you for a while

A couple posts back I was entertaining the idea of a Tori Amos Musical (perhaps a little too profoundly) and decided that the Boys for Pele would make a perfect stage production, given that it follows the novel format. The following obsessional craziness is an attempt to bring this musical to life. You might consider opening iTunes or RealPlayer to your Boys for Pele collection to get the full experience. Also, you can click over and read some common Boys for Pele song interpretations. I will have to do this over several posts, because this album is a bear. We’ll start with the first 2 songs…Beauty Queen and Horses.

Act 1:

Scene 1: Beauty Queen
The stage is dark and lights gradually shine down on a beautiful 30-something woman with red hair standing stage right, leaning forward on a vanity studying herself in the mirror. She is singing “Beauty Queen” such that the audience knows this woman has suffered in her life and will probably suffer more in her future…but she still retains an air of confidence and she continues to put on a pretty face. When the song is over, she takes out a tube of lipstick and applies it, puts the tube down on the vanity and turns to leave. The stage fades to black.

Scene 2: Horses
The scene during Horses is chaotic, but easy to follow given that every important character has red hair: Most characters are our main character–we’ll call her Tori–at various stages in her life. Each separate performance represents an event that has, to various degrees, scarred her. These are the events with which she will deal as the play goes on. That Horses is being played suggests that Tori, in her mind’s eye, is jumping on a horse to race forward and deal with these demons head on, so that she can finally reach a place of ultimate healing.

In setting up this scene, the 30-something Tori is standing stage left, dressed in an angelic white dress. She is out of the limelight and remains onstage throughout the song. She is our singer. Our narrator. As the song opens (”I got me some Horses, to ride on, to ride on) the focus is on a group of little girls (one of which is red-headed) in ballet slippers and tutus dancing a routine. This segment is quick, and as the lines “perfectly still” are sung, the red-headed girl falls down in executing a move. The other girls point at her and soundlessly giggle. The red-headed girl stands up and runs off stage…the other girls follow, pointing and laughing.

Enter a pre-teen Tori (carrying a wooden chair) and an old lady in a church dress. The young girl sits in the chair and hangs her head low, as the the old lady (who is flailing her arms around holding a Bible) preaches to her angrily (soundlessly, of course). This woman is obviously scolding the young girl (her granddaughter) for some “unholy” transgression, and the guilt rains down by bucket-full. Around the line “So I chased down my posies…” the woman and the girl run off stage and are…

…replaced by a stage-full of people: some in suits, some who appear to be seamstreses (measuring tapes around their shoulders, holding outfits), some who appear to be band members, and the old lady from the previous scene. “Tori” here is a rock chick, red-hair teased dressed in Spandex, who is being pushed and pulled around the stage by all of these people who want her attention. As this is being played out, you get the sense (because you cannot hear the characters) that Tori is confused and is allowing herself to be pulled around but is not necessarily happy about it. This girl is being “Made.”

As the songs nears its close (as the last chorus is sung), the stage-full of people traipse off (including the rock chick) while, simultaneously, a bed is wheeled onto the stage by a 20-something, normally-dressed red-headed woman and a handsome young fellow. The couple sits on the bed, close to each other, smiling, laughing, and touching each other’s faces like young couples do. They are happy, they are in love, and they expect nothing else than to be with each other forever. This end of this relationship is what drives the rest of this play, so their love for each other must be convincing. As the song ends (”Keeps perfectly still”) the lights fade on this couple as they lie down on the bed.

Thanks for reading…I’ll try Blood Roses and Father Lucifer on another slow Tori Amos News day.

Filed under: China2Ny on September 21st, 2007