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''Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera'' is an English musical with book, music, and lyrics by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall written for the Crackpot Theatre Company aboard the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol, England. The show is based on a series of tales written by Longfellow about Stinkfoot, a New York City alley cat, a bit of a rogue and more than a bit of a rake. It had been intended for children, but when told by a New York literary agent that “No mother in America would want her child identifying with Stinkfoot the alley cat, never mind its name,” 〔Discovery: an English Radio Two interview aired in 1990.〕 the story went into a drawer for many years. It came out with the meeting in 1977 of Vivian and Ki, at which point the story became bedtime reading for Vivian's son Rupert Stanshall (born 1968), and later for his daughter with Ki, Silky Longfellow-Stanshall (born 1979). In 1985 it “grew up” when Vivian and Ki decided to base a musical on its lead character, Stinkfoot.〔Interview with Longfellow at Barnes & Noble, San Francisco, California, 2008.〕 At that point, it became a melding of two very different visions and two very different musical traditions: Vivian’s days as frontman for the Bonzo Dog Band and his childhood in Leigh-on-Sea with Ki’s love of America’s Broadway. ==The plot== The plot of Stinkfoot is about a once great music hall artiste, the mournful Soliquisto, who believes he has come to the end of his career. Once he headlined halls like the Hackney Empire, now he’s lucky to play small rooms at the end of piers. His act has always consisted of trained animals: a singing parakeet (''Parakeet to Meet You''), and two all-dancing, all-singing cats, one male, Stinkfoot, and one female, Persian Moll. Each of these were creations of true brilliance, but all he has left now is Moll, his ventriloquist's dummy Screwy, and his eager nephew and assistant Buster. He and his company ("Soliquisto & His Not So Dumb Friends") have returned for a week’s engagement at the very end-of-the-pier venue where nine years before he had mysteriously lost his famous songbird and his most precious creation, the even more famous Stinkfoot. Buster works with him, acting in all capacities: props, costumes, manager, and even as a ludicrous stand-in for the lost Stinkfoot. Buster is ambitious. He knows his uncle was once the best. He is convinced there’s a secret to being a true artist and if only Solisquisto would tell him that secret, Buster too could be a great artist. Soliquisto has told Buster in every way he can what the secret is, most pointedly in the song: ''Follow Your Nose''. But Buster cannot “hear” him. Aside from his animal act—the Diva Persian Moll, who, without Stinkfoot, is basically the whole show, and knows it (''Ow! Ow! Wasn't I Good Tonight!'')—Soliquisto is also a ventriloquist. His dummy, Screwy, never lies. Screwy voices all that Soliquisto cannot or will not say, including terrible truths about himself. (''Song of the Saw'') Under the pier is another world of English shale beach and cold sea. Here lives Mrs. Bag Bag, seemingly a bag lady whose life has been spent collecting “little things.” In actuality, Mrs. Bag Bag is the very essence of magic and art, a Muse. (There are nine muses. Stinkfoot has nine cast members. Stinkfoot himself disappeared nine years earlier. Nine is used symbolically throughout the show. Vivian used the number 9 in all he did after marrying Ki whose favorite number was 9. If not 9 itself, then a number that could be reduced to 9, i.e.: 27 garden gnomes in Sir Henry At Rawlinson End.〔) Nine years before one of the things she collected was an egg which had hatched into a parakeet she’d named Polly. Isaiah the Flounder, a doleful beach-dweller, is enamored of Polly and pleads with her in a show stopping duet (''No Time Like the Future''), but Polly senses she was meant for more…but what? (''Imagination'') Mrs. Bag Bag knows, but will not say. Just as Screwy always tells the truth, so too does Mrs. Bag Bag, but Mrs. Bag Bag’s truths are oblique, couched in riddles and rhymes. (''Sphinx & Minx'') The bane of Mrs. Bag Bag’s existence, Elma the Electrifying Elver, lives here too. A gorgeous creature of absolute certainty and complete self-absorption, she lives in or out of the sea. The story begins when Stinkfoot suddenly appears with enormous bravado after going missing for these nine long years. When he does, Soliquisto rejoices. With Stinkfoot, he believes he will rise to his heights once more. Buster is jealous since he believes he will be pushed aside and never recognized for his talent. (''Quickchange Artiste'') Persian Moll, a true Diva and sure of her stardom without Stinkfoot, still worries that he will reveal that one night she ate Soliquisto’s parakeet (Polly's mother) and tried to do something dreadful to Stinkfoot himself. (''Bad Bad Ways'') But Stinkfoot had escaped her and run away to become a star of the Broadway stage. By returning, he has not come back to perform with Soliquisto...he's merely passing through to show off his success. (''Landing on my Feet Feet'') A complementary story is taking place under the pier. Polly, the daughter of the Solisquito’s murdered songbird, wants to fly, to find her true home. The smitten Isaiah explains life is all doom and gloom, best to accept where she is and who she is. (''You Can't Confound a Flounder'') But Polly, who has no idea who she is, is desperate to find out. (''A Foundling's Song'') Each character, whether animal or human, above or below the pier, is an aspect of the one central character voiced by the aging music hall artiste, Soliquisto. Soliquisto may be lost in memories but he's still canny. (''What My Public Wants'') The plot is fairly simple and endearingly odd, but the underlying ideas are more complex. Basically, Stinkfoot is a portrait of the artist’s creative heart and mind. Soliquisto believes what he has made must remain in his control or his art is lost. By the end of Stinkfoot he realizes nothing is ever lost, that he can let his creations go, that once he (or she) has created something it takes on a life of its own, and that the artist can always make more. (''Only Being Myself'') With this lesson learned, Soliquisto, who has made nothing new since Stinkfoot disappeared, sees Elma the Electrifying Elver dancing on the beach. (''Drowned Sailor's Dream'') Ah! Here is his new creation, his latest work of art. He will make her a star! The act of creation is forever…it goes on and on. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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