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What started as an exploration of the devil in their show, The Exorcist Minute, has grown into something much greater. Find all the original episodes of the show and more right here in The Devil's Details with Lester Ryan Clark and Kynan Dias.
Coming up on the Devil's Details. It's FAUST, and it's an opera, and now we're talking about it again.
Kynan Dias:Inside your mind.
Lester Ryan Clark:Inside your mind. I thought we were finished with FAUST, but apparently not. Alright. Good morning, Star, and welcome to another episode of the Devil's Details, a show where we dig up, decipher, dissect, and deconstruct the many forms of the devil. One of my names is Lester Ryan Clark.
Kynan Dias:And I sometimes go by Keenan Diaz.
Lester Ryan Clark:He goes by Keenan Diaz. Spirit magic helmets.
Kynan Dias:Well, I was thinking that's how they say Christina. Must die. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:I don't know how we're gonna get through this without talking about phantom. It's it's not even it's not even well, guess it is kinda related, but it's not actually at all.
Kynan Dias:Alright. So what we're talking about is the opera of Charles Gounod's FAUST. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. This is it, folks. This is this is the penultimate section of our FAUST season. After this, we got one more thing. We're gonna be talking about the the silent film, FW Murrow, just just called Faust.
Lester Ryan Clark:But before this, got we have an opera to get through. And hopefully, no masked terrorists
Kynan Dias:No.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, dropping things along the way.
Kynan Dias:Whoever Lester hired as the cohost first that I didn't know about, and then you fired them, and they live in the rafters of your parents' house every time you come back.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like Right.
Kynan Dias:Bring over Keenan. Yes. Bring me Keenan. And he has rules. You have to Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Keenan has to be the cohost. He requires a weekly payment of extra long Twizzlers
Kynan Dias:That's right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And Coca Cola. But, no, we are we are talking about the okay. The reason we keep on going into Phantom, if you don't know the Phantom story, that is the opera that they are doing in Phantom of the Opera.
Kynan Dias:The novel. Right. And the movies except for the Andrew Lloyd Webber movie. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yes.
Kynan Dias:So we're seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber, but but, yeah, they they didn't they didn't do Faust in
Lester Ryan Clark:that one. No. There was no Faust in in Andrew Lloyd Webber. Right. Right.
Kynan Dias:I don't know why. But.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. You would think. But but now, like, so I like, growing up, like, I must have read that that book a bunch of times. Mhmm. And they would always be talking about Faust and, you know, and Christine Daier, right, you know, the the the the main character of the story is, you know, she she gets the part of Marguerite.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And that's all I knew her by was Marguerite. And I never knew about Gretchen or or or Marguerita or or any of that. Right? And I I only knew this story for the longest time through the Phantom, and we would get, like, you know, little little snippets of it.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then also in in my my favorite little crossover, you know, Sherlock Holmes meets the Phantom. Mhmm. He would be he was he's, like, interrogating all the other actors. So he's interrogating the guy who plays Faust and the guy who plays Mephisto and and all of this stuff, and it's great. You know, and talk about, like, their their costumes and their, you know, and and how they do, like, different effects and the trapdoors and and all of that So, like, through osmosis, I learned about the FAUST story, and I wanted to, like, experience it for myself.
Lester Ryan Clark:I want you know? So I went to the library, got a got me a CD, that's a compact disc, folks, of the opera. And kids
Kynan Dias:today wouldn't think they were compact, but they were more compact than one who'd come before.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. They they were relatively compact. Alright. And I had the, you know, the little in in the CD, you had the little the little booklet, right, with with all the lyrics. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:In French and English.
Kynan Dias:Oh, okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:And, Keenan, little high school Lester could not get through that goddamn thing. I was just sitting there because I was I was like, it was going too fast, I was looking from the French to the English. Was like, what are they saying right now?
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. You can't do slow mo on a CD.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. But It's too compact. Yeah. Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? It's already done. It's we're we're done. But it it like, a couple a couple tunes stuck in my head, and actually, one of them is in this episode. It's really, really love it.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's the golden cats like, Yeah. Yeah. It's very nice and very Devil y. But beyond this, ironically, you know, even though, like, I really like Phantom of the Opera, I don't really follow much opera. How about you, Keenan?
Kynan Dias:No. I've only seen one opera in person, and that was my my boyfriend, Mark. He worked at University of Southern California when we lived in LA and they did an opera every season, I think every semester probably. But he said, know, I'm gonna take you to this one. It was called The English Cat and they were all cat characters in little, like, Edwardian suits.
Kynan Dias:Oh. And they were singing. Yeah. And that is, you know, a more it's it's a more recent opera. So it's, like, from the eighties.
Kynan Dias:Oh, okay. Probably right after after Cats came out, after actually, Whoopers Cats. Suspicious.
Lester Ryan Clark:Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is English.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's it's a you know, it it does a lot of things Opera does. There's a, like, evil landlord rich cat who wants to marry the the young, pretty innocent young cat. Right? But she doesn't want to, and she has somebody else, another guy.
Kynan Dias:And through all this misfortune, she ends up in a bag in the river.
Lester Ryan Clark:Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, rewind. I was like, yeah, we've all heard this story,
Kynan Dias:sings her tragic swan song Uh-huh. In in a bag in the river as she's drowning, and the bag has a little flap so we could see inside of it as she sings her, yeah, her death song.
Lester Ryan Clark:Holy shit. Oh, man. I thought I thought it was gonna be like, you know, like like well, like a version of Cats, but but operatic.
Kynan Dias:No. But it's an opera with cats.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Okay. It's an opera with cats. Correct.
Kynan Dias:Yes. No. No. Death and and innocence destroyed. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. No. This isn't the lion king that came out just last year. This is the jungle king who is a lion.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And and then he fights with another lion and his and his hyena sidekick. Right. That's an actual that's an actual thing. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Yeah. The only, like, brush with opera that I've had besides, the Phantom Book Mhmm. Was growing up. It must have it must have come on TV at at some point.
Lester Ryan Clark:Keenan, I want you to to just Google image. Mhmm. Hansel and Gretel Yeah. Colon, an opera fantasy.
Kynan Dias:Okay. As a specific version of
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:Hansel and Gretel. From 1954, maybe?
Lester Ryan Clark:Probably.
Kynan Dias:Okay. Alright. Oh, okay. This is that's a gross way
Lester Ryan Clark:to do this. Yes. Okay. Good. I was waiting for that.
Lester Ryan Clark:I can't see what you're seeing, but yes, I'm I know you're seeing the the right thing. Yes. So folks at home, you can play this game too. You can you can do Hansel and Gretel Mhmm. An opera fantasy.
Lester Ryan Clark:It is a stop motion. I thought claymation, but I don't think it's clay.
Kynan Dias:No. Clay would not look as gross as this. Yeah. These are little puppets. They look puppets.
Kynan Dias:Little puppets.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's a stop motion thing, and that gave me nightmares for at least a decade.
Kynan Dias:Before you even saw the witch or anything.
Lester Ryan Clark:Before yeah. You yeah. Folks, if you still haven't typed it into Google, you're having nightmares about Hansel. Right. Alright?
Lester Ryan Clark:Okay? And the oh, did you do you see a picture of the father?
Kynan Dias:Oh, Not yet.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because he has a song that and and and that opera, the the songs of that opera
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:At you know, from a from a young tender age, Lester Lester as a young boy Mhmm. That opera is burned into my brain. They're like, it's dug its, you know, little canals into my into my my brain wrinkles. And so I know, like, when I I guess like, la la la la Right? That's the father's song.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? And but, like, just imagine that face belting that at you. Right? With just, like, big bombastic drums and trumpets and brass horns and just, like, it it was a it was a whole new level of monster that was gonna get me at night because the other ones were like, you know, and this one is like, it brings the whole band.
Kynan Dias:You know? I bet I bet when you're watching Engelbert Hummerding's Hansel and Gretel opera, when it's not puppets
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:The fact that it is two grown women playing Hansel and Gretel helps you get through the monstrosity of what you're seeing. I
Lester Ryan Clark:mean Probably. Right?
Kynan Dias:But when it's little puppet faced so incredible. Mhmm. Mhmm. Like, it's if you turn your eyes away from the screen, they will eat the back of your neck.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Don't look away. It's like those Doctor Who angels. It's like and then the worst part is just like when, you know, they stop singing and they all just turn and look at you. But and then, of course, right, like the scariest puppet I think is is the witch.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, she's she just doesn't. She looks like Madam.
Kynan Dias:She looks like Madam. Didn't know if you knew Madam.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. She looks like Madam. That's so good. Evil Madam.
Kynan Dias:You're right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Or eviler Madam. Don't know. But yeah, and it's oh god. It's just like just just very, very like uncanny valley. Like this is when I, this was the first uncanny valley experience that I ever had.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Right. But, again, bringing it back, it was the first opera experience I had ever had. Mhmm. And I'm realizing this about myself.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like, I can I can dig an opera? I I I think I'm a little bit too too crass and and and just just low class to kind of like, you know, sit through, you know, Carmen or something like that. Right? Unless I was kind of like exposed to it at an early age. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because like, those like, I will those Hansel and Griddle songs because they have been just, like, like, buried in my brain, like like, tattooed on the surface of my scalp, like, for so long that I like, it actually does, like, what music is supposed to do. Like, you know how you hear a song that that, you know, that you're familiar with and you just kinda like it just kinda lifts you up. You you feel like you're floating. Right? Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Yeah. Like, all of those songs do that. That's the only opera. And, also, I I think it's for like, I'm I'm I'm well aware that I I think this opera was made specifically for kids.
Lester Ryan Clark:So
Kynan Dias:but that that speaks to, know, the FAUST opera here, because we're so familiar with it, I think works. Think, you know, when when it's other opera, you're supposed to kind of already know the story or have been exposed to the libretto and looked it through because otherwise, in another language already. Right? Is often like even our FAUST is like a Reader's Digest version of FAUST, even though it's long, right? There's not as much incidents that happens, right?
Kynan Dias:It's kind of the broad strokes of them.
Lester Ryan Clark:They take the key moments and then they kind of like stretch them out.
Kynan Dias:Right. In song, in music. Mhmm. Yeah. So I think like, you know, I think opera is for people who have the time to study opera, right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Which isn't the case for for everybody. But this one, think if if our again, I'm not an opera. I'm not telling anyone
Lester Ryan Clark:how
Kynan Dias:to
Lester Ryan Clark:how to You sound so stupid.
Kynan Dias:I'm not telling anybody how to how to watch opera. Mhmm. Because obviously, we're not experts on it. Mhmm. But, yeah, I think that, like, this if if you've been listening to our show, maybe reading the books or or not, right, I think that FAUST could be accessible to you as an opera.
Kynan Dias:Yes. You know the story very well. There's variations on the story here, but it is the big moments you would understand, even if you weren't reading super titles or spoke French.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Super titles.
Kynan Dias:Super in the in the opera, they have the sub what we call the subtitles. Underneath the picture, have above the the proscenium.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, sub and super. Oh, hey. Yeah. So the opera. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Well, there you go. Mhmm. There you go, folks. But, yeah, I think And there's
Kynan Dias:a the essence, when that's when they started doing super titles, people at the Opera were like, what the hell is this? Like, if you don't know your French, you don't deserve to know. You don't deserve to have this translated for you, you know?
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, this has given me, like Mhmm. When the church switched from Latin to English vibes. This is like Vatican II. Is like like, how dare you do an opera in English? What?
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. Completely. And then so they started, yeah, projecting them above the above the stage, right, which which is very useful. And it's it's above so much, like, unlike in a movie where sometimes the the subtitles are in the way of the picture.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Then you can't see the stuff.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. This is way above the proscenium, so I I bet I'm sure if you didn't want to look at them, you would you would be able to watch the opera without seeing it. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:That would be so distracting to me if, like, if I was in an opera and I was singing. I think the other impressive thing is, like, it's it's like the musical Olympics.
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Because you're watching you're watching these people even in, I mean, again, like, know, I'm I'm kind of, like, playing my hand here, showing how how, like, uncultured I am. Yeah. But, like, the Valentine song, I'm just like, oh god. Shut up.
Lester Ryan Clark:Just get out of here. But a part of my brain can just, like, watch him and it'd be like, he is doing things Mhmm. With his body and with his voice, and and he is hitting notes, and he is he is the the the sonal sound equivalent
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Of, like, a one of those gymnasts, you know, who's who's doing all the things with the bars on the horse or whatever. You know? Like, he's he's doing some amazing stuff here, but fuck out of here, Valentin. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But going back to subtitles, supertitles for a second. So yeah. So when people started having them above the stage, I mean, people were like, oh, that sucks. It's terrible.
Kynan Dias:Right? And now now it's become really standard. So now in some places, they have them in the seat back in front of you.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, okay.
Kynan Dias:You you could turn them on or off. Right? But peep now those happen and people are like, oh, that's ruining. Right? You should be on the stage.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And then the newest newest thing is in your your smart glasses, and you could get like Opera glasses.
Lester Ryan Clark:Ew. Okay. I don't like where this is. See, okay. At first, I was like, it's like, oh, man.
Lester Ryan Clark:These these these old dinosaurs not liking progress, but now I'm like, into the butt. No. No. Yeah. Because imagine imagine you're an actor and this is like, you know, like like all like, every moment has come to this and you're up there and you're doing your aria and and you look you make the mistake of looking out into the audience and you see people like you see them either looking above you Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Mhmm. Or not at you, but like at the back of of their seats. Right? Or you just see a a sea of of glasses wearing knobheads just looking at you.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah, we do I do staged readings at school, right, with the students. So, like, partly with my friends who are alums and then with students. And every time I've made the mistake of looking out into the audience, you see parents and professors on their phones, and all of the young people are wrapped paying attention to what's going on on stage. But they yeah. The older people don't want to admit that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Never look never look out into the audience, folks. That's why people people always complain.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like, the lights, they get in my eyes. And I'm like, good. I wanna be the only one here.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, okay. We're not talking about us, we're talking about FAUST. Mhmm. Right? So, yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Okay. We we all know the FAUST story pretty well by now. Mhmm. We have covered both Marlow's version and Goethe's epic version. We have both both parts, which most people don't do.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And when Gounod got his hands on it in 1859, he basically looked at this massive philosophical work, and he said, you know what? Let's focus on that love story from part one. Right. Good choice, I think.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. So remember, you know, Gretchen Margarete from Goethe's version, so she becomes the heart of this opera.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. In some staging of it, it is called Marguerite and not Faust. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh. Yes.
Kynan Dias:And again, like, one of the reasons why the Phantom like like, the Phantom is trying to I was gonna say bully, that's not the word, blackmail. Yeah. He's trying he's he's a terrorist. Yes. And he's he's gonna kill people if they don't let Christine play Marguerita, which is like how how integral the part is to the opera and how, like, how good the part is just in general.
Lester Ryan Clark:That is the like, she she is the talk of Paris afterwards. Right? Right. Is she, like, she she does a great job. She, know, like, she's she deserves it, but, like, it's you know, if she tried if she tried the way of, you know, like, the the normal way without breaking any rules.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. But, you know, the fandom's like, oh, I'm gonna break some kneecaps and, you know, get you in there.
Kynan Dias:Drop some chandeliers. But it's because this part is so good.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes, it's very good. I
Kynan Dias:just read in the original book, the chandelier only kills one person, which is a tragedy enough. In the movie with Lon Chaney and tons of people die. And then in the stage show, like, you die in the audience, drops her Gounod.
Lester Ryan Clark:Bet you didn't know that, folks. You're dead right now. This is hell.
Kynan Dias:But, yeah. But anyways, yeah, she's at the heart of this. She is even more centered than in Goethe's version.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. Where she literally saves Faust at the end. Mhmm. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But but yeah. So the setup is familiar. We've got our aging scholar Faust making his deal with Mephistopheles for youth, but this time it's specifically because Mephisto shows him a vision of Marguerite Mhmm. That that hooks him instead of all the, you know, the wild adventures we saw in Goethe. You know, it's like the the paper money scheme, the classical Walpurgus knight, the the regular Walpurgus knight Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Helen of Troy, all that stuff, you know? Mhmm. Gounod zeros in on just the Marguerite story. So we get the seduction, the abandonment, the tragedy of her killing her child. Remember how in Goethe that that was kind of like a a passing thing.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, happened off off stage. Right? Mhmm. But yeah. So this this in the opera, it's it's central to the plot.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And while Goethe gave us the elaborate ending with, you know, the the the mountain gorges and the and the beautiful young angels. Mhmm. Right? And the eternal feminine and all that stuff.
Lester Ryan Clark:Gounod keeps it simpler, but just as powerful. Margaret Marguerite rejects both Faust and Mephisto choosing salvation over earthly love. And FAUST goes to hell.
Kynan Dias:Very important. GOODE.
Lester Ryan Clark:He goes to hell because that's where he belongs. Yeah. So, yeah, Gounod's version threw me for a loop that ending. I was just I was just editing that and I could hear the the the annoyance in my voice.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. At the end of FAUST part one, he gets dragged off stage, and I'm sure a lot of people who just put on FAUST part one, like, make it like that is That's hell. Hell. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah. Come on. But, yeah, as it's written, then you go back and read it, and then it's like, oh, well, yeah, it's sort of he's taken off stage.
Kynan Dias:Like Yeah. Mephisopheles, like, grabs him by the elbow and is like, here here, boy, and they just go off stage.
Lester Ryan Clark:He gets dragged to a Zaxby's chicken joint.
Kynan Dias:You know I'm not allowed at Zaxby's chicken. That's that's how you're bringing it up.
Lester Ryan Clark:Specifically what I'm saying. But, yeah, quick note before we dive in. You might notice that different productions and different recordings divide the acts up a little bit differently. I was a little bit confused because I was so it turns out both of us, just coincidentally, we ended up watching the one that was done by the Royal Ballet and Opera. It the 2039,
Kynan Dias:I think.
Lester Ryan Clark:Twenty nineteen one. Mhmm. So we both ended up watching that one. Again, you don't have to watch that one. We we both had to kinda, like, pay and register and it's only streaming on on their their website.
Kynan Dias:I paid £10, governor.
Lester Ryan Clark:£10. Yeah. £10 that you'll never get back.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Which is about $12.81 dollars American.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. But but again, like I like we said, the it's all over YouTube. You can you can watch those as well. But I think the issue is because I've also been kind of, like, following along with, like, all the cliff notes and the and the synopses and everything like that.
Lester Ryan Clark:And those damn synopses Mhmm. Break things up in different, like like, act one of them says act one ends once FAUST makes the deal with with Mephistopheles. That's act one. Right. And I'm like, that's not act one.
Lester Ryan Clark:There's more.
Kynan Dias:Right? There's much more. Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And one of them says it ends when like, right after the the the golden calf song is like, Right? But others say, no, no, no, it goes on a little bit more and then and then act two and Mhmm. You know, and all that stuff. So we're gonna do acts one and two Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:As we saw it in our version.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yes. Where there's an actual intermission, etcetera, as a two act opera essentially.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:I'm also seeing a lot of where people have omitted some scenes that that feel at least pretty cool. The scenes are they're cutting out, Valperger's knocked, etcetera.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Moving things around. So that that happens a lot, I guess, when everyone involved is dead and it's public domain and all that. But, yeah, based on, like, what you can do. But but that's too bad. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Because the the the big scene that gets cut, like, in the the Goethe's version, right, often is the special effects and and, you know, that craziness. And here it is because things like the the the level of ballerina you need access to. Mhmm. Right? The the old days, like in the height of opera, as I understand it, in grand opera was a combination of opera and and ballet and things like that.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But today, opera and ballet are are kind of pretty separate.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. So if you don't have it if have an opera company that's not partnered with the ballet company, you often cut out the the big ballet scenes of your operas. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I'm I'm remembering, like, you know, in in one of our favorite movies, Amadeus. Right? Like Uh-huh. The whole thing is, like, you can't have a ballet in the opera.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I'm like Right. This is opera is is like the the epitome of musical performance because it has every like, it it it's it is it is not just, you know, a a musical play. It is not just the orchestra or the actors. It's there's also a ballet. They I like from what I remember in, you know, in the story, right, like under the Opera House, there was a stable for horses.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh. Yeah. Because, know, like like every now and then, like, you know, one guy has to come on on a horse. He's like, the army won or whatever.
Kynan Dias:Right. You know, they used to do horse shows even in movie theaters in the golden age of American movies. Like in the thirties, it the the biggest well, maybe not the biggest, but the most famous movie theater is Radio City Music Hall
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:In New York where 30 Rock is. And they would between movies, they would have horse shows and horses coming out on this on the movie theater stage and, yeah, do tricks and stuff.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. That's that's un I'd like like, I almost wanted to go, like, well, why don't they have that today? But I'm like, oh, I can I can imagine?
Kynan Dias:Well, you know? So there's eight or eight or nine reasons why Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:That made me think okay. Like, just thinking about, like, how opera was done back in the day Uh-huh. Where, you know, they were pulling out all the stops. Right? You had you had a full on orchestra.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. You had you had these these massive expensive sets and costumes, and you had all the actors just giving it everything. And then you had, like, special effects with water and Right. Fire and live animals. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and everything was live. Like, the music was, like, like, being played as it was as it was happening and everything And like now picture all of that without electrical lights. It's all gas. Yeah. And people are dressed up to, like, you know, Amadeus levels where they can barely breathe.
Lester Ryan Clark:And people are, like, I imagine, you know, people must be, like, passing out. People must be, like, dying at these things, you know, because, you know, like, the the chandelier is not electric. It's it's like candles and and and gas jets and everything like that. And you're all just, like, kinda, like, stuffed into this thing watching this opera. And, like, I'm just saying, like, I it feels like we were a tougher breed back then.
Lester Ryan Clark:We were just like, I'm gonna go enjoy myself. You know? And that was, like, that was that was fun. Was gonna go see the opera.
Kynan Dias:For four hours doing that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I'm gonna watch I'm gonna watch Carmen and and and and not be able to breathe for for three hours.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. One last thing about Opera, you like like because again, I'm not very familiar with it, but like in Citizen Kane, for instance, right, that's Charles Foster Kane is trying to turn his wife into an opera star to legitimize her because people in society are mean to her. They look down at her. And she says, I'm a singer, and he's trying to make her into an opera singer.
Kynan Dias:And one of of the plot points is, you know, he owns the newspapers, and so he he has all of these critics who are going to write positive things about it, but his best friend doesn't want to. He feels like it's jeopardizing their credibility to fake a positive story, you know?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah,
Kynan Dias:yeah. So he hasn't written his review yet, and it's like in that they're like, oh, we have the music review in, we have the we have the society review in, we have all these different aspects of opera. Mhmm. Mhmm. So they had like four critics working on this one piece.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Like to to in order to understand opera. And Jed, who's the the theater critic, the drama critic, right? Hasn't written his part yet. So, like, opera is, like, society and music and theater, and it's all these things all at once.
Kynan Dias:And, like, one critic at that time couldn't claim to know everything about how opera works. It's so complicated that they couldn't have an Opera reviewer. It was three or four of them. Wow. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:That is yeah. I mean, that is that's how we that's how we we pass the time, folks. That was our enjoyment.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But okay. So, yeah, let's let's dive into act one of Gounod's Opera. Mhmm. So we are starting in a scene we should all be pretty familiar with by now. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:This is FAUST in his study at dawn. He is surrounded by books and completely done. He's done with life. He's got old. He's old.
Lester Ryan Clark:He doesn't understand the references anymore. What does skippety mean?
Kynan Dias:I shall show you the meaning of skippety.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah, so he's he's got the poison ready just like just like Goethe. Right? When he hears these young people outside singing about how great life is and praising God. Right? That just makes him more bitter like what has God ever done done for him.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Like, he can't he can't even get his youth back. He he's gotta get his groove back. No. He can't find love.
Lester Ryan Clark:Stella. But no. He he he can't even hold on to faith. So he does what we've seen him do before. He calls on Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, Mephistopheles.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Mhmm. And I think in the opera too, it's it's, you know, Mephistopheles is the Devil.
Kynan Dias:Is Satan. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Right. Yeah. So so here comes Mephistopheles. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:And it's always like, I think, a big they make a big show of his entrance in in all the all the versions I've seen. Like, he comes up, he rises up through a trapdoor. Right? And in the one that we saw, we got this guy, I think it's Erwin Schroedt or Schrott? Schrott.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Sounds sounds German. Mhmm. Looking like a more robust Raul Julia.
Kynan Dias:I think so. Yeah, right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he comes up out of the floor kind of in a cowboy getup almost. I
Kynan Dias:was thinking it was like Captain Morgan or something. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, okay. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. He's very alive. Puffy shirt. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:That's quite an entrance. He's living it up. Right? He is he's not necessarily as playfully scampish. He's not running around or the way Toby Jones was in the radio play.
Kynan Dias:He's like someone who's like, I love being in this body. Yes. Like, this is pretty awesome.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. He's having fun in a different way than than Toby Jones is having fun. He's like, I invented fun.
Kynan Dias:Right. Exactly. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And to your point, Keenan, I think he is always I think I think the character of Mephistopheles in the opera is always, oh, damn it. I'm not good with I think he's always a bass.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Uh-huh. So so this is right. This is something that I have to try to keep track of. Right?
Kynan Dias:So he's a bass. Mhmm. Fauci is listed as a tenor.
Lester Ryan Clark:A tenor. Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yes. And then Valentin will be a baritone, and somebody else will be a baritone. But, yeah, that's part of the reason why I think operas we talked about this briefly. Operas often center women in when they're in adaptation in, you know, expanded roles because Mhmm. Opera kind of needs a soprano.
Kynan Dias:Like, they're Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And Marguerite is a soprano. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Marguerite is a soprano, then we have Marta, who we've talked about before. Mhmm. She'll be a mezzo soprano, and then we have another character who's a mezzo. Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But but I think yeah. Like, that's another I like how that is also shorthand for, like, the characters. Right? Like, this is this is a more serious Mephistopheles than than Toby Jones Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because of the deepness of his voice. But also with that, he can our guy, Erwin Schroedt, can, like, oh, man. Like, he he he pulled so many faces and he and he made, like, so many, like, little comic, like, like, side gags and stuff like that. Side, you know, like, winks at the audience and everything like that. I was loving it.
Lester Ryan Clark:And having having, you know, this this big deep, you know, base voice Right. Character be funny was was a real treat, I think.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. So he's not an imp. He's definitely not an imp. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Right. He is a he's a mature mature person with with deliberate movements.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? When he hangs out with the imps.
Kynan Dias:He hangs out.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's Like on the weekends.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. He's the king of the imps. Yeah. Yeah. But like in some versions of the sword fights with Faust and Valentin, right?
Kynan Dias:Mephistopheles is kind of like going back and forth between them. Like, oh, now I'm over here. Now I'm over here. Like, robbery. I'm just trying think.
Kynan Dias:Right? Mhmm. Yeah. But but this one, he's just kind of like, I will be over here. When I need to make my move, I will make it.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But so so FAUST is the tenor, which usually has, like, the, you know, really showy, rangy stuff, right, that a that a lover normally has in opera. And then the the opposing people to him have are baritones and yeah. Which is a deeper I'm a baritone, a deeper, richer voice. Right.
Kynan Dias:But it's usually not not tapped upon for, like, the love scenes in opera Yeah. If I understand correctly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Knowing nothing about about this world, I have been told I am a baritenor.
Kynan Dias:A baritenor?
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh my goodness. So I just I just I just can't fit into anything. I just like, I'm doing everything wrong. Gosh. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But yeah. So so yeah. So our our Mephisto makes his big entrance. Mhmm. And, yeah, like we said, like, you're picturing, know, kind of like a, you know, a leotard wearing Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Demon like Toby Jones, right, like, think again, right, like in this version, he's he's very, like, elegant. Mhmm. The the the the four hour phantom version that I saw, like, had him, you know, with this doublet and, you know, these feathers and and and everything like that. He looks like he looks like a very very rich man with red and black colors. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Alright. And yet, to that point, actually, if I'm remembering this correctly, Bram Stoker actually got the image for Dracula not from, you know, Vlad Tepes, which everybody's like, oh, did you know the real Dracula? Right? You know, that's that's just where he got the name.
Lester Ryan Clark:But he got, like, what his character is supposed to look like and his mannerisms from his friend, Henry Irving Okay. Who was his friend, but also his employer. Right? Stoker worked as the business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theater for many, many years. And Irving's commanding stage presence, particularly in roles like Mephisto Oh, Is is believed to have influenced Stoker's characterization of Count Wumpyr, later named Count Dracula.
Kynan Dias:Okay. Yeah. I see some drawings of Irving as Mephistopheles. No photographs of him. That would be hard on stage at that point, I guess, but
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Oh, okay. I see. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:You can you can see the the kind of like Bela Lugosi ish, you know?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Definitely. Like a more yeah. A very grounded yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Maybe even slow.
Lester Ryan Clark:Bela Lugosi could have been, you know, a a a Mephisto.
Kynan Dias:Oh, bet. Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:I bet he and he you know, I don't know if he I don't know if he ever mentioned being Mephistopheles, but he he did talk about wanting to be considered a serious stage actor because he he resented the way that Karloff was kind of presumed to be both film and theater and having basically, because Karloff was English is how Bogozi thought of it. Oh. That that they were unfairly thinking of him for these stage roles.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh. Isn't that always the way? It's like, you know, it's like, oh, man. I wish I, like, I wish I was recognized more than, you know, for than for more than just this, you know, just this one thing. But then, I mean, Lagosse, you lucked out because, I mean, you are you're the reason Adam Sandler sounds like he does in hotel Transylvania.
Kynan Dias:You know? Yeah. And that's a big side side, Ted. Yes. But, yeah, this great podcast, You Must Remember This, by Corina Longworth.
Kynan Dias:She's a historian. And, yeah, she has a whole season on the relationship and also rivalry between Karloff and Lagosse.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, I wanna I wanna look at that.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. Boris and Bela, think she calls it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, Boris. Oh, that's great. Aw. Mhmm. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah. So so our Mephisto, he offers Faust the usual stuff. Right? Gold, power, glory. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Know this. You know this. It's sings of songs.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah, Faust only wants what he wanted in Goethe's version. He wants youth. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:But for that, Mephisto says he's gonna need a little more than just his soul. He says, actually, I have a podcast, and right now, membership is just $5 a month. You see how I did this?
Kynan Dias:$5 a month.
Lester Ryan Clark:$5 a month, Faust Faust repeats in his old man. $5 a month? Yes. Just $5 a month, says the Devil. But wait, there's more.
Lester Ryan Clark:As a member, you'll get access to bonus episodes of all of my shows, including the Devil's Details and also Exorcist Minute and Every Minute of Everything Everywhere All at Once, where we watch each of those movies a minute at a time. Mhmm. All of those shows have this is the ad, folks. You've been sold. You've been sold by now.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. All of those shows have bonus episodes, and you only gotta join one time to get all of them. Mhmm. For this show, for the Devil's Details, we've been watching new we've been watching a new Devil themed movie each month, like, The Devil's Advocate with Keanu Reeves, Angel Heart with, Robert De Niro, Krampus for our, our holiday special.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. If you wanna hear us talk about those films, hop on over to truestory.fm/join. Look for Banana for Scale. That's us. You also get all your, regular episodes a week early.
Lester Ryan Clark:Imagine hearing our dumb jokes a week early. You don't even need tarot cards. You also get access to our Discord channel, and maybe once you're there, you can teach me how to use Discord. It's really fun. You get all of that for just $5.
Lester Ryan Clark:That is so small. That's like the the price of two eggs. Mhmm. For our speaking Yes. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:For our for our German speaking friends. Right? But if you can't do that right now, if you'd rather get two eggs, you know, before they before they become even more expensive, one thing that you can do that would mean the underworld to us would be to give us a five Pentagram rating on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to our podcasts. That and sharing the show by word-of-mouth or on social media helps our little podcast grow and find more cool people like you. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Says Mephistopheles. I mean, he sings it.
Kynan Dias:He sings it that way.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's amazing.
Kynan Dias:Right. After after the audience, the audience cheers
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:As after he says that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yes. Alright. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Good job. Uh-oh.
Lester Ryan Clark:They cut this one out of of most religions. It's weird. I don't know. Okay. Back to the show.
Lester Ryan Clark:So Mephisto shows him a vision of Marguerite. Mhmm. Right? We know her as Gretchen or Margareta. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:So this is the first I I first heard of her as Marguerite because of, you know, Phantom.
Kynan Dias:You're right. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But yeah. It's it's Gretchen. We see her at her spinning wheel, and Faust signs that contract so so fast the ink barely has time to dry or I guess blood. I don't know.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. But but that same poison that he was about to drink, Mephisto turns it into an elixir of youth. Right? So we don't have to go all the way to the witch's kitchen to drink that, you know, that nasty brew. He's just like, oh, this poison you were gonna use to kill yourself.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, now it's now it's youth potion.
Kynan Dias:Right? Yeah. I I like that because of of course we're supposed to know that, like, well, it's still death. Right? You're still Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Giving yourself up to to the Devil there. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I do like, even even if we could go back and rewrite the Goethe version, I would Right. Oh, German scholars are so mad at us right now. But no. Would be like, yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like like, we don't need the witch's kitchen. Like like, it's it's symbolic even. He's drinking he's still drinking the poison.
Kynan Dias:Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And the contract here is a little bit looser. Right? So in the the version that we watched, there is an actual paper contract and the blood gets signed and all of that stuff. But the the specifics of like the bet are not there. Right?
Kynan Dias:It's not like it's just like I will and and there's not like in Marlowe's version where we have the ticking clock of fifty years from now, we'll do this or that. Right? Right. It's just you for the rest of your life, I will be your slave up here, and you will be my slave down there. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And Faust is like down there, you know, realizing, okay, that actually exists. I'm assuming he has heard of hell before.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And he doesn't argue with Mephisto in the way that Goethe and Marlowe's FAUST does. He's like, oh, what do you mean? I don't believe in hell.
Kynan Dias:I don't believe in hell.
Lester Ryan Clark:Is dumb, FAUST. We're talking to the Devil.
Kynan Dias:Right. There's none of that. It's very simple. So again, like, opera rules of, like, get to the big the big stakes. It's just not as philosophical.
Kynan Dias:It's meant to be emotional. Right? Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And and we have yeah. If you were watching this opera in the eighteen hundreds when Charles Gounod has done this and you're watching the opera, you're probably educated and you've probably read Goethe and you've probably read Marlowe.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So then so then we go to the second okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:So this is this is what I was talking about before. One of the one of the translations says that this is the end of act one.
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Which which feels weird. Like, we only had one scene. We were only in one place.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? The most of the others say that this is we're still in act one. This is act one scene two. Mhmm. And this takes us to the marketplace where we meet some new characters who weren't in Goethe's version or and some who weren't like as prominent.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. So we got Valentin. We remember Valentin. Right? Oh, yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's that's Marguerite's brother Mhmm. Who's heading off to war.
Kynan Dias:So this time we're catching him before he goes off to war.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:Right? And Gertz is we just see him when he comes back just in time to die, basically.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. He comes back to to bother his sister about who she's dating and and just hang outside her house. Right. So all the it's
Kynan Dias:a little bit different where we see him here and see him talking about his sister and what his plans are at the war. That does make it a little different.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Still, I don't think that again, if it were today, we would be like, you're being you're being creepy, dude. Yeah. Leave her alone a little bit.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But this one, we're like, okay. He's going off to war, and he's like, what's what's gonna happen to my sister?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Who's gonna take care of her? Who's gonna, yeah. You know Yeah. But yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:So yeah, he's he's worried about leaving his sister alone. Mhmm. And I I think in this one Mhmm. There is no, like, she accidentally kills her mother. Their mother is already dead.
Kynan Dias:FAUST already killed her?
Lester Ryan Clark:FAUST already killed her in an alternate timeline.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So she's just dead. So they are orphans now. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then we got okay. So this is a new character. Right. This young kid, Sibel? Think it's Sibel.
Kynan Dias:Sibel with the Greek introvert.
Lester Ryan Clark:That sounds so Anglican. Sibel.
Kynan Dias:It sure isn't.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Isn't it the It's got well, this is French. Oh, that's That's that's why Margareta Margareta becomes Margarete.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Never mind. Oh, yeah. I don't think we ever say where we are in the opera, really. Right?
Kynan Dias:We're just in France in general. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Let's well, let's let's talk about that because that is another that is another not issue, but it's another thing that I'm rec I mean, you know, this it's another thing that happens with these plays.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, I'm I'm thinking more of Shakespeare. Every Shakespeare play that I've seen
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Is out of Shakespeare's time. It's set out of Shakespeare's time. It's like you see Macbeth Mhmm. And Macbeth is like an army general or something.
Kynan Dias:Like an American army general.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like an American army general. Right? Or you see Romeo and Juliet, and it's like, you know, 1970s, you know, West Coast, you know, beach life or something like that. Right?
Kynan Dias:I I don't think anyone who's listening to this will have been in this version I saw at you and L. V. That I hated of Romeo and Juliet, where apparently they the you know, one of the problems with with casting out of your students is that you have to hurt feelings. Right? Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And people don't get cast. As you know, people don't recast, and they make all sorts of meaning out of that.
Lester Ryan Clark:They Yeah. Sometimes they don't get cast repeatedly.
Kynan Dias:Right. Exactly. Exactly. So When they when
Lester Ryan Clark:they did a really good job. They did really good they did everything. Showed up
Kynan Dias:every day. They painted sets and everything.
Lester Ryan Clark:Fucking trees and
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So this this version apparently, they were trying to cast as many people as possible in Romeo and Juliet. Okay. So they had two casts of Romeo and Juliet performing
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, I think I remember that.
Kynan Dias:On the stage at the same time in opposite corners of of the stage. So it was like upperclassmen, underclassmen. It was like grad students and upperclassmen and then underclassmen play doing it. And and sometimes they would say the lines at the exact same time and sometimes a Romeo would say one line, and then the other Romeo would say the other line.
Lester Ryan Clark:That in the same room?
Kynan Dias:In the same on the same stage.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Oh. Why?
Kynan Dias:But on top, I think to be nice. Not to me in the audience.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Not to anybody watching. I mean, it's interesting.
Kynan Dias:It was interesting.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'll be like, I'm gonna look how Romeo says this line over here. I'm gonna look how he says it
Kynan Dias:over here. You're completely out of all you could do is compare and contrast and like, oh, this yeah. This Mercutio is not very good. My friend, Nacy, who's an actress, she was playing Tybalt, and I like, oh, she's better than the other two. You know, which you shouldn't be doing.
Kynan Dias:You shouldn't be. No. But but yeah. But that was a kind of like a punk rock aesthetic.
Lester Ryan Clark:Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. So every everybody was like, yeah, in like neon neon like punk, and and like all their shoes were drawn on with with Sharpies and stuff like that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Interesting.
Kynan Dias:And they can't like, with even even with all this craziness happening, they can't just set it in Verona. They can't just like do the play.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I saw a version of Much Ado About Nothing Mhmm. And it was like jug band, like bluegrass type thing. And at the end of it and at the end of it okay. Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:So you know, like like for folks who don't know, you know, the the heroine named Hero, she gets framed for, you know, like adultery, right, by by the wicked brother. You know? This
Kynan Dias:must be a different play. What? This must be a different title.
Lester Ryan Clark:Much Ado About Nothing?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's Beatrice and Benedict.
Lester Ryan Clark:I was
Kynan Dias:gonna No. I was trying to save you from an email. I'm not trying to get back to you. Okay. Good.
Lester Ryan Clark:Sure. Sure.
Kynan Dias:Keep going. Keep
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I'm doing my fucking shit. No.
Kynan Dias:I'm sorry. My fault. My fault.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. No. No. And so so at the end of this production Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:So it's like like in in between all the scenes, they have these breaks where they just kinda do this, like, you know, this mad fiddling in this jug band thing.
Kynan Dias:Well, I love that part. Sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Sure.
Kynan Dias:Just do that music. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And then and then at the very, very end, you know, hero, you know, spoilers, she's, you know, she was never dead. She came she comes back. Right? And and she goes over to brother John who's like, you know, he's he's she's he's being held by the cops.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh. And she hands him his fiddle because he's part of the band. Uh-huh. And he's like, come on. Let's be friends again.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then they all, you know, end with this, you know, hootenanny. And I'm like, I like this, but, like, I have never seen
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Except in except no. Except in high school when I auditioned and when I was in it, those were the only ones that are set in the actual time. You know what I mean?
Kynan Dias:That's daring. Yeah. To set it in its act I mean, the two choices would be to set it Elizabethan times Uh-huh. Or or whatever was actually set in the story. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. I have not seen I have not seen a a a performance done by adults of Julius Caesar where they're all wearing togas. Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Is what I'm saying. It's like they're all, you know, there's like every Julius Caesar you see, they're all wearing suits. Right. Right? And it's not knives, it's guns Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Or whatever.
Kynan Dias:That's largely Orson Welles' of Citizen Kane because he he was he was the first major production that did that when they did Julius Caesar, but it was designed to look like Fascist Italy.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, okay.
Kynan Dias:And then that was a huge step. And then, yeah, now now no one does it. Now no one does any Shakespeare at the original time.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. And so and what we're getting at folks is so this this production that we saw and the ones on YouTube, like, don't I don't think I've seen a a a Faust, like, set in, you know, medieval Germany. Right. I think like, the ones on YouTube, it looks like it again, I'm seeing, like, soldiers and military, you know, like, uniforms and stuff like that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Mhmm. Like modern modern times ones. And this one seems to be set, like, around the the French Revolution. We got a we got a lot of flags being waved and everything.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. It's it's probably, like, yeah, one of those ones after that because everyone everyone already likes the French flag and all that
Lester Ryan Clark:kind stuff. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:On top of that, you also got Mephistopheles in this getup. Mhmm. He looks like a circus ringmaster. Right. It's it's like the big top.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like big top Mephistopheles and like the the magic youth potion and all the stuff that he gives to FAUST comes from, like, a very, like, circus like, you know, costume box. Yes. Like, it's a chest, you know, that, like, he's like, here, let me open this up, and, you know, it's like he's Harold Hill, you know, selling him, you know, some stuff. Right. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah. So so that's that's kind of the the the vibe that we got for this version.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. It's very French. So this is in, you know, this is in this is an English production of it. So they're leaning into the French part of it. There'll be cabaret girls and Yes.
Kynan Dias:Can can ish ballet dancing a little bit later. Right? So it's like, they're very much like, this is France. This is France. This is France.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. In the in the libretto, though, like, yeah, I don't I don't think I don't remember it saying Which is like
Lester Ryan Clark:the the the script for the
Kynan Dias:The script for without the music. Right? Because I can't read the music anyways. But, yeah, I I I don't remember saying where it's set, and I just, you know, control f'd it and put in Paris or France or Germany, and and none of that came up. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. So I think it's just in the in the actual libretto, it's just sort of where we want it to be.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we know you know, you guys have followed us, you know, this far. We know, you know, FAUST is is a German story. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But but Gounod's FAUST is they're like you I have I have never seen it separated from, you know, the the French landscape.
Kynan Dias:Right. That's interesting. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Because it's always it's never Gretchen, it's never Margarete. It's always, Marguerite. Right? Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. So even even when it is, you know, the story of FAUST, it's it's it's done through this this French lens.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's why I think so the the last thing in the season we're gonna do is the the silent film, we have W Murnau, and that has a subtitle, which is a German folktale. So FAUST, a German folktale. Like, they're trying to reclaim it even.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:All of that to talk about this new character. This this young this young boy Mhmm. Right. Played by an adult woman, but and I think it's it's spelled s I e b e l, Sibel, maybe?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. You're right. They're French.
Lester Ryan Clark:You're right. Yeah. Right. Right. And he promises I'm gonna say he because that's the character.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. This is a pants role or a breeches role
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:Where they would cast a a woman, again, like playing like in Hansel and Gretel, you're playing a boy or something Mhmm. And then but you want the vocal range of a of a female opera singer.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Like like the the Peter Pan plays always always did that. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, in the Phantom story, like, is always the role that that Christine would get.
Kynan Dias:That makes sense. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:She's the Ong Rue. Right? Right. And Carlotta would get the Marguerite. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Right. Yeah. But yeah. So so Sibel promises to look after Marguerite, and then Mephisto shows up, and he starts stirring things up.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. He sings this amazing aria. I'm gonna like, if I can find, like, a a royalty free version, I'm just gonna do the the first little bit of the instrument. Right? It's like really, really a bop, I guess.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah, it's it's it's the one that stood out the most for me. And, you know, he's singing this thing about a golden calf that everyone worships. He reads a couple of palms. He predicts some deaths, makes a bunch of people uncomfortable. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Generally, causes some chaos. And he even pulls this magic trick with wine flowing from a barrel. That reminds me of a Hourbox cellar.
Kynan Dias:Oh, right. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? When he was doing those those those tricks for the for for the the customers over there. Right?
Kynan Dias:Right. And then eventually has to use his magic to escape them because they get
Lester Ryan Clark:pissed off. Right. Mhmm. Yeah. And so, yeah, he toasts margarita.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And Valentin loses it. And when they try to attack Mephisto, their swords break or in the in the version we saw, like, just kinda, like, drops his sword. Mhmm. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:And they end up having to like, they they they pick up their swords and they they hold them in the shape of a cross. And guys, if you do end up, you know, paying, you know, for this version and and seeing it, the comedy that Erwin Schroth does here, like, he because he's also wearing like, because he's dressed up as this, you know, this you know, with this this elegant finery, you know, it's just all red and devil y, but he has a little cross of his own, a little necklace. And he holds it up and he looks at it he's like, this doesn't hurt me. And then he looks at, you know, the cross made by the swords and starts he doing it with his fingers and he's like, and then he starts, like, making like he's gonna barf. It's Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:It is I think I I really do think opera is, like, the culmination of because you got, like, almost, like, like, clowning in it as well, like pantomime and clout you know? And and he's doing all of that, and he's, like, singing his lungs out. Right?
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Yeah. So here, he makes those predictions. He tells Valentin that you will be killed by somebody that I know.
Kynan Dias:And I don't know, Valentin doesn't believe that, obviously. But he doesn't necessarily know that what again, we are meant to already know this story.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Right. So we know that Faust is going to kill Valentin, and that just sort of goes over his But with Sebil, that's a new character. And so the prediction that Methisopheles makes is that any flower that Sebil touches will wilt. Yes. And I think that we would know that that's supposed be margarita, I suppose.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yes. I think I think people, even even back in in in the the previous centuries, people are elbowing each other. It's like, think it's like, I'm not margarita. It's like, shut up.
Lester Ryan Clark:Shut up.
Kynan Dias:Right. And we have an
Lester Ryan Clark:And then you hear it just from the rafters. Right? Stop talking. Put your cell phone away.
Kynan Dias:I shall insult you again. Yeah. And we have an old character here who is Valentin's sort of sidekick, and he does not have he's never named by name in the dialogue or in the songs, but Mhmm. In the libretto, he is Wagner.
Lester Ryan Clark:Wagner? What are you doing
Kynan Dias:here as an entirely different character? Oh my god.
Lester Ryan Clark:Actually, Kian, I completely missed this. I did not did not catch our Wagner.
Kynan Dias:Oh my god. Oh, completely. Yeah. Because it's totally not our Wagner. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So why not just, know, make that some other character? Right. But you know what character I mean. Like, he he's he's little he's the the guy who's following Valentino around and
Lester Ryan Clark:being like,
Kynan Dias:oh, another thing, boss. Right? Yeah. Tell him he smells like a dog or whatever.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. He's gone he's gone back to the LeFou role.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So he he, as far as I can tell, does not meet Faust in this version,
Lester Ryan Clark:but Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:You know, they call him Wagner.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know? Right. He doesn't he doesn't he doesn't make a homunculus.
Kynan Dias:Not that I could see.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. There's no Robin or Rafe or or
Kynan Dias:Dick or, you know? No. Not at all.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No.
Kynan Dias:So my question is why why don't they name Siebel Wagner, but, you know, whatever.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. This this would be like the Wagner type role.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. If they're like, well, we can't throw away such a great name. We don't have a role for that character here.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Is it just is it just, you know, it's like the French German rival that's like, no, Wagner.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Maybe. But,
Kynan Dias:no, they put him in there. He's Wagner's here.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yep. Yep. He's here.
Kynan Dias:But, yeah, even even people yeah. You you don't we wouldn't notice unless it was unless you listen to our show or Mhmm. Yeah. Read the program or whatever. But that's that's Wagner.
Lester Ryan Clark:There we go. Yep. Oh, yeah. I I don't think we we we talked about FAUST's costume in this. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:The oh, like, folks, again, so it starts out with FAUST being the old man. Right? You know, he's got he actually, like really really good for for like stage makeup like, know, looks nice and old. He's got the beard covering his face and everything like that. And then he becomes young, he becomes you know, the actual actor.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then immediately upon the change, he is put into like a like literally a Devil leotard.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Like he it's it's a black, you know, kind of like, you know, onesie with I think like wings and and then horns on the cowl Yep. With a pitchfork.
Kynan Dias:With a little pitchfork with little red tips on the pitchfork? Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he runs off like like he is like, basic like like, now I'm seeing, you know, the the costumes here, I'm seeing Mephisto as the ringmaster and and and Faust is his clown.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yes. Yeah. I think that's really smart in this version. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Because, yeah, that impish energy that we were talking about that I expect with Mephistopheles is, at least in the one that we saw staged, given to Faust. I imagine there's some of that in all the other productions because Yeah. Yeah, that's just sort of what's written in there. So he's having a hell of a time.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Literally a hell of a time. Right. It so this this act ends Mhmm. With FAUST's first attempt to meet Marguerite.
Lester Ryan Clark:So she shows up at this waltz scene and while FAUST is immediately smitten, she's not interested in in him at all. Mhmm. The local girls are scandalized that she turned down such a gentleman. I think by this time he's changed costumes. He's not looking like, you know, like like he's at a party.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. In our production, they set it at like a a cabaret, and he's he's dressed up to to look there. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And I actually I it it has like in big letters the name of the cabaret and I I translate it as like Hell's Cabaret or something like that.
Kynan Dias:Cabaret Lendfuhn.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right. And yeah. So so she's she's she's not having it. She's not interested.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Marguerite just just goes on her way, leaving Faust even more desperate and Mephisto promising to help. Mhmm. Right? And that's act one, folks.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So then we got act two. Now we're in act two, which is basically the seduction scene from the Goethe version. Right? Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:We're in Marguerite's garden, and first we see Sibel. Remember, you know, this is the kid who promised to to to look after Marguerite. Mhmm. And he's trying to pick flowers for her, but remember how what Mephisto said. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:So sure enough, like every flower he touches dies. Right. Until he gets the bright idea to dip his hands in holy water. Mhmm. Alright.
Lester Ryan Clark:Who is this? This is holy water. You keep it away. It was actually tap water. Oh.
Kynan Dias:Give me that I'm thirsty.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Do know how much like, do you know how dehydrated you get saying like this? Jeez. But, no, there's some some nice demon proofing right there with the whole water. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Great. And then Faust speak speak of the Devil, Faust and Mephisto show up and while Faust gets all poetic about Marguerite's pure and chaste home
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Why is the home chaste?
Kynan Dias:I don't know.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's weird. You're weird, Faust. You're weird in every version. Every single there's not a good version of you.
Kynan Dias:No. God.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But it but it is it's it's it's this this gorgeous aria that he does. And Mephisto's got a more practical approach, though. He brings in this casket of jewels. Now casket doesn't mean casket back then.
Lester Ryan Clark:It it like like a chest of jewels.
Kynan Dias:But our production does make it look like a little baby casket.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes, because Devil. Right? Right.
Kynan Dias:This one has the casket. A coffin is rectangular, and a casket is what? Octagonal.
Lester Ryan Clark:Kind of like the diamond y thing? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So
Kynan Dias:in this version of it on stage, yeah, they do it in the diamond shaped octagon.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I think casket is rectangular. Coffin is
Kynan Dias:I don't think so.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because like you see, it's like we're going to a funeral. It's an open casket. And it's never like, you know, like like the Wild West, you know, coffin thing. Or do they just mean the same thing?
Kynan Dias:Oh, no. You're right. You're right. You're right. Casket is rectangular.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:Coffin is tapered, and it's a hexagon. It's a side, it's not an octagon. Yep. But, yeah, yeah. But that so so okay.
Kynan Dias:So in our production, it's coffin shaped.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Which I prefer. That's that's that's that's cute. It's like it's like taking the pun and running with it. Right? Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah, casket just meant like like a, you know, like a like a like a hinged box. Box. Right? Which actually, now that makes you feel weird for calling the thing you put dead people in a casket. It's like, what am I?
Lester Ryan Clark:Like like, is this junk drawer for people?
Kynan Dias:Like That's what it is. It's a junk drawer for people. It's just a box. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Oh, quick. Okay. We already know the answer. But the man who made it doesn't need it.
Lester Ryan Clark:The man who who who buys it doesn't want it, and and the the man who uses it doesn't know he's using it.
Kynan Dias:Okay. This
Lester Ryan Clark:is this is the coffin.
Kynan Dias:It's a coffin.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's a coffin.
Kynan Dias:I guessed it. But,
Lester Ryan Clark:no, I like that riddle.
Kynan Dias:I might have too Oh. If I had heard it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Without the solution. Without the answer.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, shoot. I just kinda ruined that for everybody.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm gonna probably take this out.
Kynan Dias:Too late. Too late.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yep. Yep. I can't don't remember that, Keenan.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's great. Yeah. That's what it is. It's a box.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yep. It's It's a Jules. Jewels? Our friend, Cameron Ballinfont, says just throw him out with the trash when he goes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, jeez.
Kynan Dias:He says don't waste money on that. Jeez.
Lester Ryan Clark:I mean,
Kynan Dias:you know. It's kind of what what Lou Grant on Mary Tyler Moore says. He says, just put me outside just stand me outside with my hat on is what he says. Mhmm. That's yeah.
Kynan Dias:Cameron's is more blunt.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, give me one last Halloween as a decoration, and then you can do whatever you want.
Kynan Dias:That's great. Well, hopefully, you you you when it when it's your time
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Not this Halloween. No. But hopefully hopefully, you pass near Halloween like before. If if you die, like, November 3 or something.
Lester Ryan Clark:Well, no. It's even better. The farther away from Halloween I am, Even better.
Kynan Dias:Alright. We'll do our best.
Lester Ryan Clark:We have to cremate him now, grandma. He's like, no. This was his wish. Yeah. Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Just just just sit them up with the with the with the bowl of candy, with the candy corn.
Kynan Dias:But the neighbors come out, and they're like, it's excuse me. It's it's March 1 already. Can can you please throw your Cameron Ballinfont away?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. It'll be well, this is like, well, you know, it's like it's it's earlier every year, and now and now Lester's corpse is wearing a Santa hat already. Right?
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's in a casket. Mhmm. And that's when I that's the moment I've been waiting for. I sit up and I'm like, actually, it's a coffin. And the last little bit of life, let go right there.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Right. Yeah. Man. Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:Anyway, anyway, anyway. Alright. We're right. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:FAUST is going on about a about how chaste The house is. The house is.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? So then, yeah, he gets the he gets the so so Mephisto's like, you're weird. And he goes off stage and he brings in this casket of jewels. Mhmm. And now if you remember the Goethe version, you know you know, where this is going, but the opera really makes this like a showstopper.
Lester Ryan Clark:This is Yeah. This is a famous song. It's just called the Jewel song Right. Where Marguerite discovers the jewels and she tries them on.
Kynan Dias:Right? Yeah. Wouldn't be surprised if I've heard the Jewel song before and didn't know where it came from.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. I mean, I've heard I've heard that title just because it's so famous. It's it's referenced in, the Phantom. It's like it's like, you know, Christine is doing the Jewel song. And I'm like, what the hell is the Jewel song?
Lester Ryan Clark:Now I know. Mhmm. But yeah. So so so now we got a scene, we know well from Goethe. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:This is the ridiculous double date set up with Marta. Right. So the opera the opera keeps this comic relief moment pretty much intact. Right? Mephisto pulls the same trick of telling Marta that her husband is dead, right, complete with the, you know, the greetings and everything like that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And Faust and Marguerite, they have their serious romantic moment and we get Mephisto trying to dodge Martha's advances. Now this is a little bit different.
Kynan Dias:A little different, right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah, because like Goethe's like Mephisto is all about it. Right? Mhmm. But but here here, it's more like a sword in the stone sword in the stone with their squirrels. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like it's the young squirrel couple, Arthur and and the and the the girl squirrel Mhmm. And and the the older squirrel in Merlin. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So Mephisopheles gets her hit her. And so I think at first, like, he's willing to do this. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. But then they they kind of go off stage while Faust and Marguerite are doing their thing. Mhmm. And by the time they come back, they're they're like old they're like an old couple. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:They're like they're like kind of sniping at each other. Right? Yeah. Like, I just can't I've spent all my whole life with this woman. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. I heard of her.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. The the seduction scene itself is beautiful, but also pretty heartbreaking if you know what's coming. Mhmm. We've got, Moderate telling Faust about her dead mother and her sister. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:And then also Valentin off at the war. Mhmm. And then, you know, this, romantic scene where she plays, you know, he loves me, he loves me, not with the with the flower. So we got some more flower imagery Mhmm. Again, you know, and there's those annoying people in the audience.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Right. Yeah. Jim Bacchus, what do you do? You can't even see.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. And then there's this moment where FAUST actually tries to do the right thing and leave. But he's yeah. Okay. So this this FAUST is still a piece of
Kynan Dias:shit. But he's addressing some of your notes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. He is
Kynan Dias:he to our show.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. He is the smallest piece of shit of all the Fausts. Right. Right? Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But anyway, Mephisto's not having it. He makes Faust watch Marguerite at her window Right. And he's totally in love. And and that's it. Faust rushes to her while Mephisto laughs about his victory.
Lester Ryan Clark:Laughs operatically. Right? Right. That's that's what these super titles say. Laughs operatically.
Kynan Dias:Right. So so yeah. He he tempts he tempts Faust with with Marguerite more than in in some of other ones. Right? So in some the other ones, like, we're tempting him with Helen of Troy.
Kynan Dias:We're tempting him with knowledge, which which he asked for, obviously. He's like, I want knowledge. I want all of that stuff. Right? But this is really about him using her as as his way to get to Faust's soul.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Right. Yeah. And and that is the end of act two where we saw it. This opera is really playing up the romantic tragedy here.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yep. Now you say it like like the people who go to these operas, they already know Goethe's FAUST. They already know the the story of FAUST.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. At least in the old days. Right? Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So this isn't like nobody in the audience is like, oh gosh. I hope they I hope they end up together. You know?
Kynan Dias:Right. No.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And then just they're after to hear, they don't. Spoilers. Right. Google it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But but, yeah, we're not getting into a lot of the big intellectual issues. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But the nature of the universe is very little cosmology. You know, both FAUST and Marlow have Marlow has a lot of talking about cosmology, and then FAUST has that that prologue that kind of is exploring it, right,
Lester Ryan Clark:like what
Kynan Dias:makes up the world. None of that here. Satan comes from below. Mhmm. He says, I'll be up here until you dive, we're going back down.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yep. Yep. Right. Because we got a trapdoor and everything. But, yeah, that's that is acts one and two, folks.
Lester Ryan Clark:So next week, we're gonna be looking at acts three and four, and then we're gonna finish it off the week after that with the act five finale.
Kynan Dias:Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So what did you think of our our our first dip into opera, Keenan?
Kynan Dias:I feel sophisticated. I feel better than most people
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. For sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm drinking this energy drink with my pinky up.
Kynan Dias:What brand of energy drink are
Lester Ryan Clark:you drinking? Oh, it is wait. Wait. Hang on. Hang on.
Lester Ryan Clark:Hang on. It well, it is Toure Rouge, which, you know, you might not you might not have heard of it.
Kynan Dias:Right. No. I've never heard of of.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. The the the the the more common way to refer to it is Red Bull.
Kynan Dias:Right. You Americans might call it red bull.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Tarot Rouge,
Kynan Dias:yes, is what it is.
Lester Ryan Clark:And you know what it it it gives me? Mhmm. It gives me.
Kynan Dias:Oh, look at that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Wings.
Kynan Dias:No. I think it's great. I think this is a good version that you pointed me towards. Wonderful. And, yeah, it's it's really interesting to see, like, what is the, like, simple emotional truth of the piece.
Kynan Dias:Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:That that is a useful term that I've heard John August, the screenwriting guru, talk about. So I talked about that with my screenwriting students sometimes because it's because it can get complicated as you're writing a script. Like, you're trying to do all this stuff. So this is like Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:We know from reading Goethe. It goes all over the place.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Because it's about ideas primarily. But in opera or something more dramatic, like a movie, like dramas and characters interacting with each other, What's the simple emotional truth? Like, where Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Where are we going? Mhmm. Yeah. So this is a yeah. I mean, I'm super glad that we're looking at this.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Alright. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And folks, stick with us. We're gonna be we're gonna be looking, like I said, acts three and four next week. But for now, this has been another episode of the Devil's Details. I've been Lester Ryan Clark. You can summon me on all the socials as Lester Ryan Clark.
Kynan Dias:And I've been Keenan Diaz, and you can invoke me on Letterbox and Instagram at Howdy Keenan.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Find more of our shows and other really cool podcasts at truestory.fm. Or drop us a message at bananaforscalemail,mail,@gmail.com. We also got our Facebook listener group, Banana for scale. That's a community for all of our shows including this one.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's a private group. But just request to join and we'll let you into the infernal family. Until next week, love and hisses. I meant to sell you my soul, but I sold you this bag of peanuts.
Kynan Dias:I've endangering myself and others.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. They shouldn't let me drive. More vote. Oh, but mister McGooch Christmas Carol is, like, one of my favorite versions.
Kynan Dias:Oh, really?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:It's really seen that one.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. It's really good. It's kind of a family tradition at our at our home. Oh, yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And it's a it's a musical, they have you know, there's there's all the songs. And and and there's a there's a song that that young Scrooge sings when he's in that little, you know, that empty schoolhouse.
Kynan Dias:Oh, but it it's McGoo as as Scrooge?
Lester Ryan Clark:It's it's McGoo as Scrooge.
Kynan Dias:Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:And it's the the framing device is that he is mister McGoo playing Scrooge on Broadway. Okay. So, like, the opening is him getting to Broadway, you know, and, of course, because because you can't see, he's you know, it's the traffic and all that stuff. And then, you know, and he's putting on the wrong costume and, know, falling through trap doors and whatnot, and the and the rest of the cast is kinda, like, falling all over themselves trying to trying to get him on stage. And then as soon as he gets on stage, that's when the actual, you know, Christmas Carol story starts.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, wow. And you forget that it's like, you know, a play. Yeah. I didn't Until the end
Kynan Dias:when when Magoo had had the skills to be in a Broadway show.
Lester Ryan Clark:He is surprisingly pretty good. It's his calling. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But yeah. No. No. We're we're speaking of plays and productions and and things like that, folks.
Kynan Dias:Are we?
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, no. No. We gotta get into it. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Alright. Where where's my head? Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Press record. That's good at least.
Lester Ryan Clark:Did I press record? Yes. Did. Good. Jesus Christ.