RAINDANCE
The Play
by Uncle John
Art Work by Michael Waters
Music by
Uncle John & Tobey Stein & Gary Sangervasi
Grateful Dead
& Bob Dylan
Special Thanks to Playwright Lauren Gunderson
Spanish translation by Tania Carrasco
Characters
Storyteller
Sundance
Raindance
Lady Liberty
The Joker
The Purple Sage
The Hermit
Daniel Rafael
Michelle
Pretty Peggy
Ida Red
Billy Dee
Jesse
Freya Chanteur
Johnnie Walker
Harry Jardiniere
Maria Bonita
Seven Gypsy Women
Bobby “Sugarfree” Sugaree
Rainbow
The Magician
RAINDANCE
Art work by Michael WatersThe Raindance family tell their story in tales, through poetry, songs, art, and dance.
RAINDANCE
Acts and Scene descriptions in development
Here are some EXCERPTS from the play
The prequel
Storyteller:
Once upon a time there was a true rainmaker. His name is Charles Mallory
Hatfield. In southern California in the early 1900s, there was a great drought.
Charles was a pioneering meteorologist and a man with strange inventions. One
was a "humidity accelerator" that, according to him, could make it rain. In
Oceanside, California, he went to the top of the tallest towers and mixed
high-smelling fetid chemicals, and in five days it rained an inch of rain all
over the city. Hatfield the Rainmaker's fame spread. In 1916, the San Diego city
council, desperate for the rain, agreed to pay Hatfield $ 10,000, a huge sum of
money, later, if he could fill the local reservoir tanks. He mixed his chemicals
on tall towers and soon it started to rain, and it rained, rained, and rained.
The reservoirs overflowed and the rain flooded the streets, houses, businesses
and the entire city. When it finally stopped raining, Hatfield stopped by the
town hall offices to collect his "rain check." The council refused to pay. They
said they hired Hatfield to fill the reservoirs only, not to flood the city.
THE PLAY Act 1 Scene 2
Storyteller:
Liberty Coruzzo wears roses in her hair
She still attracts a crowd
who all cry out at her & stare
get drunk and laugh out loud
Foxy boys chase young girls & chat with
beautiful women with butterfly hairpins
The old timers cheer at the sight of
Liberty on the back of a terrapin
singing like leaves blowing in the wind
Daniel:
We were at the carnival fair
and noted when the times were so good
We climbed the stone stairs past the turn in the street
where we recalled our childhood
We ran into Ida Red & the queen of the magazine
Michelle & I
among the crowd and smoke
the endless noise and scenes
Storyteller:
Freya Chanteur sings with the band
She holds a tarantula painted on a rouge-colored fan
and with a wave of her hand
sees the face of Jesse in the crowd
and cries with her eyes clear and loud
She falls in love with his gentle stare
Time passes through his fingers in her hair
In a public act of loyal tradition
she marries the gypsy on a terrapin
Daniel:
We went to the Tally-Ho tavern
to see a fiddler's contest held there
We were amused by this unusual lady &
knocked out by the perfume in the air
We watched from the window the wanderin' and weary
in their chameleon webs in the thick of night
In the distance there is the faint sound of misty bells
while they visit the world through slits of their shells
"Daniel Rafael" Michelle introduces me
Michelle:
I'd like you to meet pretty Peggy the mysterious lady
She comes from eastern Europe
Her father's an investor
She's got some money & knows what she's after
She plays in the pool parlor in Breakfast Alley
Daniel:
One night she drove Michelle & me & Liberty
out to the valley &
led us to a hermit's cave
where he lit a lantern played guitar and sang
Hermit:
It's gotta be all or nothing at all babe
Michelle:
His hands are as cold as ice
yet I can see sweat pour from his brow
I look at the lines on his face
He survived an ordeal he wouldn't tell now
Peggy:
We were drinking wine on Alligator Mountain
I expressed love greater than mine
and he turned to me in perfect mime
Hermit:
My heart is an open book to you
Red sails in the sunset are overlooking you
You better know what you're doing
Peggy:
Like true love I never felt like this
Storyteller:
He's been on live stages and what he practiced was kind
He knew fugitives and sages & found few of similar mind
He walks out of the pages like a knight on the road that winds
and breaks the cages of ephemeral walls to find
Peggy:
He went round about the river and didn't come back till he was grey
He retreated inside a palace on the edge of the old highway
Hermit:
There's a voice deep inside of the ancient one calling you
The door's not marked but the light shines through
Another Act, Different Scene
Storyteller:
Harry Jardiniere is host and with his half tank of gas,
Hums his harp dancing with the light glistening through his glass.
Harry Jardiniere
(singing):Someone buy two rounds & I´ll drink a toast to old Jim Bridger and to the band in the arena,
Where flower girls smile with their eyes at those passing by &
My lady Maria Bonita the Senorita,
She bathes in the soft moonlight &
Turns me with the Margaritas,
Awakens and soaks up the sun in the shamrocks beneath her.
Storyteller:
No one could catch or match such
Succession of impressions in progression.
There was a wolf´s head in the passageway
With ringers on his fingers, muscles on his arms &
His songs played on the loudspeakers,
With the crickets in tune under the moon.
There were beautiful women, with purses, that would sway and swoon.
Four women horsing-around together,
Drinking up the time,
Waiting and juiced, ready and able,
They´re funny with an interesting line.
Lady Liberty:
It seems you can´t please everyone
& you don´t want to antagonize;
Everybody´s got so much to say
They could say better with their eyes.
" I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,
I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."
RAINBOW
Call me in the morning of the rainbow rain
Call me in the morning of the rainbow rain
Call me in the morning of the rainbow rain
Call me in the morning of the rainbow
How many days left till I die
From drinking whiskey and getting high
I'm a rambler by trade travelling about
Wind at my back circling south
Buried some words deep in the sand
River run home flowed over the land
Sit with the sun setting by the moon
With your favorite color of a flower in bloom
Count all the hours and sing all the tunes
Picture paradise just digging on that dune
For the treasure sierra isn't buried in ground
It's not stuck in time & bound to be found
Then for but a moment as that too must pass
For the river immortal inside us shall last
Faith in the future you can't deny
There's something more here than you can explain
Wipe away the tear yes you'll get by
And call me in the morning of the rainbow rain
Call me in the morning of the rainbow rain
Call me in the morning of the rainbow rain
Call me in the morning of the rainbow
"Rainbow" by Uncle John & Tobey Stein
I met Tobey Stein, musician extraordinaire, trading tapes of live concerts of the Grateful Dead. He's writing some of the music for the play "Raindance", and describes an experience he had with one of the songs. I wrote the words to this song in Guadalajara, Mexico and sent them to Tobey Stein, who plays guitar and pedal steel, to put music to it for the play "RAINDANCE". I received this letter from him:
"Howdy John, I finally finished writing the music to "Rainbow". I've orchestrated it and am trying to get it performed. Things happen slowly you know. Enclosed is a version of it on acoustic guitar. People have been asking me about your words. I tell them they're part fantasy and part true religion. Someone called "Rainbow" a word-picture. The other day I hitchhiked out to the country in Wakulla county where there is a very hip bunch of musicians called the Wakulla band who play a lot of Grateful Dead songs as well as their own. It started raining so I ducked under the porch of a little store in a town called Crawfordville. I started picking a few songs and I got around to playing "Rainbow". As I was playing the end and screaming "Call me in the morning of the rainbow rain" with all the rednecks in the gas station across the street wondering what the hell I was doing. I looked up and there was the biggest most beautiful rainbow I ever saw in the sky. My heart just about jumped out of my chest and took off. Somebody must have been telling me something."
THE SECRET BOOK
Storyteller:
Raindance reads from THE SECRET BOOK, and The Magician appears.
Raindance
:WThen the flood of rain had stopped and the waters started to recede. Noah waited, then sent one of his doves out to scout for dryland. The dove returned for there was not yet dry ground. Still, the ship stayed afloat for the whole world was under water. Noah waited seven days and again sent a dove out, and this time when he returned, in his beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf, and this signalled the beginning of a new world.
The Magician:
There are two olive trees and two bright candles.
And you a wild olive shoot,
Have been grafted in among the others,
And now share in the nourishing sap
From the olive root.
SUNDANCE
Lyrics by Uncle John & Music by Uncle John & Gary Sangervasi
Letras y Música por Uncle John y Gary Sangervasi
Traducción de Tania Carrasco
desde la obra de teatro "RAINDANCE"
escrito en Mexico
Born in the American hills
Raised in a desert cave
It wasn't until he was twenty-one
He met Jesus and was saved
He can move like a mountain lion
Smell like a bear for snakes
Sundance is so bold and strange
As he is strong and brave
He has half a diamond for an eye
And an eagle to guide his way
And he lived ten years inside the city
And he learned the city´s ways
He had a love for the game
A taste for whiskey
A weakness for pretty women
But he couldn't understand the cruelty
To lock up so many people inside prisons
He is a man who loves his freedom
He picked up a simple stone
And at night his would shine
Reflected on the city
Illuminated the road in the sky
They say he has ten thousand brothers
And all of them believing men
And ten thousand sisters
And many children
He has vision for a river of time
Who can stop the rain at will
When you find him he can make it rhyme
And get even better still
He walks inside the cities teaching ecology
He painted a rose for a masterpiece
And helps the blind to see
He had a love for the game
A taste for whiskey
A weakness for pretty women
But he couldn't understand the cruelty
To lock up so many people inside prisons
He is a man who loves his freedom
Sundance is clever
And a man with many faces
He´s the only one I know
Holding all four aces
Now some say he is a prophet
And some just one man
But I know him as a friend of Jesus
And a child of the desert sand
Asking
How can the most advanced
Civilization of all time
be so far behind
be so far behind?
Now Sundance is among you
Gold Rain fall from the sky
Sky roses
Raining from the sky
Roses from the sky
Roses from the sky
!
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