Takeover: Libretto for an Operetta

WRITER

TAKEOVER - CAST OF CHARACTERS

Leading roles

ANNA ROBINS - a beautiful young journalist who is involved through temperament with John Matters, but is ambitious to improve her social and financial position.

JOHN MATTERS – a composer, slightly older than Anna, in love with her, but realistic about his chances of attaining a permanent relationship with her.

BERNARD SLADE – wealthy young heir to the Slade media empire. Suffers from the arrogance and self-assurance that inherited wealth confers, and hypersensitive about threats to his wealth and social position. He represents old money and assumes that wealth and status will win Anna for him.

IVAN RAPAPOV – A successful corporate raider who, against his better judgment, falls in love with Anna, and presumes that she is subject to takeover in the same way and by the same means that companies are.

CLARA EMERSON – A bright young thing who takes her material fortune for granted. Her primary allegiance is to possessions. People come second. She is fiancée to …

ROGER PARNELL – A young and ambitious investor who is riding high on a bull market, and who is carelessly unmindful of the dangers inherent in being over-leveraged.

MR & MRS EMERSON – parents of Clara. Old money, conservatively invested.

Supporting roles

PRESS SECRETARY – to Ivan Rapapov. He manages media access to his boss.

HELEN – A former girl-friend of Matters.

1st JOURNALIST

2nd JOURNALIST

3rd JOURNALIST

FOOTMAN

MALE HOTEL GUEST

FEMALE HOTEL GUEST

WAITER

MAITRE D’HOTEL

DOCTOR

CHORUS/CROWD –

Guests at various events, Media scrum, Waiters, Investors, TV camera crew, Liveried Footmen, Messenger, Nurses

PRODUCTION NOTE

The intention is to present the drama through a staging technique of high mobility. Rapid quasi-cinematic changes of setting characterize the story progression. The challenge to the production team is to devise ways of indicating scene changes with the minimum of props and décor. The impression for the audience should, however, be one of realism, rather than symbolism or surrealism (except in the final scenes) and therefore, possibly, some use of back projection of digital backdrops is called for. A prescribed feature within the backdrop is a window within which the image changes from scene to scene.

PRELUDE TO ACT ONE

The music denotes extreme nervous excitement, compounded by emotional aggravation. Inextricably locked together in counterpoint are two themes. Each theme tries to detach itself from the other, but cannot. Consequently the themes are heard combined through a variety of contrapuntal devices, sometimes concurrently, sometimes canonically, sometimes inverted (though not always inverted together), sometimes augmented (though not always augmented together), sometimes in diminution (though not always in diminution together). In addition, the themes are heard polytonally.

In short, this is music of dislocation which results from a constant and futile attempt to achieve separation. The mood of the Prelude will continue into Act One.

Psychologically this music expresses a situation of frustration resulting from the attempt to deny that togetherness is a natural state, that state being the result of achieved telepathy. Consciously, two minds try to disentangle the responses of their respective nervous systems, because togetherness produces a threatening dissolution of identity. Each mind tries to assert its own identity at the expense of togetherness; but it is the wrong solution because togetherness has already and irrevocably been achieved. At an unconscious level. Therefore unconscious attraction constantly battles with conscious denial of the attraction. This aggravated state of mutual attraction/repulsion operates in a non-dimensional, timeless zone, and finds temporal expression (that is, expression in the space-time continuum) in the scene that follows. Although the scene that follows appears to move through time as a developing event, it, and all other scenes, are, in fact, the expressions of a series of achieved states: reality in particle form, as distinct from wave form which allows movement through time of these states. It is the music, which provides a quantum reality in wave form linking together the states.

The scene that follows depicts a quarrel between two lovers who are about to become, temporarily, two ex-lovers. Whether separate or together, they remain linked.

ACT ONE, SCENE ONE – MATTERS’ FLAT, BEDROOM

An untidy bedroom. The untidiness suggests that two people have been making love. Clothes are scattered about the floor and furniture. The furniture tends to skeletal forms, in particular a free-standing clothes rack (instead of a wardrobe) on which space is shared by male and female clothing. A dresser with feminine objects on it, and a few male items. A queen size double bed dominates the set.

In the bed is MATTERS, sitting up in the bed and no doubt partly covered by a sheet which is the only bedding still remaining on the bed – the blanket, or doona, and the bed cover being on or near the floor.

ANNA is in process of getting dressed. She is so agitated that, as they argue, she distractedly alternates between packing up her belongings and continuing to get dressed. This will keep her busy during the entire scene and will allow some interesting choreography from the director. Actions to be incorporated include:

taking down suitcases

taking clothes off the rack

folding some and placing them in a case

throwing others unfolded in a case

lifting objects off the dresser

sweeping objects off the top of the dresser

throwing objects and clothes into cases

picking off the floor objects which, though aimed at cases

fail to land in them

placing or throwing such objects in cases

searching in dresser draws for possessions

throwing Matters’ possessions out of drawers while sorting out her own

starting to put on makeup (but not finishing)

starting to brush hair (but not finishing)

continuing to put on makeup (but finding that the makeup has been packed)

unpacking the required makeup

continuing with makeup

continuing with brushing hair

These actions are interrupted by her own distracted state and, later in the scene, by warding off MATTERS’ attentions, and his attempts to dissuade her from leaving.

It is up to the director to determine the amount of nudity to which the audience is exposed in this scene. The nudity is inadvertent. The characters are unconcerned about their state of dress, intent only on their argument. The dramatic effect of the nudity should be to emphasize their vulnerability. During the scene, MATTERS gets out of bed and also makes distracted attempts to get dressed, but succeeds in getting little more than his trousers on, or perhaps only underpants and a robe.

ANNA

It’s no good trying to talk me out of it.

MATTERS

Yes, I can see that. But surely …

ANNA

No buts. I’ve had it with you.

MATTERS

Yes, I realize that. I fully realize that once again you’re leaving me forever. But does it have to be right now? Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?

ANNA

No, it couldn’t.

MATTERS

What about dinner?

ANNA

I’m not hungry.

MATTERS

I mean dinner with the Emersons. They’re expecting us.

ANNA

They’re expecting you.

MATTERS

They’re expecting us! I’ll look stupid without you.

ANNA

Tough.

MATTERS

I need you there. How often do we get invited to dinner with rich people?

I think they might want me to write them some music. For a special occasion …

During the following duologue MATTERS continues trying to get dressed too while simultaneously trying to communicate with ANNA. This he does by trying to hold her by the hand, by the arm; but she keeps shaking free to continue with her jumble of activities. His interventions make her even more distracted, and the clothes and objects fly around in even greater chaos. The fact that MATTERS is dressing for a black tie affair imparts greater incongruity to the spectacle.

MATTERS

Don’t you care if I get a commission or not?

ANNA

I’m not your agent.

MATTERS

Look, what brought all this on? One minute we’re making love. The next minute you’re ..

ANNA

You know very weII … why I can’t stay …

MATTERS

No, I don’t. TelI me.

ANNA

I‘m not getting into an argument. I’m leaving. Don’t touch me!

MATTERS

What did I say?

ANNA

It’s your attitude.

MATTERS

I love you. Is that a bad attitude?

ANNA

I mean to my work. Don’t touch me!

MATTERS

I only said how lucky journalists are. You never have any shortage of ideas. The world is always writing stories for you.

ANNA

You implied that what I do is not creative.

MATTERS

It’s a different kind of creativity.

ANNA

Now you’re trying to be polite.