"Sin" Scene 06
- Scott Claus
- May 10
- 8 min read
“I Don’t Need Love.” Devlin and Faith have just spent the night together, she’s decided she’s in love with him, he’s caught in a tug-of-war between his growing feelings for her and the agreement he’s made to help Santana bring Faith to “the dark side.” Santana pretends to be frustrated but knows her plan is actually going exactly as planned.
Like “Your Place or Mine,” this scene is expository, focused on the “will they or won’t they” aspect of Devlin and Faith coming together, revealing Devlin’s growing attachment to Faith. His mission is to trick her into signing a contract with the devil, but he’s getting distracted by his growing feelings for her.
Meanwhile, Devlin and Faith falling in love is actually part of Santana’s overall plan…but she knows if Devlin gets what he wants too easily—as he always has done in the past—he won’t appreciate it…she wants him to truly experience love as part of her overall mission, but she knows she has to trick Devlin into it.
“Sin” is ultimately Santana’s (“Satan”) story…she opens the show, the thrust of the story is her insidious plan, and she has the last word, but the p.o.v. show shifts a few times, with each scene passing the torch to the next character.
Santana introduces Devlin and how he has to do a nefarious deed or lose his soul.
Then we meet Faith and focus on how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the things she wants in life.
Then we’re introduced to “God” who suggests he’s completely aware of what’s going on, has seen it all before and is bored…but still intrigued.
The brunt of the show is concerned with whether Devlin and Faith will make it out of the mess they’re in before they walk off hand in and hand leaving Luis and Santana to settle things in their relationship and wrap up the story.
Again, it all was done without dialog, only songs, and since the story was a bit complicated I tried to make the music as simple and catchy as possible; if all you got from the show was an evening of music by some phenomenally talented singers it was still a success, in my mind anyway.
My husband said point-blank this was the only moment in the show he didn’t like. I think he thought the song/scene was superfluous, but it may have been that he simply didn’t like the song, period. I’ve come to agree for the most part that the song, or scene, or something, needed some more thought.
On the one hand, Devlin makes his case quickly (“I hate being in love, and here’s why”) and then just keeps saying it over and over.
I assumed with all the repetition the audience would get the sense that he’s actually trying to talk himself out of falling in love but I don’t suppose I gave the audience enough credit, I think they got it right away and it just gets redundant. Not much else happens in the scene so it’s kind of flat and I’d see people shifting around in the audience waiting for the next bit of story info, while I’m feeding them a cheery little 3-minute pop song.
It’s “musical theatre 101” and even I knew that, at the time: songs in a musical theatre piece are there to pull the story along and, for the most part, shouldn’t stop the show with a character singing a full “verse-chorus-verse-chorus/chorus-bridge-chorusX” song on stage. I got away with it for the first couple of songs because they were introductions into the “world” of the show, but by this point in the story, if you care about the story at all, you need some tension so you want to know what happens next (some critics suggested that was the biggest flaw in the piece, there’s no “action” really and it becomes stagnant as an in-concert piece, and they may have a point, I’m too close to it to be able to see with complete objectivity).
Part of my resistance was I thought the show needed this moment where Devlin had a personal challenge in front of him…I feared that if I didn’t make it clear that he’s fighting his instincts to be the usual creep he’s always been the audience wouldn’t care about him at all, or know what his motivations were.
There again, perhaps I should have trusted the audience, or more likely trusted the actor who played the character. In the 2015 Fringe version, Chris gave the character of Devlin so much personality he nearly walked off with the show—in a good way…it raised the bar for everyone in the cast to keep up each other without upstaging each other. If the moment works, it’s because of what Chris brought as an actor, I’m convinced.
Another part of my resistance was I was, perhaps, a little too in love with the song…it was another moment for me to showcase songs I was working on at the time, and a chance to do something “non-Broadway,” with it’s traditional top-40-pop structure and slight hip hop beat.
It wasn’t that I had a mission to destroy or in any way negate Broadway-style music, my mission was to scooch in and offer up an alternative to anyone interested, and the most powerful reactions I got to the show were, in fact, from people who said they’d never enjoyed a musical before until they saw “Sin.”
I had some repeat offenders who kept coming back simply because the medium had been opened up to them and they were in love with it suddenly.
In my own, small way, I guess I actually thought I was promoting a good cause…in the same way non-conventional musicals got me interested in the medium when I was a kid, I was trying to reach people, like myself, who were interested in the idea of telling a story with songs but hadn’t personally connected with much of what is considered popular, traditional musical fare. From the reaction I got, it worked, and I was thrilled to reach people and entertain them, regardless.
Still, the song is repetitive, slight and pretty silly I suppose, and things could move along more quickly without it, or with a condensed version of it. If, for some reason, I ever put this show up again I’d certainly take another look at it.
My favorite version is the original demo, because I could mix it so you could hear all the lyrics but also blast the instruments. Chris Maikish shines here once again, his voice sat perfectly in the range of the melody and he brought a real sense of heart to it. His voice blended well with Kēhau Gabriel as Faith too, singing part of the harmony. Sean Hobday-Smith did backup harmony vocals in a sneak-preview of his introduction in the next scene (he’s been sitting on the sidelines all this time, watching, and suddenly decides to join in background vocals, a cynical move on his part).
I haven’t talked much about Tricia Ridgway…she sang the part of Santana on the demo. I was desperate to find someone to sing the demo—the last, and toughest role by far to cast, and it required the most work.
The part requires the ability to sing in several different musical styles (rock, blues and even theatre-music) on 15 or so songs, and includes 2-3 tongue-twister challenges that I was cursed out for more than once when performers attempted them. After quite a few unfortunate stops-and-starts with potential performers Charles Herrera came through for me with a friend…again (more about that next time).
Somehow Tricia agreed to take on this juggernaut for very little money…she practiced all the songs for a week or two, then I brought my “recording studio” (portable ProTools) out to Palm Springs where she and Charles lived, and set up in Charles’ apartment to record her.
It’s another one of those, “the gods of musicals were looking out for me” moments…we did the whole show in one afternoon, with a maximum of 3 takes on any given song. Tricia was completely prepared, a consummate professional and brought a lilting, sweet quality to “Santana” I thought worked well at the time and still like as an alternate take on the character (even though Saudia Yasmein will forever “own” this character in my mind).
My original conception for “Santana” was something like Terri Nunn in the first couple of “Berlin” albums in the 80s…sweet and smooth, but with an edge. This was carried through to the sing-through with Terri Olsen in the part, who also brought strength and maturity.
Anyway, Tricia’s voice fit neatly with Chris and Kehau’s voice for the 3-part harmonies I was so excited to work with, and Sean’s deeper voice rounded a fourth part out nicely, I really was thrilled to get this all recorded and the resulting demo was exactly as I’d planned it:
When I brought Kay on in 2011 to direct the “sing through” we decided it would be a “staged reading,” meaning there would be some minimal choreography. I forgot all about this until I saw it again recently…Kay had (rightfully) figured out the moment was too stagnant and rather than have everyone just stand and sing she came up with some basic “1960s”-style moves for the cast that came off as kind of cute, kind of silly and charming. I don’t know that it helped the storytelling much but the audience loved it.
For the 2015 Fringe Festival version I was finally able to open the scene up a little and put in some storytelling staging and I think the performers all did a great job of “animating” the story points.
Unfortunately, at the last minute, for technical reasons, we were forced to drop most of the staging and place the actors in front of standing mics. Still, everyone was professional about it and I think the moment still tells you a lot about the characters and progresses the story in an entertaining way—and it was another occasion for the performers to pull out some laughs, which the audience loved.
I’ve also included Sarah’s angelic “prayer” moment, with the melody repeating her theme from earlier…Faith is growing (rightfully) concerned that she’s being pulled into something that’s going to challenge her and, as is her way, turns to her “faith” for guidance—“Tell me, what should I do?” spoken to her God, who shows up in the next scene finally. It was a beautiful moment of calm in the raucous first-half of the show that hinted at the more serious stuff that was coming later, and Sarah literally owned the stage every time she soloed in the show—you could hear a pin drop, and feel your heart swell.
Two amusing points of trivia: “I Don’t Need Love” was originally a song I created for Charles Herrera when we were doing an album together in 2003. I didn’t really like how it turned out so I re-wrote the melody line and lyrics and turned it into a more theatrical piece with a narrator trying to talk himself out of falling in love, because love is such a pain (which is exactly where I was at the time).
The trivia is 1) the original version of the song, which uses the same instrumentals featured in the “Sin” demo/show, was a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecelia,” so if you know the song well you can actually sing “Cecelia” over the top of “I Don’t Need Love”—it’s based 1-for-1 on the structure of the original (I know this because Sean and I did it while recording his part of the vocals).
Trivia 2) is that I’ve been listening to a “1970s radio” channel on Spotify while typing this, and the original Simon and Garfunkel “Cecila” just came on as I was finishing this up.
I suppose Hamlet was right after all-- "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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