The Play
by Uncle John
Art Work by Michael Waters
Music by
Uncle John & Tobey Stein
Grateful Dead
& Bob Dylan
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 rain that we seek through the dance is the rain and the wind of the Spirit,
which is followed by the rainbows that follow us.
RAINBOW SKY
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"Rainbow" by Uncle John & Tobey Stein
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
excerpt
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 met Johnnie Walker at the Alligator Bar & Grill.
He was drinking and smoking heavy & Johnnie was popping pills.
He heard the wear in his old friend´s voice.
Emotions were stirred echoing his words.
Johnnie Walker:
I´ve been shaken and frozen inside,
Withdrawn, broken like the ground;
I been lost in a sound surrounded and found.
I´ve survived the darkest night
Alone on the desert sand.
I´m not a fraud and I´m not a holy man.
Harry Jardiniere:
Point the way
Persevering for the day
To find
a job workingFor a United States company.
Owed so many bills causing our countrymen´s ills,
I have to pay so I must sell the story.
They´re drowning in debt
Though they work through a sweat,
So I dug out a book of history.
You could see it repeat itself,
Down from the shelf,
Brought back a picture in my memory.
I was at a reunion and sang a lullaby.
They wanted to discuss modern times.
We went down to the pier with our fishing line
Recalling the gig at the time.
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 away from 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.
Ida Red:
There are four queens in every deck,
Four kings in every scene,
Four aces in faces,
Four jacks in the right places.
Freya Chanteur:
The cost they share makes them feel bright blue.
If he had the chance, he´d make his dream come true.
No brazen anger, no nightmare trance,
No need to be strangers between the song and the dance.
Michelle:
Rainmaker, Rainmaker, shake that Rainmaker.
Make it rain a worthy treasure
For our dancing pleasure.
Rainmaker, Rainmaker, shake that Rainmaker.
Lady Liberty:
One Christmas eve I remember well.
Johnnie Walker called from his hotel.
(He said:)
Johnnie Walker:
It sure is hot here in Mexico &
This needle and grains just aren´t enough;
I used to spend Christmas as a family man;
Now I´m alone & on the edge of being a hollow man.
Lady Liberty:
Johnnie came home on New Year´s eve &
Paid the price of time,
And played a rhapsody in the rain
To this old heart of mine.
excepts from the play Raindance
THE MISSION
Mississippi Captain fell in love
With the distant stars far up above
And got it together to build a ship
And get all his friends together for the trip
One lone dreamer came on by
Said "Mississippi Captain, how high is the sky?
I always had hopes to travel into space
And find new direction for the human race"
Well they got together and made a plan
To find another planet with air water and land
And in one swift stroke find the solution
To the cost of living with climate pollution
from the science fiction musical Play "RAINDANCE"
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