The final scene of Such Good Friends underwent a whole heap of changes this weekend. Before Friday’s auditions, it was necessary for me to commit to removing the two wives and two sons. The list of parts agents submit their clients for, and actors look in BackStage for, had to match the script as it will be produced. (As a Next Link selection in NYMF at the Julia Miles Theatre, opening September 28.) So, I was under pressure from everybody to remove those four characters, leaving us with a cast of ten.
So, I could no longer do the ending stolen from Camelot; there would be no boy(s) to sing to. That ending’s songs were a jingle (for an electric range), Be Funny, Tell a Danny Story, Things That Danny Did and a finale re-capping history everybody knew.
At the start of the weekend, there was still the ending stolen from Porgy and Bess, with the protagonist doing something admirable and foolish but obviously leading to disaster. That ending’s songs were a jingle (for a toaster: Make the Most of Your Toast), Be Funny, a new song called Too Happy To Be Singing the Blues and a finale consisting of Tell a Danny Story sandwiches between two reprised snippets. I intended to add a choral number to the sequence, but merely wrote New Song Goes Here.
Saturday, I wrote the new chorale, and built a new ending around it. I dubbed this version the dumb show.. The songs were Be Funny, the previously-cut Dottie Francis Theme Song, Too Happy To Be Singing the Blues (interrupted, a la Live Laugh Love) and the new chorale, which led into a brief reprise of something from Act One. Sunday, I woke up very early, unable to sleep, anticipating how this new ending would go over with my director. To bide the time before the meeting, I rewrote the overture.
On the bus ride to our meeting, I came up with an idea to use the back-to-the-start structure of Mademoiselle Colombe. So, I had a backup ready if my director didn’t like the dumb show. I did my best to sing the chorale as if I had eight different voices, and my director was very pleased. End of story, right? Well, we still had other ideas to pitch. I reminded him about Mademoiselle Colombe and he reminded me of something that can only be described as a deus ex machina. I realized that I had trouble sleeping because this beautiful chorale was too obvious to be good. It was telling the audience something that had already been demonstrated through action, a cardinal sin too many musicals commit.
I said “The ending must show the protagonist has learned something. It’s not about telling some message. The audience can draw conclusions about a message later. Right now it’s about the character’s redemption.” In order to make that work, I need to use a little of that deus ex machina, and cut any song that appears to be the story’s moral. So, Sunday night I wrote the most positive ending yet: Dottie Francis Theme Song, Too Happy To Be Singing the Blues in full 32-bar form (the verse got cut), and a reprise. The two main characters end the show by walking off the stage together, having developed a new appreciation of each other, a la Gypsy.
I slept well. Of course, the next time something disturbs my sleep I’ll change it again.
