“Sin” Scene 16

“Faith”  Luis hears Faith’s prayer and is touched by it.  He makes an “executive decision” to step in, alter the course of the universe and give Faith a “pardon”—neither she nor Devlin are under contract to Santana anymore.  Luis sings that devotion and goodness “for goodness’ sake” deserves a reward, as that doesn’t happen often enough in the world and he believes this act of charity sets a good example.  He ends by urging Faith to “come down off her hill” of solitude and rejoin the world, content knowing her prayers have been answered. 

Here's a moment no one who saw a show called “Sin” likely expected, a “God” character stepping in (at least theoretically), answering prayers, setting the world right, just as many pray this type of deity will do every day.  This moment taking place suggests a world in which there really is a ruling deity that grants wishes, a childish belief that I dispensed with around the time I left college (and that alone probably explains why so many people believe college is “evil,” I don’t blame them really; if knowledge and “enlightenment” is considered evil as it is in the Eve/apple story, they’re probably right). 

Again I fall back on the fact that I wasn’t after a serious exploration of whether these archetypes of “God” and “Satan” are valid, I was mainly thinking that simply bringing up the topic alone is volatile enough it always gets attention, it can’t help but generate discussion depending on your personal beliefs.  Ultimately, however, I was using these characters as fictional representations, like the Greek Gods.  If I have a “God” character come in and save the day for someone devout as one might find in a religion-positive piece, it’s because that’s no more or less valid than having a “Satan” character in the same show acting deceptively and trying to acquire souls.  As Helen Mirren once said in an interview when asked about the “scandalous” things she’s done on film, “It’s all theatre, darling.” 

That being said, I also had no intention of offending anyone by going completely counter to anyone’s belief system, again, this is a story, these are characters—that they’re based on pre-existing notions of what these “characters” are that have been developed over the centuries, and that a lot of people hold sacred views of what these characters are--and are not--was peripheral to my intention of presenting an evening’s entertainment starring real people.  That being said, I was religious once and it’s impossible to not inject a little of one’s own philosophy into one’s work.  There were times in my youth when I believed a concept of “God” was “there for me,” and there were times I felt abandoned—I felt it sincerely enough in my younger days to feel comfortable  writing about it later in life without actually subscribing to those beliefs myself at the time. 

Well, anyway—this is another key moment in the show where everything turns, and the focus shifts back to the more universal story of two people representing the powers of “good” and “evil” negotiating a messy break up between themselves.  It’s also the key moment for the character of “Luis” who spends most of the show sitting in the wings observing and not being active at all; to be fair, that’s the very nature of his character by design—the nature of his power and the way the universe is set up is that he basically does nothing but observe. 

I did debate what Luis’ explanation for jumping into the action and taking a stand would be—I finally decided that there’s no real way any mortal can imagine what a deity would think or even if a deity would think at all, so I purposefully made “Luis” a very human CEO-type and had the character approach from a “mortal” standpoint:  He is passive until he sees something that gets his attention, and suddenly decides it’s time to become active when he gets invested in it…he’s had the power all along, he just wields it selectively, like a human being would.  This is, as the show reveals, the key point to Santana’s argument and plan, but that comes in the next song. 

From a song standpoint, where earlier I attempted to write the most depressing song that ever existed, here I wanted to create one of the most beautiful.  I wanted to have people—devout or not—crying and rooting for the idea that believing in something is worth the effort, and I put a lot of myself in the song in one way or another. 

Musically I took a cue from the score to “Body Double,” the 80s DePalma film, believe it or not.  While working in animation I spent all day listening to music and always needed more to listen to, and so would go through phases.  For a long time I was listening to scores to movies I was familiar with, and was besotted with the sweeping, romantic themes of Italian composer Pino Donaggio.  He did a lot of the scores for trashy DePalma films I loved, but also wrote the over-the-top “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” recorded by both Elvis Presley and Dusty Springfield.  This song is a bit of a tribute to Donaggio I suppose, with a touch of the theme from “Midnight Cowboy” tossed in—that was the first song I learned to play from sheet music as a child and I still like the song (and still marvel I was allowed to play a song from a “scandalous” movie like that as a little kid). 

Lyrically “Faith” it’s pretty simple, with a play on the idea that the character is named “Faith,” so “Faith deserves a pardon” works as both a direct line describing the character and a more generalized directive of the concept of belief systems too.  It may, perhaps, be a bit soporific to put a pun like that into what is meant to be a sincere song but, if you’ve been reading any of my entries about this show, you may have noticed that is in keeping with the tone I was after—there’s a tongue-in-cheek, cerebral-over-emotion thread running through the whole thing for anyone who catches it…if you don’t catch it that’s OK, but those who caught on figured out early I was being a little cynical and objective throughout.  That’s also cleared up in the next song, the final “battle” between Luis and Santana. 

Charles Herrera first sang “Faith” and it was hard to keep from grabbing for Kleenexes when I first heard him do it, it was so beautiful.  Unfortunately those recordings seem to be lost…I’m hoping to find them someday, it was really powerful. 

Sean Hobday-Smith sang the demo recording in 2010 and it really is perfection…the mix of strength and vulnerability he brings to the moment is, quite literally in this case, “divine.”  Again, I played the demo for people early on before all the songs were completed and had people crying—that was Sean’s performance as much as the song itself. 

For the 2011 sing-through I was lucky enough to get Sean to do it and the performance speaks for itself.  It’s only a disservice that we don’t have better video of the moment.   Sean owned the room that night, no one made a sound as his voice filled the whole bar and everyone was kind of stunned when the song was complete…it showed me how powerful theatre can be, and I was lucky to have Sean—a true veteran of the theatre and master of his craft—demonstrate it.  The recording doesn’t do it justice, but here it is:  https://youtu.be/bE5cDqFjzpQ

In 2015 it worked just the same…how lucky we were to have Rich Brunner join us and grace us with his talent.  We were a close-knit family of individuals on this show, unlikely to have crossed paths otherwise, and Rich was, at times, like a paternal figure, calming us down when we’d get crazy and cheering us up when we’d get down.  His stature and resonant voice was so commanding that he’d often get whoops and cheers from the audience for some of his more declarative lines—while it’s in part due to the fact we were doing the show in a bar and many in the audience were intoxicated (by design, that was my intent, I wanted to make That Kind Of Show), the reactions were sincere and heartfelt—raw passion. 

Again, it was a powerful moment and—if I’m being completely honest--even humbling at times.  If “Luis” is the god-figure in the show, of course, the show did have an author after all who created that character and what he says, does and sings.  What a rewarding moment to have been able to have touched a lot of people during the run of this show, with such top-notch talent to help me bring it to life, and moments like this reminded me why I was doing it all in the first place, it was magical.  Here’s Rich:  https://youtu.be/Yg-GfsgqNSw

Next up, the final act of “Sin,” Santana is about to present her “closing argument…”