Napa DeMonk: an evening on Mars thanks to the Bloomington Playwrights Project

*edit* Check the comments for clarification as to who put the show on */edit*
Napa DeMonk was not my ideal Martian Colonial Era Terraforming Opera.
That I walked in to the theater with an ideal Martian Colonial Era Terraforming Opera in my head probably tells you that I was predisposed to like it anyway. You should listen to that voice. It could have been written by Ed Wood and performed by the Saint Abby’s Refuge for the Critically Tone Death’s choir and I would have managed to like it. Happily it was written competently and sung by a number of talented singers. Add to that a really cool slide show to set the mood as the opera goes on.
I don’t know if it was always on purpose, but there were more than a few awesome shadow silhouettes on the globe of mars on the side of the stage.

I assume the show started right on time since I was, of course, running late. I wasn’t the only one to get there after the start, and we waited for a pause in the music to enter. I sort of sat on the risers for the first (and longest) act then wandered up to a center seat toward the back of the hall at the intermission. (For music, assuming there is a decent sound system, I like to sit near the center of the room, back from the speakers a bit. It paid off this time.) I always have a hard time following a story done in song, but happily the program had a lengthy synopsis that helped a lot. The story was more the back story of Green Hills of Earth than John Carter of Mars, more the troubles of an established but not yet independant colony, the day to day people that become the myths of three generations hence (not the Green Hills of Earth the poem, but the stories of the travels of the blind bard who wrote it.) Oh, or Harrison’s old novella Planet Story. It dealt with the personal scale people who the future remembers of heroes even if they were actually bums.
I’m a bit of a planetology and terraforming snob, so there were some bits of the science that bugged me a bit, but I told those bits to sit down and shut up while I was listening to the wonderful music. And I’m not going to let them come out here either.
Every once in a while the lyrics got a little clumsy, but since the only English Language Opera I’ve listened to is Gilbert and Sullivan, everyone’s lyrics are most likely a little clumsy from time to time, and except for G&S I listen to opera mostly to be engulfed by the music, not to nitpick the lyrics, and as a writer, eventually you have to quit letting the perfect get in the way of the good.

It was an excellent show, on a beautiful night, a few minor flaws, but from a community theater group where I am paying 5 dollars for a ticket, I don’t expect or want perfection. I want an enjoyable evening with pretty music, interesting stage craft, and a story that keeps me awake while I sit there with my eyes shut to listen better. I got all that plus a bit of Resnikian myth building. All in all an excellent show.

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