Theater of the Imagination

Series 1, Episode 22: Theater of the Imagination

• Peter Link • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Podcasting — The evolution of the musical is upon us.

It’s time for new works. Scattershot Symphony will now evolve from the past, to the present and into the future. It’s inevitable. So here we are at the cutting edge of 21st century musicals – the musical podcast.


Today we offer a preview, actually, a better word for that would be a PRELISTEN, to songs from a musical of one of the greatest classics of the theater. Euripedes’ Iphigenia In Aulis.  It’s an ancient Greek story, but it resonates with today’s world completely in that it is the story of a war begun with no purpose except to please a deranged leader’s egotistical wishes. Sound familiar?

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Welcome to:
Scattershot Symphony
The Music of Peter Link
(That’s me.)
 
 
This week being the twenty-second episode of this podcast, I prefer to let the music do the talkin’.  However, if you need to know more about me, please visit Wikipedia.com – Peter Link.   
 
This episode is entitled
“Theater Of The Imagination”
From The Ancients to Today
 
Welcome back! If you wondered if I had disappeared these last couple of months, I didn’t. I simply evolved. Twenty-one episodes of this podcast, sharing the music of my past life with you was great fun, and I could have gone on for another couple of years with the wealth of my catalog, but that’s just not who I am. I’m a creator, not a reminiscer.
 






That was then, this is now an’ we ain’t done yet. For me, it’s time for new works. Scattershot Symphony will now evolve from the past, to the present and into the future. It’s inevitable. The world is changing dramatically – in case you haven’t noticed. Yesterday it was 72 degrees out. Today, it’s a snow storm out my window as I speak. An’ this week now there’s a war goin’ on. Change is unavoidable … and Art reflects Life.  So here we are at the cutting edge of 21st century musicals.
 
A Broadway musical now costs many millions to mount. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” producers spent a whopping $79 million. U2’s Bono and The Edge reached somewhere between $65 and $70 million. The average ticket price is now $150— not for the whole family, but for one ticket. Theater for the Rich. Theater for … the few? Nothing against Broadway, I love Broadway, but ya’ hafta come ta’ NYC ta’ see it in a world where most entertainment comes to your doorstep  … or better yet, your flat screen.
 
But even then, the big shots hafta produce it — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple. Where is the developing ground for new works? You’ll find it … In the Podcast.
 
It’s simple. It’s very inexpensive. It’s right at your fingertips, or perhaps your earbuds. And yes, it’s only audio, and, yeah,  I can already hear ya’ sayin’ “But I can’t watch it!”
 
Consider this: When I was a kid, I usta love sitting with my brother each night by the radio and listening to The Shadow Knows and Superman. I would close my eyes and listen there in the dark and I’d be right there! I’d see the whole thing right there in my mind — in my imagination — in living color. What did it cost me? Not a thing.  Today, with podcasting, which is really Radio Reimagined, the possibilities are so much greater, the sound so much better.  On the internet we can reach the world and our audience can experience it anywhere and any time they wish.
 
Podcasting — The evolution of the musical is upon us.
 
On your mark. Get set. Go!
 
Today we offer a preview, actually, a better word for that would be a PRELISTEN, to songs from a musical of one of the greatest classics of the theater. Euripedes’ Iphigenia In Aulis.  It’s an ancient Greek story, but it resonates with today’s world completely in that it is the story of a war begun with no purpose except to please a deranged leader’s egotistical wishes. Sound familiar?

I quote Wikipedia’s short description of Euripedes last and final work.
 
“The play revolves around Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek coalition before and during the Trojan War, and his decision to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis and allow his troops to set sail to preserve their honour in battle against Troy.”
 
“A strange subject for a musical,” you might say.  Well, what about the Book Of Mormon? Hamilton? West Side Story was first Romeo and Juliet.
 
Iphigenia is a tragedy. It has a most unhappy ending. (So is West Side Story.) But Euripedes serves us a warning against despots and Iphigenia soars with its music. It is a classic because it is a story that has legs … legs the size of elephant legs. It’s lasted for nearly 2500 years. It is a story for all time. “But its music is contemporary?” you might ask. Yes it is. So is Hamilton’s.
Our first offering is sung by our narrator, the King's Messenger, who tells of the moment that Iphigenia decides to go to her beheading without a fight. She is to be sacrificed to the Gods as her father, the king bargains all for a wind that his ships may sail. Innocently, and naively she follows the misleading advice of her father who convinces her that it’s all for the glory of his will and his country’s honor.
 
I bring you …

Do You Dare
Performed by Peter Link
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

Who knows what possessed her
Madness seemed contagious
It was far more than the human heart could bear
And the earth turned within her
And her destiny cried out to her
In tears of misfortune
I am calling you to glory no more
There is glory only in your dying
In the sacrifice of life
For the armies
For your country
For your father
Yes the only glory left is your death
A glorious futility
Yet glorious still
It is yours to choose

Do you dare?
Do you dare, Iphigenia?
Do you dare?

So earlier in our story, once our villain, King Agamemnon knows from the gods that he must sacrifice his daughter to them for his precious wind, he sends from his war camp a message to his wife, Clytemnestra a lie, of course, that she is to bring Iphigenia to the war camp for she is to be married to the coolest guy around, one Swift-footed Achilles. If Agamemnon had told his wife the truth, of course, she would have never agreed to bring their daughter.
 
 
 
 
So, Clytemnestra gathers together an excited Iphigenia and all her lovely ladies in waiting and they sail across the Euripus Straits from Argos to Aulis to the wedding of Iphigenia. The trip takes a day and a night. Of course, that night, our heroine, Iphigenia can’t sleep.  Believing that she has arrived at this bogus, yet absolute turning point of her life, she lies awake under the stars on the deck of the sailing ship comtemplating past, present and future of this defining moment in time.
 
Life Rolls On
Performed by Julia Wade
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

Looking back through yesterdays
To times when I was young
Filled with dreams and unafraid
I danced beneath the sun
Tossing all my cares away
As fast as they could come
Rolling through my life so free
Like a river on the run

And all my memories
Are smiles washing over me
I've led a life of certainty
I've touched the morning sun

But fate will have her final say
When all is said and done
And the childhood dreams will vanish
As my fated changes come

And life rolls on
Life rolls on
The time may pass by slowly
Ah but life rolls on
Life rolls on
Life rolls on and on
Like clouds before the setting sun
Life rolls on
Like clouds before the setting sun
Before you know it
They're gone
 
This next musical moment comes in our tale during some of the first moments spent between Clytemnestra and her duplicitous husband who so dearly loves his daughter and is now thinking, “Good god, What Have I Done?” She watches his emotional struggle closely as he, in turn, painfully watches Iphigenia and her ladies in waiting excitedly dance away, leaving the docks to go prepare for the wedding all singing, “How Can I Tell My Joy.”
 
Clytemnestra, with her womanly intuition in full bloom, discerns from his behavior that something has gone amuck. She sings her thoughts in “Your Eyes”. Then the song moves to its third motif, and a distraught Agamemnon, who cannot face the mother of his beloved child, with his back to her sings of his misery. Only Stone becomes a duet between King and Queen and then Clytemnestra responds, now knowing that something is clearly … not as it should be.
 
Yours Truly as our King
and Jenny Burton as Clytemnestra
But first, our ladies in waiting — in celebration

How Can I Tell My Joy / Your Eyes / Only Stone
Performed by Jenny Burton, Julia Wade, and Peter Link
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

[Iphigenias]
How can I tell my joy
There is no language sweet enough to tell it
There is no joy like this
There never was

How can I tell my joy
There is no language sweet enough to tell it
There is no joy like this
There never was


[Clytemnestra]
My husband...I see that you are not yourself.

Your eyes
They flee from mine
In not so subtle frenzy
Your hands
They twist and tear themselves
In a strange mockery
Your feet
Are shifting constantly
Your body shys away from me
I hear your empty words
And I don't believe you

I see a desperation
In the hollow of your face
An agony a passion
Far beyond your wildest dreams
I see no mighty king
Standing in your place
But only a frightened man
Who is not the king I know him to be

I feel a madness in the air
You seem to me a stranger
And all around us everywhere
There's a sense of danger

I can feel the mother in me
Crying out to the father in you
To hold the child's love in your heart
Please hold the child's love in your heart
Please hold the child's love in your heart

[Agamemnon]
Poor heart of mine
Which always has been tender towards strangers
A crushing dream has changed you overnight
For since the gods have turned their eyes from me
Now where my heart was
There is only stone

Strangers who come today will find in me
A man in misery beyond tears
For where my heart was
There is only stone
Oh no there is only stone
Aaahh

[Clytemnestra]
Poor heart of mine
Which only feels the turmoil within you
When such a time should fill us both with joy
A bitter pain I fear is yet to come
For where my heart was
There is only stone

Sorrow surrounds me and finds in me
A woman beyond tears
For where my heart was
There is only stone
Oh no there is only stone
Stone

And your eyes only show in you
A heart of stone
Only stone

When Mom, Daughter and Ladies in Waiting first arrive at the dock at the war camp and disembark, Iphigenia is met by her father where they have a very private moment there on the dock. There, Agamemnon, probably realizing for the first time the terrible thing that he is in the midst of doing, totally loses his cool with the daughter he loves most and begs her to please remember him well.  She, of course, thinks that he is singing about his anguish at losing a daughter to a husband, never guessing that he’s about to have her beheaded and will do the deed in person.
Agamemnon’s song to her there on the dock is entitled
You Were First To Call Me Father.
 
Very close to the end of our musical, Iphigenia reprises the song turning the tables and begging him with the same song not to go through with this unconscionable choice.
 
Tragically, Agamemnon is caught between the lure of the glory of war and his precious manhood as King, and the love for his daughter.
 
Euripedes’ Iphigenia In Aulis is a tragedy. Ego wins out.
 
The musical ends as the ax comes down.
 
But first,
Daughter to Father

I Was First to Call You Father
Performed by Julia Wade
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

I was first to call you father
You to call me child
And of your children
First to sit upon your knee
We kissed each other in our love
We kissed each other in our love

Oh child you said
Surely one day I shall see you
Happy in your husband's home
And like a flower blooming for me
And in my honor

Then as I clung to you
And wove my fingers in your beard
I answered
Father when you're old and reverent
Then with love I will receive you in my home

I have in memory
All these words of yours and mine
Oh father
But you forgetting
Have willed it in your heart to kill me
To kill me to kill me to kill me
To kill me
Oh father
To kill me
I was first to call you father
 
So there you have it. Episode 22. Next … Episode 23.
 
Theater Of The Imagination
Searching For My Father – A Musical Of Biblical Proportions
 
It is a new contemporary musical about a boy, a savant, who loses his father to cancer and consequently loses his faith as well. A myriad of characters from the  biblical past, time-travel into his life to help him regain that faith … all in musical vignettes. It’s a comedy. It’s a tragedy. It’s heartbreaking and it’s uplifting. Join us.
 
Also, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts … etc.
 
A grateful nod goes to both Julia Wade and Jenny Burton for not only their superb solo talent on song after song, but for both of their decades of support. Thank you!
 
A very special thanks also to Stuart Barefoot, our Associate Producer for all your invaluable knowledge and good vibes.
And a posthumous thanks to Ludwig Van Beethoven for your opening 4 bars.
 
Julia
(over playout music)
This podcast is presented with loving care by the staff at Watchfire Music. If you liked what you heard, we got lots more where that came from. In the meantime, you can find the songs you just heard on watchfiremusic.com. There you can purchase the singles or albums and have access to all the lyrics. Also, there you will find all previous podcasts and future scheduling.
 
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