her real-life laundry chores that I had about 35 pairs of underpants. I don't know why I do, but something made me keep buying them.

For those in the US, you should know that Napi-San is a bleaching product in which you soak white cotton clothes (nappies is the Aussie equivalent of US diapers). Anyhow, these are the lyrics to The Underpants Man

Who can take white cotton,
Sprinkle it with poo,
Soak it in the Napi-san
And make it like new?
The Underpants Man.
The Underpants Man
'cuz the Underpants Man
Can.

Anyhow, the play ends happily, of course. I figure the song that ends Act One gets reprised at the end of Act Two, only then it's a duet and they both sing "Together we neutralize each other", making a sad song into a happy ending. The music swells from the full orchestra. The curtain falls.

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