“Sin” Scene 07

Early concept idea of the cast of "Sin"

“One Thing After Another.”  Faith has reached out in prayer for guidance…should she follow her heart, and Devlin?  As if on cue, “Luis” (aka God) steps out from the sidelines where he’s been watching all this time and takes center stage as if giving an address.  He delivers his “introduction” song.  He’s weary…a little bored, but sympathetic.  It’s all been done before, again and again, and it isn’t easy to be in charge of literally everything, all the time, with a plan for the universe that is inconceivable to anyone but himself.  As part of the “heavenly bureaucracy” Luis knows he can’t get overly involved; all he can do is continue to watch and see what these foolish beings he created do next—even though he pretty much already knows what will happen…as always.  And so the cast is complete, everyone is in their places and the show is officially underway.

When I decided to do a show about a divorce between God and Satan, and call it “Sin,” I knew I risked ruffling some feathers, somewhere.  Honestly, I rather counted on it.  The world is an incredibly noisy place and sometimes the only way to get heard is to say something outrageous.  I knew the idea of a show called “Sin” that examined religious themes was likely to raise at least a few eyebrows.  As Wilde said, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

I also planned, from the start, to do a show that might have an edge, but was never vulgar, in bad taste or cheap.  It would be easy to take a side and just batter away at the “opposing” side; that sort of thing happens daily in the world we live in as of this writing…I hoped my show would have some broad-base appeal.  Get passionate, excited, think a little—yes.  I had no interest in making anyone “angry,” at least with this project.

I was raised with some pretty goofy religious notions by well-meaning, but not well-educated, parents from two very different religious factions.  It’s a long, complicated story for another time (well, read a couple of my novels if you really want to know)…suffice to say, I received many mixed messages as a child. 

As I got older my understanding of religion got increasingly complicated as I tried to reconcile what I’d been taught by my local elders—who, for better or worse, lived in a small, comfortable bubble of life experience and whose understanding of the ways of the world were far removed from the actual challenges of the world at large—and find my own way. 

I spent a great deal of time soul-searching, then a great deal of time doing scientific, then literary, and even spiritual study of all kinds. 

I did this research both because I was intrigued and because I felt I had to, being gay in a world that didn’t seem to accept me, at least on paper (and also, the incredibly complicated journey of how I came to understand and accept that I actually was gay after all is also another story for another time).  I had to figure out what I “was,” and where I fit in without any help from anyone I respected or trusted.  I eventually had to be armed with enough knowledge and inner strength to able to look both my parents, with their different belief systems and limited education, in the eye and present my case with confidence.

The upshot was that I learned quite a lot—about the universe, the world, religion and belief systems, and psychology of course.  And while I eventually came to the conclusion I no longer needed any sort of spiritual belief system personally, I continue to respect those who do have strong beliefs and certainly can’t claim to know any more about what “life” and “death” ultimately are than anyone.  I guess we all find out eventually—I can wait. 

But I knew I had to be careful presenting a project with this subject if I didn’t want to turn people off so much they rejected my show without even knowing what it was.  I hoped that by jarring some people with the title, the subject matter and the poster images they’d be jolted into being curious, then come to understand that there my intention wasn’t to upset anyone (well, maybe just a little).

My intent with “Sin” was to look at God and Satan (aka the characters “Luis” and “Santana”) as literary archetypes or gods in the Greek sense…they play chess with the souls of mortals, trying to outwit each other in an eternal game, driven mostly by the boredom of being immortal and omnipresent. 

I also, as mentioned before, literalized the “Great Divorce” concept.  What would it be like if there actually was a universal “God” responsible for everything, at least as conceived by the mind of a human being living in the 21st century?  I pictured a very exhausted Wall Street CEO, of course. 

And for “Satan” I took a cue or two from literature.  In Shaw’s “Man and Superman” heaven is for the cerebral, portrayed as an unrelenting bore to the average person; only in hell do you find art, drama…passion. Also in that work, there’s less a sense of “Good” vs. “Evil,” it’s more about two sides of the same coin, the one goes with the other inevitably and you can hardly separate them.  I thought about all this and came up with my own concept:  Santana is passion incarnate...emotional, irrational, sexual, not above using deception to get what she wants and on and on.  Her inner “fire” is a desire to shake up the status quo, get involved in things, create the instincts of attraction in humans, including the overwhelming feelings of “love.”

That she was a “devil” figure didn’t seem to bother those who played the role, thankfully.  As Cliff Gorman said about playing an overtly effeminate gay man in the ground-breaking play “The Boys in the Band,” “You don’t have to be one to play one.”  (The intersection of theatre and identity is a hot topic at the moment, interestingly enough.)

And so “God” becomes a man who has inexplicably found himself in the position of creator and ruler of everything that has ever existed and is, naturally…tired.  Again, it’s a character archetype and not meant to be my position on how the universe actually works—too often audiences confuse the fictions a writer scribes with the author’s actual beliefs (theatre vs. identity again)…it is the very nature of fiction to speculate about all sorts of things and explore various ideas through fictional characters; the author likely agrees with some idea, disagrees with others. 

Dramatically, I thought it would be fun to break up the story-in-progress by introducing “Luis” into the mix at the point he comes in.  He’s been sitting on the sidelines the whole time watching and even interacting with Santana now and then, but up until he appears he’s hasn’t made his presence known. 

Once Luis steps onto the stage officially he delivers his thoughts as if he’s orating to the public  The show’s Greek chorus members (the two dancers) introduce him with a flourish and then sit at his feet to solidify the idea that these two don’t actually take sides, they’re imp-like beings who are happy to assist and are as omnipresent as either Luis or Santana—maybe more, as they can switch alliances on a whim.

The song eventually breaks into a campy disco bounce.  I was thinking along the lines of my first show “Ecstasy” again, and trashy 70s variety shows.  I could easily see “Mike Brady” singing “One Thing After Another” with an awkward “fake Jan” and Peter, perhaps, as his dancers.  As I found out when I did Ecstasy in ‘09 and again when I re-did the show as “Ruby” in 2016, that sort of camp reference falls on deaf ears with newer generations (and older generations have all but abandoned that stuff, or were never into it enough to get the irony of it in the first place).  The moment was fun and it hardly mattered, but I don’t believe anyone “got” it ultimately.

Musically, the song was inspired by something I heard in a trashy TV movie when I first moved to Los Angeles but never had use for.  When I was trying to find ideas to fill out 75 minutes for a sung-thru musical show it seemed a natural fit to finally flesh it out and bring it to life. 

The song also took a cue from “It’s All I can Do” by the Cars (hey, I never said I was above being “inspired” by a riff or two here and there):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ytKXmsJnoY

The 5/4 measured verses that turned into the 4/4 chorus really annoyed those who sang it, but I would always remind them it could be worse and pointed them to “America” from West Side Story or “Everything’s Alright” from Jesus Christ Superstar…if it was good enough for them, I’d say…

My mom, again, proved she knew me perhaps better than anyone on the planet when she pointed out the baroque introduction to “One Thing After Another” was a not-so-subtle nod to my beloved “Main Street Electrical Parade” theme, the “Baroque Hoedown” by early synth gods Perrey and Kingsley, which I first heard at 10 after visiting Disneyland.   She was right, by the way, even though I didn’t realize it at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax00vnsZPKE

When it came to the casting for the role of “God” the initial choice couldn’t have been easier…I was thinking of both/either my close friend Charles Herrera or a new friend, Sean Hobday-Smith, who had graced me with his presence on my show “Ecstasy” in 2009 thanks to Kay Cole.  I had seen Sean in one of her shows, and when she told me he was an option to play a “heavy” in my show in ’09 I basically said he had the job sight-unseen if he would only do it.  He did do it, and I was absolutely knocked out by his talent, his professionalism, his kindness, wit, and caring demeanor. 

I was lucky enough to record Charles for the demo, but the recordings got corrupted at some point.  It’s heart-breaking that I don’t have a record of his performances on the demo—there’s no evidence of it anywhere and his interpretation was downright soul-stirring. 

Still, since Charles was living in Palm Springs at the time anyway, I didn’t figure he’d be able to play the role—I knew it might be time to approach Sean and see if he’d do the show, and while he was at it, re-do the broken demo too. 

I couldn’t have been more thrilled when Sean agreed, basically to both, came in and recorded all his songs in my loft one afternoon.  We started talking about the look and personality of the character for the upcoming “sing through” even though it wasn’t even scheduled yet. 

Obviously, Sean killed it as “Luis” in the sing-through in 2011; he was pitch-perfect, as always…getting the audience laughing but also giving the role the dignity I wanted for it.  I didn’t want to toss the character out there for hip, LA audiences to use to mock the beliefs of people who are religious.  And so, with Sean, we got to have our cake and eat it--and all because Sean was just so good at the role, leading me to joke, often, that Sean Hobday-Smith actually is “God.”  I’m still not convinced he's not.  I only wish we had better video of the night of the sing-through in 2011 so we could clearly see his full performance, but these clips will have to do… https://youtu.be/1xYWFNCjXtE

When it came time to do the Fringe Fest run in 2015 I approached both Charles and Sean but neither of them could do it despite being fully supportive of my desire to remount the show.  That left me in the unenviable position of “seeking my God” as it were. 

I actually had no idea it would  be so difficult to find an “elder statesperson of the theater”-type, but it ended up being the hardest role to cast ultimately.  I just couldn’t find anyone, at all.

Time was running out and I started to panic…then Chris Smith (Devlin, in 2015) came through, like a miracle…he knew of someone who knew of someone, we called the person in to audition, he blew us all away with his powerful voice and dignified demeanor (and expertise with music) and that was how I was able to cast Rich Brunner. 

Rich was a wonderful member of the ensemble.  Rich brought a wonderful parental quality with his stature and voice…he also brought a full, amazing history with music study and music theatre and taught me a lot of things during rehearsals. 

Rich’s presence in the show always got some hearty laughs, bringing a sincere and stalwart presence, in contrast to the otherwise fairly bawdy proceedings.  Among other things, he came up with the idea that “Luis” carries his podium around with him (which also helped him get up to speed on his role, since he was added to the cast at the very last minute).  He did an amazing job of remaining in character and creating a unique character perspective as he looked on from offstage throughout most of the show, and had great chemistry with Saudia.  He also added to the family vibe of the cast--everyone was kind, supportive, creative and fun (not to mention mega-talented).  Rich and Saudia worked well both in contrast and as complement to one another and it made their on-stage relationship, as well as their powerful characters, believable, engaging and even sweet. 

Here’s Rich Brunner’s version of “One Thing After Another,” including Kirby Harrell and Natalie Willz as the chorus/dancers…interesting trivia, no one in the cast even knew what “The Hustle” was, let alone how to do it…leading me to think maybe this song was more autobiographical, ultimately, than I even know myself…

https://youtu.be/WUfm3FDrHIo