Lately this CD has been taking my mind over. I’ve never seen the show, but I’m getting staging and such all worked out in my mind - very minimalist set, just using different parts of the stage and spots for scene changes. For all that the ship is the center of the show, it’s really a story about people and engineering, I think.
er…
sorry…
(Kicks soapbox back under the curtains)
What I’ve been wondering is before the iceberg hits there’s this scene and series of tracks where the show introduces the song “Autumn,” and then has the lookout singing to the melody, his own boredom and the fact he can’t see anything.
And while I can tell the timing is identical, and the music is pretty close, I’m not sure I can recognize when a minor key is being used, or not. I think the lookout’s version is in a minor key to give it that sense of something slightly wrong and forboding about it - but I’m not sure. Can anyone tell me?
I can’t find my copy of the disk but I did see the musical.
The sets were actually pretty elaborate. There were a few scenes with several decks in a cutaway view and the scene you are talking about has this woman, (she must be someone!) who is actually a card shark. She in the ‘gentleman’s smoking room’ and she plays the piano and they sing Autum. The lookout’s crows nest is lowered from the top with the guy in it.
The sinking had the entire stage lifting on the (viewer’s) left. There is a great sight “gag” with the first class passengers don’t want to put on lifejackets and don’t know what’s going on. Near the end of that song there is a moment of silence and a cart on wheels rolls across the stage as the first sign of the sinking.
I’m now listening to it and it sound’s like a minor key but I’m not 100% sure. They may just be throwing in some ‘accindentals’.
