Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera
| Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera | |
|---|---|
 Soliquisto vs Screwy Original Bristol performance | |
| Music | Vivian Stanshall |
| Lyrics | Vivian Stanshall & Ki Longfellow-Stanshall |
| Book | Vivian Stanshall & Ki Longfellow-Stanshall |
| Productions | 1985 Old Profanity Showboat (Bristol, England 1988 Bloomsbury Theatre revival |
Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera is an English musical with book, music, and lyrics by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall written for the Crackpot Theatre Company aboard the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol, England. The show is based on a series of tales about a New York alley cat, a bit of a rogue and more than a bit of a rake, written by Longfellow and tongue-in-cheek intended for children. When told by a New York literary agent that “No mother in America would want her child indentifying with Stinkfoot the alley cat,”[1] the story went into a drawer. It came out with the marriage of Vivian and Ki, at which point the story “grew up” as it became a melding of two very different visions and two very different musical traditions: Vivian’s days as frontman for the Bonzo Dog Band and his childhood in Leigh-on-Sea with Ki’s love of America’s Broadway.
The Plot
The plot of Stinkfoot is about a once great music hall artiste, the mournful Soliquisto, who believes he has come to the end of his career. Once he played the Palladium, now he’s lucky to play small halls at the end of piers. His act has always consisted of trained animals: a parakeet, and two cats, one male, Stinkfoot, and one female, Persian Moll. Each of these were creations of true brilliance, but all he has left now is Moll. He and his company (Soliquisto & His Not So Dumb Friends) have returned for a week’s engagement at the very end-of-the-pier venue where nine years before he had mysteriously lost his famous parakeet and his most precious creation, the even more famous Stinkfoot. His young nephew, Buster, works with him, acting in all capacities: props, costumes, manager, and even as a ludicrous stand-in for the lost Stinkfoot. Buster is ambitious. He knows his uncle was once the best. He is convinced there’s a secret to being a true artist and if only Solisquisto would tell him that secret, Buster too could be a great artist. Soliquisto has told Buster in every way he can what the secret is, most pointedly in the song: Follow Your Nose.” But Buster cannot “hear” him.
Aside from his animal act: now only the Diva Persian Moll (who, without Stinkfoot, is basically the whole show, and knows it), Soliquisto is also a ventriloquist. His dummy, Screwy, never lies. Screwy voices all that Soliquisto cannot or will not say, including terrible truths about himself.
Under the pier is another world of English shale beach and cold sea. Here lives Mrs. Bag Bag, a bag lady whose life has been spent collecting “little things.” Nine years before one of the things she collected was an egg which had hatched into a parakeet she’d named Polly. Isaiah the Flounder, a doleful beach-dweller, is enamored of Polly, but Polly senses she was meant for more…but what? Mrs. Bag Bag knows, but will not say. Just as Screwy always tells the truth, so too does Mrs. Bag Bag, but Mrs. Bag Bag’s truths are oblique, couched in riddles and rhymes. The bane of Mrs. Bag Bag’s existence, Elma the Electrifying Elver lives here too. A creature of absolute certainty and complete self-absorption, she lives in either the sea or the air.
The story begins when Stinkfoot suddenly appears with enormous bravado after going missing for these nine long years. When he does, Solisquisto rejoices. With Stinkfoot, he believes he will rise to his heights once more. Buster is jealous since he believes he will be pushed aside and never recognized for his talent. Persian Moll is a true Diva, sure of her stardom without Stinkfoot but worried that he will reveal that one night she ate Soliquisto’s parakeet and did something dreadful to Stinkfoot himself. But Stinkfoot had in truth run away that night to become a star of the Broadway stage. By returning, he has not come back to perform with Soliquisto. He’s merely visiting his roots.
A parallel story is taking place under the pier. Polly, the daughter of the Solisquito’s murdered songbird, wants to fly, to find her true home. Isaiah explains life is all doom and gloom, best to accept where she is and who she is. But Polly has no idea who she is.
Each character, whether animal or human, above or below the pier, is an aspect of the one character voiced by the aging music hall artiste, Soliquisto. The plot is fairly simple, but the underlying ideas are more complex. Basically, Stinkfoot is a portrait of the artist’s heart and mind. Soliquisto believes what he has made must remain in his control or his art is lost. By the end of Stinkfoot he realizes nothing is ever lost, that he can let his creations go be what they are, that he can always make more. With this lesson learned, Solisquisto, who has made nothing new since Stinkfoot disappeared, sees Elma the Elver dancing on the beach. Here is his new creation, his latest work of art. The act of creation is forever…it never stops.
In 1985, the show was intended to close the Old Profanity Showboat on a high note and to provide all those who had worked so hard for the ship’s success a chance on its stage. Each part was tailored by Longfellow and Stanshall to accommodate the talents (or lack thereof) of the performers. [2]
Background
Vivian’s story can be found in his own wiki article as can Ki Longfellow’s. Together they created Stinkfoot to celebrate the Old Profanity Showboat.
Productions
Stinkfoot was staged twice. Once in 1985 for the ship where it was produced by Longfellow and directed by Stanshall. Stanshall was also the musical director. And a second time in 1988 for the Bloomsbury Theatre in London. The first production was a sell-out for its entire run and garnered wonderful reviews. The second show (partly financed by Stephen Fry) also sold out, but without the participation of either Longfellow or Stanshall, as well as miscast, was a muddle of misdirection.
In 2008, interest in restaging the show, never flagging, became a reality. The show is now in pre-production for a revival in 2009. [3]
Book
The entire script of Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera with an introduction by Ki Longfellow-Stanshall and illustrations by Vivian Stanshall was published by Ben Schot’s Sea Urchin Press (Rotterdam in 2004.
Songs and music
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Main characters
- Soliquisto —
- Stinkfoot —
- Screwy —
- Buster —
- Persian Moll— (originally played by Nikki Lamborn of Never the Bride)
- Polly—
- Mrs. Bag Bag—
- Isaiah the Flounder—
- Elma the Electrifying Elver—
Secondary characters
- God —
- The Giant Squid —
- The Angry Sea —
- The Public —
- The Right & Left Halves of the Screwy’s Brain
- The Partly Cooked Shrimp
- The Coarse Coastguard
- A Chorus of Woeful Sirens
Setting
The play's fictional setting is both on and under a long pier somewhere in the south of England. On the end of the pier is a rather shabby theater still holding on to its glory days with a succession of magicians, novelty acts, and once famous performers down on their luck. The pier and the theater are based on Stanshall’s time as a member of the Bonzo Dog Band as well as his love of music hall. The beach is the typical stony fringe with its cold waves and rainy days. The New York Stinkfoot comes home from (and returns to), is the New York of the Great White Way, a million lights and a hundred theaters.
The time is anytime.
Critical Reception
The Guardian theatre critic David Foote wrote in his review of the musical's opening night in Bristol, "Backed artistically by Pamela Ki Longfellow, Vivian has given us an offbeat Christmas show that is funny, bluesy, and loony…the marvel is that here is an original, unusual musical, smelling of the salt sea, with Coward, Cagney, and Mae West around to keep us happily buoyant. [4]
London Times’s theatre critic Richard Gilbert wrote of the Bristol opening, “…a watery tale set alternatively at the end of a seaside pier and under the ocean, peopled by an angst-ridden music hall artiste, his Faustian apprentice, a tomcat under the influence of James Cagney (Stinkfoot himself), a Mae Westian glamour-puss (Persian Moll) and an oracular ventriloquist’s dummy, Screwy. Under the waves there is more derring-do from a cynical flounder, a giant squid and a partly cooked shrimp. The cast of local singers, fringe actors and musicians seems to have absorbed the complexities of the highly moral plot where regeneration triumphs over evil and all optimists ultimately defeat the pessimists. The story-line is less important than the ambitious and resonant songs and music. The length of the Old Profanity boat is cunningly exploited by the marine set…and deserves to be seen in London on dry land at a larger venue.” [5]
The Bristol Evening Post’s theatre critic David Harrison said, “Stinkfoot is a joy - a wondrous collection of bizarre characters, eccentric ideas, and at least one top ten contender among the songs. There is unlikely to be another Christmas show as innovative and challenging as this.” [6]
Notes and references
- ^ Discovery: an English Radio Two interview aired in 1990.
- ^ Woman's Hour, a long-lived and popular English radio show, 1993.
- ^ Interview with author at Barnes & Noble, San Francisco, California, 2008.
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]