Doctor Faustus, the Musical

I was thinking about what books might make good musicals, and I thought of one that I'm surprised to find hasn't been musicalized already: Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. (Alex Ross refers extensively to this novel in "The Rest is Noise, since it's about the combined crises of music and politics in the 20th century.) As a novel about a composer who may or may not have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for creative brilliance, it is a "novel of music" and certainly has a lot of opportunities for ambitious music. Maybe, being about a serious and advanced composer who writes difficult music, it would be more appropriate as an opera -- but I can't help thinking that it could be a musical. After all, Cabaret already proved there's a market for musicals about the warning signs of Naziism in pre-Nazi Germany, which is part of what Faustus is about.

After I thought of that, I tried writing a lyric for a scene in Doctor Faustus as a writing exercise, specifically, looking for a moment in the novel that could be a comedy song (musicals, especially dark/serious musicals, need comedy songs to lighten the mood in spots). I decided to write something for "Esmeralda," the prostitute that the main character, Adrian Leverkuhn, sleeps with specifically because she has syphillis (believing that the disease will make him brilliant before it finally makes him insane). We don't see the scene first-hand in the novel, but I thought it would be funny to have the character of Esmeralda react as a real person might react to such a request -- namely, bafflement.

Of course a real, faithful musical adaptation of Faustus wouldn't have room for such a goofy song, but I wasn't necessarily talking about a faithful adaptation. Anyway when I write one of these exercises I'm always inclined to make it a very loose adaptation of the source material.

I maybe shoudln't post this here, but I liked some of the lines I came up with, so I will post it here as part of my irregular "stuff I wrote and can't use anywhere else" series.

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There Are Other Girls

Verse

ESMERALDA
You'd risk your health,
Even after you've heard me confess?
You'd trade your health
For an hour or possibly less?
I tell you "no"
And you tell me it's got to be "yes?"
Well, then, let's go,
If I'm all that you long to possess.
But can't you tell me why?
Or help me guess?

Refrain 1

There are other girls
With better complexions.
There are other girls
With better connections.
There are other girls
With fewer infections.
If you prefer me,
I have to disagree.

Find some Russian girls
And pretty Parisians.
Maybe Prussian girls,
Perhaps Polynesians.
All those other girls
Won't leave you with lesions.
So if I'm your pick,
Which one of us is sick?

You're an artsy type
And your tastes are odd,
You don't talk about fun,
Only bar-lines and God.
But before this is done --
And don't call me a cynic --
You won't look for God,
You'll just look for a clinic.

I should scoff at you
And tell you to shove it.
But I cough at you
And somehow you love it.
There are other girls
Who have less to give.
There are other girls
Who will let you live,
You'd be better off
With a relative.
There are other girls.
Any other girls.

Interlude

ADRIAN
If you read "The Sick Rose" by William Blake,
My reasons will be divined.

ESMERALDA
The sick what? William who?

ADRIAN
Never mind.

ESMERALDA
I don't know if I should trust you.
I've the feeling I disgust you.
Maybe it's just me.

ADRIAN

It's just you.

ESMERALDA
May I mention something?

ADRIAN

Must you?

Refrain 2

ESMERALDA
There are other girls.
I've got to remind you
There are other girls
Who'd just love to find you,
There are other girls
Less likely to blind you,
And plenty of whores
Who haven't any sores.

Every time I point
To another splotch,
You just hum a strange song
And you look at your watch.
Then you say: come along,
What I said hasn't mattered.
You're crazy, you're wrong,
You're a fool, and I'm flattered.

Your request of me,
So weird and outrageous,
Gets the best of me,
You're kind of contagious.
Still, there's other girls,
And I do mean lots,
There are other girls
Who have not got spots,
There are other girls
Who have had their shots.

ADRIAN
It is getting late.
Kindly cease debate.

ESMERALDA
I suppose we will.
I suppose it's fate.
Well, if you fall ill,
There's a discount rate.