The Trap
Inspired by the operas of Robert Ashley, in particular Perfect Lives (1977-83) and Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) (1985),
The Trap (2018-present) tells the story of one woman, Clara, who creates an "inexplicable pattern across time," and a historian who tries to understand the pattern and its instigator.
Like Perfect Lives, it takes the form of a spoken narrative (narrator and chorus) with slow-developing musical accompaniment. The full text has 8 sections or movements, and takes about 2 hours to perform. The Trap has yet to be performed in its entirety. Options for the musical accompaniment are currently being explored.
Excerpt
Clara knows how to look.
Some people do it with their eyes only, she does it with her mind.
Millions can look for one who can see
(that’s Ruskin!)
And she’s one in a million.
Of course she doesn’t exactly see it that way.
But she knows she notices what others don’t.
Else she wouldn’t be here in the first place
Else the trap would never have occurred to her.
She wouldn’t have noticed its necessity
Which, for everyone else, goes unnoticed.
Walking into a room, she knows everyone’s histories and motivations
Within five minutes.
She doesn’t ask. Rarely speaks until the time is right.
She just looks and sees, and yes, invents.
Just because it didn’t happen
Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
In her mind, Gertie was born in Indiana.
A recent transplant.
If Gertie should come from Iowa instead
Has lived her whole life in Iowa
Or if Gertie’s a real local, one of the true originals, a founding member
And has lived right around the corner since the day she was born, it doesn’t matter.
The physical place of Gertie’s birth.
Is of no consequence at all.
This is because what is of consequence is what Clara has recognized in her:
That is, her indiananess.
Clara sees through the mundane smoke screen of Gertie’s Iowa past
To her innate indiananess.
Even after she’s confronted with the fact of Gertie’s Iowa roots,
Clara continues to think she’s from Indiana.
Some might call this pigheadedness.
They’re not wrong.
Others might call it madness.
The defiant resistance to mold your thoughts to the facts in front of you
Looks an awful lot like madness.
But Clara doesn’t trade in facts.
She trades in truth, and facts and truth… are not the same.
The truth never holds to facts
The truth is a field of possibility
The truth is open and definite simultaneously
And that is why Gertie can be from both Iowa and Indiana.
Most of us cannot see the world as Clara sees it.
We do not separate facts and truth so easily.
So she steps into the room today, now, and there’s Gertie,
Sitting by a window, Indiananess floating around her like perfume.
And Clara embraces the truth of Gertie’s Indiananess
Because she recognizes its falseness.
A variable certainty. Tomorrow Gertie might sit in a cloud
Of East Tennessee.
It’s unlikely, but she cannot be sure that that won’t be the case.
And anything that cannot be known for sure… is a form of truth.
Margie, nearby, clearly 's got a sweetheart in the service.
Five nights ago he shipped out, ‘so long, baby I’ll write you when I get the chance.’
‘put some lipstick on and seal your letters with a kiss.’
She’s so in love she thinks maybe they oughtta get married.
Only she’s afraid he’ll never come back
And she doesn’t want to marry a shadow.