Sting Reminisces on `The Last Ship

Sting and his band perform songs from his new album, The Last Ship, at The Public Theatre, New York. The songs, inspired by the shipbuilding community of Wallsend where Sting was born and raised, will form part of his forthcoming Broadway play.  He and the band are joined onstage by the actor and singer Jimmy Nail. Of course Jo Lawry is singing along! :-)

Jimmy Nail 

Jo Lawry

Wilson Family

The songs (rf. lyrics)

1. The Last Ship (folksy) 0:00
2. Shipyard (rousing) 4:56
3. Coming Home's Not Easy (wondering) 14:53
4. And Yet (jazzy) 16:22
5. August Winds (reminiscent) 20:21 
6. What Have We Got? (stirring) 23:15
7. Practical Arrangements (conversational) 28:09
8. What Say You Meg? (earnest) 34:04
9. Dead Man's Boots (practical) 39:13
10. Big Steamers (choral) 43:18 
11. Sky Hooks and Tartan Paint (jaunty) 46:35 
12. Jock the Singing Welder (rocking) 51:11
13. So to Speak (mournful) 55:50
14. Show Some Respect (rallying) 1:00:27
15. Underground River (rf. Language of Birds) (balladic) 1:05:31
16. The Last Ship (Reprise) (ennobling) 1:10:53

I don't think anything you do can get away from who you are.  Why would it, and why would you want it to?  I'm proud of my story.  I think it's a good story.  It's not finished yet.  But I'm proud of who I am, I'm proud of where I come from.  That's a simple, abiding emotion in the end is gratitude.  I'm grateful.

What an enthalling performance, a masterful piece of work, an ennobling story.  In the modern world of social media and mobile devices, I am thankful most for what we have at our disposal.  I woke up in the middle of night, and decided to listen to this new music and new story from Sting & Co.

(image credit)

Sometime around 2004, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, better known as Sting, a rock star with 16 Grammys and more than 100 million records sold, found himself with a severe case of writer's block. It wasn't that he stopped touring (he didn't), making money (he still made plenty) or even recording (there were albums of other people's songs and a new symphonic treatment of his past material), but he found, to his chagrin, he could not write any new songs. 

This went on for some eight years. He was, in the words of writer John Logan, "at an impasse." The title of Sting's intensely personal, strikingly reflective 2003 autobiography, "Broken Music," had proven prophetic. 

"I just found myself thinking, 'What's the point?'" a scrunched-up Sting says, softly, matter-of-factly, occupying as little space as possible at the back of a 42nd Street rehearsal studio here one recent afternoon. "I just didn't have the desire or the passion. I was treading water as a writer."

Reference: Sting on 'The Last Ship' in Chicago — and the cargo he's been carrying.

It was between 1988 and 2008 that I didn't, and couldn't, write any poetry.  While I weathered this long dry spell without any qualms whatsoever, Sting must've felt an enormous sense of pressure.  He is a recording star, after all, and an artist at that who feels that compulsion to create.  My friends and I saw him in concert in Dubai, in early 2010, and it was a thrill.  We reveled in all of his familiar music, but I noticed there wasn't any new stuff.  In fact, I hadn't heard of any new stuff from him in ages.  I thought I was just out of touch, and had simply lost track of Sting, in a heavily-traveled decade of my life.  But he was in the midst of that disconcerting and protracted writer's block.

Every word, in the lengthy (reference) article by Chicago Tribune writer Chris Jones, is worth reading.

`The Room (3) Working Images

(image credit)

(image credit)

(image credit)

(image credit)

These are just working images that I have in mind for `The Room, especially as they relate to the violence behind housemaid abuse and its physical and psychological effect.  The acting, the layout, the lighting, the soundtrack will all converge to hit the audience viscerally and make everyone squirm in his or her seat.  

`The Room (2) Cross Art, Multimedia Projects

(image credit)

`The Room is a cross art, multimedia project focused on housemaid abuse and domestic violence in general.  Besides its staging, I want to create a film that parallels the play, but because it is a different art medium, it will expand on the play and portray the theme differently.  But before embarking on that film, I want to create a set of short films, including animation, that can reach a wider, world-wide audience.  I want to tell the stories of these victims as well as their perpetrators, if at all possible, via photography and poetry.  So such an exhibit, perhaps set up on stage, will be part of it.  Finally, I plan on an advocacy initiative.  What if we can eliminate housemaid abuse and domestic violence? is what I ask myself and others.

So, in summary, `The Room consists of five projects:

1. A five-act play
2. A feature-length film
3. Short films, including animation
4. Photography-poetry exhibit
5. Advocacy initiative

I've already sketched out the play, but over the next few weeks, I plan to resume my research and to draft the script in earnest.  If you're interested in knowing more or getting involved, please e-mail me at Ron.Villejo@drronart.com. 

`The Room (1) Introduction Notes

(image credit)

The scenes of this family look ostensibly real. Normal. But as in an Anton Chekhov play, there is also surrealism about all of this. We never see members of the family together. They interact separately through the Housemaid.

I want to the play to take on an air of timelessness and placelessness. The actors will be of different nationalities, so as to remove any semblance that this is a logical or even a unified set of relationships and events.

In this play, I want to sacrifice reality for art – for drama. I want to challenge notions of time and space. I want to compress distance. I want to bring different planes of reality together on stage.

Abuse in this will be brutal. But we will do so without a single show of violence – no hitting, no kicking – and no bruises, no blood, nothing. We will convey abuse through expression, silence and lighting.

I wrote these notes five years ago, when I crystallized an idea for a play.

I had visited an official locale in Dubai for Overseas Filipino Workers, and it was a huge, two-story villa.  Now picture this: 60+ women crowding its two bedrooms, second floor landing, and first floor space, for their accommodation.  They were runaway housemaids, who were neglected, abused, and otherwise mistreated by their employers.  It was heartbreaking to see them all there.  A year or two later, I heard that those numbers ballooned to over 100 women seeking shelter.

`The Room will tell their story.

Love Closes `The Long Distance Relationship

Ah, terrific, terrific.  Now, that's a very creative, very poignant twist on what first seemed to be a usual long-distance relationship.  The young lovers live in two different cities, maybe two different countries.  For a stretch, they are enamored with each other and draw on technology to keep themselves close.  Then, the mood shifts, turns down, and at first this, too, seemed common and expected.  Except she is dying, so she films herself for him in her waning days.  Then, in the end, we find out that they had been together all along, that is, through her death.  What makes their relationship long-distance is the fact she has gone someplace else and he is still there.  Utterly sad, utterly brilliant.

Symbolism in `When You Love Someone

"When you Love Someone" tells the story of a boy who tries to run away from his love, after realising that his memories are the only thing he still keeps from his past. 

The idea for this project was to create a simple, yet inspiring video, something that could actually make people feel better, awakening deep feelings and emotions. While the original story doens't search for great attention, its potencial remains on the beauty of the images and landscapes, combined with the musical experience. Our goal was not to impress the public with a remarkable screenplay, but to give a brighter look to your day. We hope we did it. Thanks!

In the absence of text (words), this short film may be too abstract for some.  "I don't get it" and "What just happened?" are two comments.  But to convey love purely in visual and soundtrack is creative.  Things become symbolic and visceral, thus more evocative.  This, instead of logical or precise.

The terrain this dude hikes through is lush and stunning, yet rugged and hilly, and that's a terrific metaphor for the ambivalent nature of a breakup.  We find that he had just headed to the neighborhood park.  The little wildflower he picks up is a reliving of memories for him and in the process a working through of his loss.  Sleep is a kind of elixir, so when he wakes up, he isn't exactly rid of his malaise but he feels better and he begins to see life as fresh and playful again.

Love Changes Things in `Text Me

Falling for each other online, two teenagers finally meet in person for a date at what turns out to be a mob-owned Italian restaurant. Will their Internet love shatter or grow strong and rich like a tomato ragout?

Noah and Jamie are far from a match made in heaven, but in their awkward, occasionally snide way they run into each other like contact lenses that drop on the floor.  When Jamie slides on her glasses, she looks suddenly different to him, prettier and more approachable somehow, and she in turns looks at him differently, perhaps more endearing in his dorkiness.