Program Notes: Hippies at the Phil, a Primer

The two brown creatures sneak past the guards. The bear is more scared than the monkey. How will they pay the bills? Maybe Ursala can dance to pay the bills, thinks the monkey. With those long hind legs, she can bring in some dinero. They escape, set up a home and fall into a routine. One day someone tells the monkey that the bear has been “sneaking away to seaside caverns to bathe.” The monkey confronts the bear: ‘You smell of garbage and grime.’?” Can you control animal nature? A bear is a bear, after all. Time passes, and we see Ursala the bear’s weathered and saggy coat, dulled and clumpy. Its condition reveals her long history, her baseness. Drenched in water, the bear dies. And the coat floats away. Maybe.

Part Three: “Sawdust and Diamonds”

The narrator is at the top of the stairs. She observes that if you drop a bell down the stairs it will ring forever, but if you drop it in the sea, it won’t. The narrator and her companions create music, and when they perform, the audience enjoys it. Why? And ?even though that bird hanging over there is made with glue, a ?glove and some pliers, it still looks like it’s flying.

The narrator was sleeping when she had a fright but can’t remember why. Something about wings cut from old cardboard and magazines, and strings tugging on them. She’s in a tree and watches an unnamed other with an ax chop and stack wood. It’s nice to chop, thinks the narrator, before falling through the rafters, which might be limbs. There is a fire on the prairie. The narrator recalls watching someone cutting open a dove and stuffing it with sawdust and diamonds. We’re all afraid to die, but don’t be sad, says the narrator.

More water. The narrator and the other person have been at sea for a week. A bell tolls for the narrator. Life is fleeting. The narrator says she’s not naive. She was born tough, mature. She is fed up with terror. Something about desire. Desire. Oh desire. Desire desire oh oh desire.

Part Four: “Only Skin”

Um, let’s see. Wow, this is a really long song with a lot of words. Some black airplanes fly really fast over the sea. They look like beached whales. The sky is sopping wet. She mentions some things that we at the Phil can’t really decipher. Some dark dream featuring a toothless hound dog choking on a feather. Okay, now they’re fishing in a boat. That much we know. If you scrape your knee it sounds like violins. The narrator is humming, even though the ghosts of all the spiders she’s ever murdered haunt her.

Finally — finally! — a gun enters the picture, and it’s pointed at the narrator – maybe. “Lay it down! Nice and slow!” she says. Then nothing happens, the gun vanishes, and we’re left with more dogs, dead birds, babies and bats. The gun’s gone. (Never introduced a gun into a scene unless you’re going to use it!)

Part Five: “Cosmia”

This one’s about some lady. You figure it out.