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Pleroma
Dylan Shaw is a successful commercial composer. His move to writing “serious” music has met resistance from academia, especially from influential musicologist Livak Rigor, who is also a music reviewer for a mainstream newspaper. Dylan’s girl friend, soprano Clara Sinclair, complains that Livak has threatened her with bad reviews unless she agrees to join the cast of his University opera production. Dylan retaliates by attacking Livak during the live TV broadcast of a music recital. Clara quarrels with Dylan for “ruining her chances” with Livak and leaves him. Upset, Dylan confides in his manager, the wily Sven Thorlberg. He laments that he would earn more money from his music if he were then, taking his own idea seriously, persuades Sven to help him activate the outrageous scheme. Three years later, after Dylan’s supposed drowning, we find him composing in a beach shack on an obscure Pacific island, Soladore, sending Sven new works to pass off as early ones and earning better money from them. The fact that Dylan’s body was never found intrigues TV arts presenter Eve Longburn. She finds another clue embedded in a piano piece by Dylan which spells out the name “Soladore” in code, which island she knows from her hippie, surfing past. She shares with Clara her suspicion that Dylan is still alive. Clara, now an internationally famous soprano, gossips to Livak. They tease Sven about the “rumour” that Dylan is not really dead. Alarmed, Sven arrangers with two enforcers, Wally and Crunch, to have Dylan’s “accidental” death made permanent. Eve, Clara, Livak, Sven, Wally and Crunch converge on Dylan’s beach shack at Soladore. Eve, getting there first, assures Dylan she does not want to exploit his situation for a hot story. She wants him to escape with her to another island. Wally and Crunch arrive on assignment. Clara and Livak turn up to gloat. Clara is enraged to find Eve already there, and in bed with “her man”. Wally and Crunch are outraged when Sven also shows up. They feel Sven is in breach of contract. Warning of an impending hurricane sends them all racing to take shelter in the island’s only church. Here, amid lightning, thunder and howling wind, an obscure struggle is seen to take place between Dylan and Crunch, silhouetted against a plate glass window. At its climax, a large heavy Cross falls on Sven, with Crunch on top clinging to it. Sven is dead. The plate glass window is smashed. Dylan has vanished again taking with him Livak’s desired that Dylan remain obscure, unknown and forgotten.
70 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 16, 2013
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September 21, 2013AUTHOR'S COMMENTS ON "PLEROMA" - being also a composer these are less comments on my own play than on the music (my own) that I hope a director might see fit to use, for the following reasons.
So - “PLEROMA” - NOTES ON THE MUSIC
It would be presumptuous of a writer to prescribe what incidental music should be used in the staging of his/her theatre play. Choice of music, rightly, should be the prerogative of the director, as with all other aspects of staging over which he/she has control. A writer owes a debt of gratitude to a director and to the theatrical company for putting on the play! This debt is repaid by handing over control. The only exception to this rule is in the case of music theatre, in all its genres, where, by definition and intent, the music is at the core of the created work. It is with these priorities in mind that offer the following suggestions – dare I say recommendations? – regarding the use of my own music for this play. Because of the nature of the drama, music is embedded in the story, and in one case (the music for “Soladore”) a series of four notes is as much as part of the plot as the dialogue. In my own mind, this play therefore verges on music theater. I can best put forward my case by providing notes about usage for each of the four named pieces that are listed on the title page.
String Quartet No I (“The Key”. (CUES 1 & 2 in Act 1, Scene 2)
This is the piece (2 extracts from it) about which my feelings are the most proprietarial, and this is because, in reality, this work (and its companion piece, a Clarinet Quintet) attracted exactly the kind of negative comments from academics that are expressed in the play and also, I’m glad to add, achieved numerous plays on radio. Each of the nominated extracts is strongly melodic and, even if not used, can serve to act as a guide to the kind of music that a director might (I trust) choose to he heard. Moreover, a recording of my String Quartet is available to be used, and without payment of additional performing right fees, if the music is regarded as intrinsic to the drama. The music, by the way, has been released on a CD album “Today-Yesterday” on the Revolve label, RDS002 which is available online at CDBaby as a CD or download. Am I forgiven the plug?
“Twelve Angry Notes” – for String Quartet, (CUE Act 1, Scene 2)
Any contemporary atonal work for string quartet would serve here, but only if it meets the following specifications:
** duration of approx. 5.00’ which can bed adjusted because it consists of
** Sparsely spaced single notes or chords separated by long intervals
** performed at low volume
** non-intrusive as it is heard under Narrator’s voice over.
I have written a short work that follows these prescriptions, but not one that I take too seriously, as it is intended as a satire on the kind of music it represents.
“Catacombs” for solo piano (CUE in Act 2, Scene 6)
This is intended as a straightforward 32 bar melody, lyrical and also sombre, to be played on the piano by the actor who plays Clara. I can provide both the piano score (for use as a prop) and a digital recording of it. The duration is approx 2'00”. Whatever music is used should sound as though derived from a hymn tune.
‘SOLADORE”. (CUE in Act 2, Scene 6)
Really all that's required for this is four notes either sung or sounded on the piano. They are (in the key of C) GACD. The work in which the motif appears is not heard.
So - “PLEROMA” - NOTES ON THE MUSIC
It would be presumptuous of a writer to prescribe what incidental music should be used in the staging of his/her theatre play. Choice of music, rightly, should be the prerogative of the director, as with all other aspects of staging over which he/she has control. A writer owes a debt of gratitude to a director and to the theatrical company for putting on the play! This debt is repaid by handing over control. The only exception to this rule is in the case of music theatre, in all its genres, where, by definition and intent, the music is at the core of the created work. It is with these priorities in mind that offer the following suggestions – dare I say recommendations? – regarding the use of my own music for this play. Because of the nature of the drama, music is embedded in the story, and in one case (the music for “Soladore”) a series of four notes is as much as part of the plot as the dialogue. In my own mind, this play therefore verges on music theater. I can best put forward my case by providing notes about usage for each of the four named pieces that are listed on the title page.
String Quartet No I (“The Key”. (CUES 1 & 2 in Act 1, Scene 2)
This is the piece (2 extracts from it) about which my feelings are the most proprietarial, and this is because, in reality, this work (and its companion piece, a Clarinet Quintet) attracted exactly the kind of negative comments from academics that are expressed in the play and also, I’m glad to add, achieved numerous plays on radio. Each of the nominated extracts is strongly melodic and, even if not used, can serve to act as a guide to the kind of music that a director might (I trust) choose to he heard. Moreover, a recording of my String Quartet is available to be used, and without payment of additional performing right fees, if the music is regarded as intrinsic to the drama. The music, by the way, has been released on a CD album “Today-Yesterday” on the Revolve label, RDS002 which is available online at CDBaby as a CD or download. Am I forgiven the plug?
“Twelve Angry Notes” – for String Quartet, (CUE Act 1, Scene 2)
Any contemporary atonal work for string quartet would serve here, but only if it meets the following specifications:
** duration of approx. 5.00’ which can bed adjusted because it consists of
** Sparsely spaced single notes or chords separated by long intervals
** performed at low volume
** non-intrusive as it is heard under Narrator’s voice over.
I have written a short work that follows these prescriptions, but not one that I take too seriously, as it is intended as a satire on the kind of music it represents.
“Catacombs” for solo piano (CUE in Act 2, Scene 6)
This is intended as a straightforward 32 bar melody, lyrical and also sombre, to be played on the piano by the actor who plays Clara. I can provide both the piano score (for use as a prop) and a digital recording of it. The duration is approx 2'00”. Whatever music is used should sound as though derived from a hymn tune.
‘SOLADORE”. (CUE in Act 2, Scene 6)
Really all that's required for this is four notes either sung or sounded on the piano. They are (in the key of C) GACD. The work in which the motif appears is not heard.
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