"Suffering Machines" -- Inspired by Picasso -- (1st Half)

[FuzzFace]

Suffering Machines
Inspired by the paintings of Pablo Picasso


This is the story of Alex.

Frustrated by his own dysfunction as a working man and married man, Alex abandons it all and goes to Spain, with the goal of reviving his latent idealism, optimism and youthful energy, and becoming the man he imagined he would be.

Alone with his thoughts, his experiences push him to reassess his past, confront his present and formulate his future.

Alex spirals downward as he realizes how cynical he's become, and looks down upon others for being like him, until he ultimately relocates in order to help rebuild a 3rd world country recently ravaged by earthquake.


* * *

The words "suffering machines" were used by Picasso himself when he said "women are suffering machines" in talking about his painting, The Weeping Woman. I think it's fair to extend that term to all of humanity, when humanity is not in a good state.

This opera is about overcoming and transcending the state of being a "Suffering Machine".


* * *

Cup of Coffee
The Lovers
Harlequin Sitting
Barcelona Beach
Boy Leading a Horse
Desmoiselles d'Avignon
Salomé
Blind Minotaur (Led By A Girl)
Guernica
The Absinthe Drinker
Young Girl Reading
The Old Guitarist
Self-Portrait
Joie de Vivre
Dove of Peace^/i


* * *

Scene 1:  Alex enters his office and sits at his desk. As he is about to take his first sip of coffee, a workmate enters and tells him the company's stock price has dropped and if they don't find a way to cut expenses, there will be cutbacks. The workmate leaves, and Alex turns on the radio and hears the tail end of news about a bombing somewhere, and then about an earthquake that killed thousands of people. He turns off the radio, lifts the coffee cup to his lips, blows steam away, closes his eyes and takes a sip.


Cup of Coffee

You bridge the gap
between my young and my old soul
you've travelled the world
I've come in from the cold

You awaken
You tap into the dream
My role melts away
in your merciless steam

Open eyes / open portals
Through lips hot air blows
thicker than water my blood flows
reveal the fighter inside my clothes
thicker than water my blood flows
reveal the fire inside my bones

...for the moment, then it goes

You're my only solace
I run an endless race
but with just one little taste
I can go and not leave a trace.

But I'm caught in a wheel of perpetual gloom
I sit alone in my empty room
I'm a cog in a wheel of perpetual gloom
I sit alone in a darkened room
I'm a cog in a wheel of perpetual gloom
All I do is consume

While the black gold fuels the fire
as I push and I run and I tire
for giants who wallow in the mire

Song by Gritter:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=9256.0

Commentary: Alex lives an average life, and has a daily nagging feeling that he could be or should be something more. He ignores it most of the time.  But the first splash of coffee on his lips every morning makes him feel alive, and the feeling is undeniable.





Scene 2: Alex sings The Lovers to an empty chair at the kitchen table.

During the guitar solo, a flashback of the two dressed as they are in the painting is dramatized.

Alex looks in the mirror, an actor/singer playing his reflection steps out of the mirror frame, providing the backup vocals.

At the end of the song, he picks up a duffle bag and walks out the door.


The Lovers

You're a good woman, my dear
But we've reached an impasse, I fear
We have too many colours inside
which I never wanted to hide

I would put it all out on the table
If only, my love, I was able
I hate that my love is not stable
Now I'm coming to tell you goodbye

One time we were on the same page
now it's dog-eared and torn and I misplaced the book
I have searched for myself
but I don't even know where to look

I'm not who I was / nor am I the man I wanted to be
when I look in the mirror I can't say what I see
and the more I think of your love that I took
the more I feel like a crook

My dear you have so many dreams
that you'd willingly give up for me
but if we live our lives independently
we'll both be all that we can be.

Song by Geir:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=8812.0





Scene 3: As Alex exits his home for the last time, he puts on a gester's hat and wanders the damp streets. At the end of the song, the lights go out and an airline voice is heard "Now boarding for Barcelona".


Harlequin Sitting

If all the world's a stage
then I must turn down the part
smothering under smoky cinders
lives a hopeful spark

I cannot play while a war is waged
On illusions I've relied
While I dazzle and I mystify
my thoughts compound like lies

I will not live to jump through hoops
recite lines and sing refrains
a soft voice speaks within my heart
and echos through my veins

I turn my back on this cabaret
The show must not go on
I'll pay the price that I must pay
The clown you've known is gone.

Song by Gu Djin:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=9312.0






Scene 4: Alex arrives at the beach, sits with a bottle of wine and enjoys his surroundings. The sun sets as he sings the last 2 verses.


Barcelona Beach

Far away
from my home so grey
is a land of sand and sun and play
and when I'm there I have no name
I'm a man with a heart
There's no rules / there's no game

Would you call it "zen" or simply call it "sane"
To live a blissful day free of trouble and pain?
I ask myself which is the better way
to live the life I inherited or start fresh today?

Blue sky above and white sand below
under my feet and between my toes
waves they crash
the tide comes and goes
even busy bees stop
to smell a rose

Nature or nuture? Even plants have instinct
Yet I choose my path / I am 'cause I think
But when I open my eyes and see the natural world
I know who I am / the knots come unfurled

There's a place inside hiding in your core
it was there long ago before there was ever a war
it's protected well, safely locked down
away from all thought / doesn't make any sound

I'm hiding here and no one can tell
I've been hiding from me / I've been hiding from hell
Cloudless Sky, Starless Night
I call out to you with all my might.

Song by Bluesberry:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=8739.0





Scene 5: Alex lays on the beach remembering himself as a child. Children playing (either a flashback of himself, or a scene he was observing on the beach) is dramatized.


Boy Leading A Horse

The sky is infinite, the world is round
though all that I need is here on the ground

I tackle the mountains, I swing from the trees
I sail tall ships, making discoveries

I ride camels and horses, I bring countries to me
Every day is a trip / Life, an endless journey

My arms and my legs are servants to me
I don't ever see my very own face

though I see the wall in China
from up in outer space.

Song by henwrench and cuthbert:  
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=8665.0

Commentary: Children's thoughts only propel them, never hold them back. When I was young, I could be Tarzan, Robin Hood, Lawrence of Arabia, Captain Kirk, Moses, Christopher Columbus all in a day's play. There were no limits.





Scene 6: Alex starts off still on the beach, gets up and as he walks, he finds himself wandering into some kind of party, with a lot of women surrounding him and fawning over him. At the end of the song, he looks back over at the beach where he was meditating all afternoon and evening.


Desmoiselles d'Avignon

"The captain goes down with the ship"
rings in my ears on the shore as I sit
fragments of my life drift away
I flashback, and farewell I bid

Have I died and gone to heaven
or has life abandoned me for pretending?
What do I live for? What is in store?
I'd man my post but it exists no more

A dress propped-up by a thousand orgasms
the wind caresses my one million phantasms
A kaleidoscope of life advances
Emotions are like passing trances

Soothing voices, singing, dancing
Never felt so like a king
Since those months back in the womb
where I owned everything

Bide my time I'm going nowhere
Am I carefree or do I just not care?
Have I fallen in some kind of trap
enjoying the natural wonders I lacked

I spoil it by overthinking
Why again was my boat sinking?
Life is about compromise
I guess I'm not ready to be that wise.

Song by Gnasty:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=8796.msg117450;topicseen#new





Scene 7: Early in the morning after a night of partying, he wakes up on the floor and doesn't know where he is.  He does a dance number with one of the women who was dancing during the night, and ends up crawling into bed with her.


Salomé

Woman the floor hurts my bones
the couch smells like a foreign market
I'm uncomfortable in my own skin

Will you take me in?
Will you answer to whatever I call you?
Allow me to escape from every thought within?

Your movements mesmerize me
Your contour intoxicates me
Your curves tease the stars

When the lights are out
I'll get on my knees
and hold you exactly as I please

My sweat drips like tears
the noise in my head it all clears
as sweet relief quickly nears

I selfishly commit
the only act of creation
empowered to me

And give you all I have
to offer the world
in a single moment of ecstasy

Your life is a ballet
a choreography
I hope you find what you want one day

I am astray / I am going away
I'll wander to places more dismal than this
through the door I go without even a kiss.

Song by cuthbert:
In Progress





Scene 8: Dream sequence of a minotaur, tamed and following a girl, who eventually breaks free and chases the girl away.


Blind Minotaur (Led By A Girl)

Guided by an angel
graciously
her iron staff
comforts me

Awakening
from my state of dormancy
muscles contract
like machinery

Your world
is too bright to see
I was born today
will you give me what I need?

Will you feed me
pet me like an animal
wean me and teach me
the tricks I need to know?

I adore you
my life is in your hands
Do I please you?
I am merely dust and sand

But the sun it burns
and the ground it quakes
you know what you want
but do you know what's at stake?

These chains that bind me
could so easily break
I'll pitch all that's in my path
in the fiery lake

When I open my eyes I can't see you
for all that I know I could be you
the place where I'm from is darker than this
I hate to think that ignorance is bliss

My love burns like fire
Fire is the end / Fire is death
The hottest fire is invisible
We learn with our final breath

Song by Ferryman:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=9731.0

Commentary: The idea here is that his energy has been misdirected all this life, due to thoughts about his own limits or inadequacies (symbolized by blindness). This is him breaking out of that limiting way of thinking.





(Concluded in the following thread):¨
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=9990.0

[Gritter]

A very impressive body of work FuzzFace.

*The Universe Band doesn't really do it for me as we have different bands/artists playing each song.

How about...

The Songcrafters Collective presents...
"Suffering Machines"
Inspired by the paintings of Pablo Picasso
By Various Artists.

[FuzzFace]

You are correct that "Various Artists" would be more precise.

If that is what the group prefers, I won't object.

It's important to convey in the title that it's an opera as opposed to a compilation.

This work is unique enough that it deserves a brand of some kind.

I am already envisioning future projects, that would serve as a follow-up to this, and so I was looking for some kind of name that would link the projects together.

"The Universe Band" as a name sounds inclusive enough that anybody can sign up and inter-collaborate as much or as little as they feel.  It's a band more in the sense of a band of people united by a central purpose.

It's like Robin Hood and the Merry Men, or the Mission: Impossible crew, where everyone is contributing their unique abilities to accomplish something greater than the sum of it's parts.

[Satchwood]

I'm impressed!!

[Donna D]

My word! This is...well...impressive! What a tremendous undertaking.

(I've written several individual theatrical/musical pieces [lyrics], and have occasionally toyed with the notion of a "proper" opera. A work such as this one though could inspire me to actually do something.   )

Donna

[FuzzFace]

The Universe Band doesn't really do it for me

I'm going to drop the universe business for now.
This concept needs to go back in the oven.

This may not be the right project for it.

[FuzzFace]

(I've written several individual theatrical/musical pieces [lyrics], and have occasionally toyed with the notion of a "proper" opera. A work such as this one though could inspire me to actually do something.   )

Go for it!  This is something that I have always wanted to do, but never before had an angle or a forum to bring it to fruition.  Once this got started the momentum carried it.

I have always been better at dreaming it up than executing it, so this medium is like magic for me.

[Geir]

Yeah Donna ! Go for it !!!

This is such a great project, and I'm sure you'll get plenty of voluteers for your dream as well !

[Geir]

WOW .. You've really made a great story here Trevor. Most impressive, and .. WOW ... this is really cool to be a part of !!!!!

cheers

[Kenneth]

Thanks for this Trevor, it was fun!