Introduction


Frozen Positions

 

This is not a Fairytale…

Once upon a time there was a little well-off country with a great faith in itself. This faith, sad to say, was not shared by all of its citizens. At the height of a Golden Age, they hid like wood lice and creepy-crawlies under the sun-warm rocks. There was a darkness inside these lonely creatures from which only love or violence could set them free.

 

1961
 
Those were the Days

Max (12 years old) writes: “and then George mother died. And then the physics teacher said that I have done my homework well. And then my mom listened to the radio and she turned it off so I didn’t hear the space dog Laiga. I cried. Then she hit me. In the school, the other boys hit me, too. I always try not to cry but it’s hard. I have my own laboratory.”

 

1996

I took the Time that wasn’t my Own
 
David (44 years old) writes: “I’ve just heard that Pat has been appointed to another three months in Greenland. It’s comforting to know that I shall be working with someone I know. It’s not only cold up there, it’s bloody cold! And lonely. But mind you; Michael shouldn’t be jealous of his wife. He’s so sensitive! Well, even programmers’ supposed to stay cool and rational when they have to. It’s only codes and procedures, right?”

 

1949
 
Limbo, Place for all that was

Richard (38 years old) writes: “I am terribly disappointed. She certainly was not what I had hoped and expected. Irresponsible and empty-headed. No, not stupid, really - but childish, immoral. These awkward habits, this disgusting pill-abuse. I can never - never in my life - love such a woman. And I believed her to be intelligent and well-read!”

 

1975

It is good that you’re trying to realise your mistakes
 
Jean (25 years old) writes: “I’m really mad. I am hurt like hell! And still I cry my eyes out. Hank that price-idiot. And all that blood in the bathroom, his pale face. That stupid idiot! Of course I cared for him. But this is not the time for love. It’s outdated, bourgeois, It’s reactionary. Shit, now I’ve started weeping again! I must work, read my books.”

 

 

1957
 
The Sun is shining cold and bleak
And there’s no shelter you can seek…

Keith (14 years old) writes: “Elvis he’s my favourite rock’n’roll singer. He’s mine and Hank’s “idol”. Yesterday, we took the bus all the way to Cambridge and bought an Elvis record. It is good. It’s called “Jailhouse Rock”. Miss Honeycomb will be furious when we play it!!! Tomorrow, I will tell Hank to learn to play the saxophone, and I’ll play the drums! Then we have a band!

 

 

 

Clumsy Humphrey, Dance with me!
I’m the flower you’re the bee!

A Travel in Time and Soul

Four generations in London and Cambridge. Frozen in chaotic snapshots; Charleston, New Look, Cold War, the Marxist Movements, the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new Europe. But not necessarily in that order!

 

We want another World, another Freedom!

Frozen Positions mixes known and unknown media, experimenting with wide-screen film and computer animation.

 

The Shadows of Reality

Brutally, the characters of Frozen Positions are deprived of their dreams. But in their inner or outer prisons, the dreams live on as shadow-figures from a remote past or future.

 

Playing to loose

The fearful face of violence, physical and psychological. Defenceless victims playing against brutal oppression. Children against children, generation against generation. Cold intellect against love and hope.

 

Unlimited Freedom of Music

The eternal band of the many names. Always 24 years old, always together for 3 years. Timeless in the new fashion. Kissed by the Muses and persecuted by the art commis­sioners of the ages. Freedom and Eternity.

 

 

The History

 

The history of Frozen Positions is long and complicated. The musical has its roots in one of my first rock musicals, “Silence”, but arriving to its present form took almost 24 years!

 

1978-94 Silence – The original Musical

 

In 1978, I wrote my fourth music theatre work after a rock opera, a chamber opera and a Baudelaire Cabaret. The original working title was “A Passion Play”. I had a vague idea of writing a religious play about a “Saint Sebastian” like character, wounded but unable to die. The leftwing political climate in the late seventies did not, though, encourage such Christian endeavours, so I chose a modern – true – story of the so-called telephone booth bomber. He was a frustrated high school boy who placed small but effective bombs in telephone booths and ended up with bombs under children’s playgrounds. He was caught after an attempt to throw a bomb at the yearly communist festival in Copenhagen, wounding himself seriously. This was a sort of an inverse martyr, and I chose this pathetic figure as my subject.

 

As a 25-year old experienced songwriter, I was hysterically afraid of writing dialogues with music. I had tried for years to avoid that situation, so the format of “Silence” was another way of escaping two persons singing to each other. I divided the musical into video film, spoken theatre and songs with a rock band, which originally had their own story inside the story. The story of the band was removed from “Silence” by its first director, only to reappear as an important ingredient in Frozen Positions in 1995!

 

“Silence” was an immediate success when it was published on the large Danish Theatre Publishing House Drama in 1982. It was a multimedia show years before the word became commonplace and thus attracted many young theatre groups and high school drama classes. During its “lifetime” of about 12 years, it was performed at least 125 times, once even as a ballet!

 

  Cover of “Silence” 1982,
  Dennis Møgelgård Christensen

 

 

1995-98 The Ice Age – The Rewritten Musical

 

In 1991, I decided to rewrite my two most popular musicals; the rock musical based on Hans Scherfig’s famous school novel “Stolen Springs” and “Silence”. Stolen Springs was finally rewritten in 1997 and on tour in 1998. Silence, however, took a little longer.

 

I wrote the classical opera “The Burning Lands” in 1993. While writing the last scene in October 1993, I realized that the characters in the play seemed to come out of thin air. The dramatic love story must have started sometimes, somewhere. Originally, I chose the subject of The Burning Lands, a summerhouse with three couples in their mid-30’ies crisis, to concentrate on the burning emotions in an eternal moment, for life. But where did Mike and Stina come from? Who is the mystical mother? What happened to Ingrid after the summerhouse? Then I did the same foolish thing that many writers do, after writing a particularly good work – they write a sequel, in my case partly based on my old musical “Silence”! First mistake: The sequel must be better than the first work, which is often hard to achieve. Second mistake, I insisted that the sequel should be the opposite of The Burning Lands, not a simple story of love but a chaotic pattern of stories about loneliness. Nice idea on a theoretical level. Here comes the practical level!

 

What’s in a Name? Names of songs and plays play an important role to me. A good name reflects the inner idea of the song/play and stirs the emotions of the audience, before they have heard a single note of the work. “Silence” was originally named after one of my early 70’ies songs, but to emphasize the antipode status of the new musical, I chose “The Ice Age” to oppose “The burning Lands”. The English version was called “Chronicle Play” to highlight the musical’s play with times and places. Several other names were considered, among them “Limbo” (the de facto title song of the play), “Copenhagen” (where the Danish version takes place) and “”Flashback” (sudden memories in time and history). Each title suggestion shows a possible side of / explanation to the complex musical.

 

The Planning of a Sequel The first thing you do when writing an opera or a musical, is to make a synopsis. The first sketch for “The Ice Age” was made in 1994, based on years and places. One of my inspirations was a Laurel and Hardy farce from 1927, where I realized in a sudden glimpse that my own mother must have been 16-years old at that time. In that moment, the black and white film with the funny hats and clumsy suits became real to me and I was a part of that time too. I realized the potential of uniting the past and the present on the scene, the images of parallel lives in times and places. This was the basis of “The Ice Age”.

   March 1995 in Micas, Andalusia, Southern Spain, I am walking in circles around my father-in-law’s swimming pool, watching the sunrise over Gibraltar and the Moroccan mountains. In my head, I was back in time, 1927, 1972, 1949, in a faraway cold country in Scandinavia, Denmark, my home. The synopsis, including characters, times and places and names of scenes was ready. Now I could write the musical.

 

All things not well The music and texts to the first 3 acts were written through June and July 1995, while the 4th act was written in December the same year. The orchestra arrangements were written December 1996 to February 1997.

   In December 1997 we held a huge audition and in January 1998, we started the rehearsals. During the rehearsals, a great confusing appeared among the actors and in June 1998, I accepted, that my chaos musical had succeeded too well. It was impossible to grasp the plot or the ideas. We stopped the rehearsals, went on tour with Stolen Springs and in 1999, I rewrote my first rock opera Swastika. The dramaturgical disaster, “The Ice Age”, had to wait for another year to be reconstructed, remade.

 

 

2000-01 Frozen Positions– The Final Musical

 

The Polish Synopsis A train in Gdańsk, Poland. A 46-years old adoptive father is on his way home to Denmark, leaving his wife and their adopted child Lukas behind in Poland for two weeks, until he returns from work in Denmark. For now, he writes on the revised synopsis to Frozen Positions, formerly known as “The Ice Age”. Not only the name of the musical, but the whole structure has been dramaturgically smoothened out and chronically “normalized”. The 1st Act now describes Michael and Pat’s marriage, 2nd Act is about the “eternal” band The Armadillos / The Whereabouts in the 1970’ies with a short visit to 1927 and Josephine Baker. The 3rd Act is about Teresa and Bruce in the late 40’ies and 50’ies, ending with Teresa’s death and the making of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The final 4th Act starts in 1966, the birth of the Hippie era and ends in 1989 with the fall of Communism and the start of Stina and Michael’s love affair, later to be the main subject of the opera The Burning Lands. The circle is complete.

 

A Couple of Corrections Back in Denmark with my wife and our son Lukas, I began to prepare myself for the actual rewriting of the musical after 1½ month in Poland. Beside a number of small interlacing scenes providing logical links between hitherto incomprehensible scenes, I have planed a completely new scene “The Red Sun”, where the gang of leftwing friends should visit revolutionary Portugal in 1975, only to return home deeply disillusioned. I spent one month researching the gloomy facts of the once so glorified “liberation” of the Portuguese dictatorship. It seems that a Leninist tyranny was only avoided through the stubbornness of a couple of idealistic social democrats! This was the revolution welcomed by the communists of my generation; woe to the silly students, woe to democracy! The story was surprisingly different to the official version (and to my own memories from 1974-75), and could have been a highlight in Frozen Positions, was it not for my dull and ineffective text. I tried to save the text through some nice and interesting music, but shortly before I finished the English translation, I skipped the whole scene and 2½ months of work. Only the small choir of the “Useful Idiots” (4th Act, “Twilight of the Gods”) remained of the original 20 minutes of music. That’s the life of a dramatist!

 

But something rather nice came out of the rewriting process. I had planned two new love songs, Teresa’s Love Song to Bruce and Stina’s Love Song to Michael. Both songs were ambitious attempts to describe the mystical love affairs in the 3rd and 4th Acts, which had especially puzzled the actors. I was, of course, scared to death as these two songs had to be very good. As a skilled and experienced songwriter I know that technical skills and experience do not guarantee good songs in the artistic sense. A technically good song without it is not a good song. But to my relief, both songs succeeded and were genuinely good. I am particularly fond of Stina’s Love Song to Michael with its intense monologue and triumphing last part.

 

After writing the text and the music, I translated the about 27,000 words into English, and at the moment of writing, the 15th of January 2001, I am about to finally finish the remaking of my 1978 musical “Silence”, now named Frozen Position. I am satisfied and curious to the audience’s reactions to this passionate story of the impossible love and bitter loneliness.

 

May the good God lead the poor humans of the past and future, we need it!

 

 

A Guide to Chaos

 

To the Director and the Actors

 

Dear friends, it is a terribly complicated story, you are about to perform. I know my text and music can be tricky and hard to understand. Therefore I will try to explain each act and each scene shortly to help you see the complete picture. The black holes and white spots are often supposed to be there, but even mysteries have some kind of explanation to them. Here come the explanations!

 

Best regards,

 

Henrik W. Gade

Writer and composer of this messy story…

 

 

 

Valby by Night, original sketch 1994 by the composer

 

 

The Acts

 

1st Act: And they Lived Happily…

In 1978 and the 1990’ies; the story of Michael, Pat and their marriage. The first political scene: the rebels in Brixton, 1993; the return of the Marxists. The act ends sadly with the frozen position of Michael, alone in the apartment. He has lost the fight.

 

2nd Act: Rock'n'roll

In 1927 and the early 1970’ies, the story of the eternal band The Whereabouts or The Armadillos, depending on time and fashion. The unhappy love story between the band’s saxophonist Hank and the militant feminist Jean. It is also the story of how the hippie era was overthrown by the Marxists in 1973-75.

 

3rd Act: In the Dark

In 1949 and the late 1950’ies, the story of Michael’s parents Teresa and Bruce, a chilly look into the Cold War and the grey fifties. Teresa’s short love affair with the cold-hearted academic Richard and her frozen position in the happy marriage with Bruce. Ends with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

 

4th Act: It’s Almost Dawn

In 1966 and 1988/89, three pictures: The Rock’n’roll revolution and the end of the violent early sixties in 1966, preceding the Summer of Love. Stina in 1988, longing for love in her empty safety with husband and child. In 1989, the final scenes of “Frozen Positions” with Love’s triumph between Michael and Stina and Berlin during the fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War.

 

 

The Scenes in the 1st Act

 

Overture A short prologue by the three Muses, Music, Love and Inspiration. Then follows the bitter song of broken love “Jericho” as the overture to Michael and Pat’s story.

 

Scene 1, Out in the Open The prologue by the children Peter and Wendy, who always start with a sarcastic travesty of each scene’s content. The first part of the scene takes place in Cambridge, Christmas 1977. Michael tells his family about Pat. The last part of the scene takes place in a Park, 1978. The young couple and their friends have a picnic and share their dreams. The loss of Mike and Pat’s child.

 

Scene 2, The Night of the Young Gods The roaring and violent return of the Marxist youths, the rebels in 1993. A war between the generations; police and rebels, parents and children, satire and tragedy.

 

Scene 3, Land of the Dead A spiritual tomb in 1993. David has lost Stina, Pat has lost Mike (and vice versa), Ingrid has lost Jack, and so everybody freezes in Limbo, except for the small girls who are just bored to death.

 

Scene 4, There once was a Tree A Christmas party in 1996 and a lonely man in a penthouse apartment with his red wine and bitter thoughts. A glimpse of Greenland in 1997 with a happy Pat. The act ends with Stina in Eskimo dress singing the self-healing, sad jazz song “Clouds (winter)”.

 

 

The Scenes in the 2nd Act

 

Scene 1, Cinderella A jump in time and history, the height of the Charleston craze in 1927. We introduce the band, The Armadillos, and the singers, Lizzie and Jonas. Josephine Baker, semi-nazi students and the monocles and yellow ties. Another period, other names, yet the same young women and men as always.

 

Scene 2, The Free Will of the Princess We reverse the year 27 to 72. We are now in a cold flat inhabited with young rock musicians and high school girls. The band, now called The Whereabouts, daydreams. The love affair between Hank and Jean has its strange start. Next part of the scene takes place in 1973, in the rehearsal room of the band and later at a party. A schism between the romantic young band and the leftwing older generation is now apparent; the Marxists are about to take over.

 

Scene 3, The False Night The unsightly era of Marxism and Terrorism has begun. 1975, terrorism rules on every level, including the marriage of George and Louise or the lovers Jean and Hank. Interrogations and brainwash, tyranny carried out by intelligent well-meaning young students, a very sad time. Hank takes his own life in despair, as he realizes that Jean doesn’t love him for real.

 

Scene 4, No Future Later in 1975 at the Marquee Club in London, the band without Hank plays for a dancing audience. Jacob the bass player has his long awaited first gay experience. The muses dance and have fun and Pat meets Michael for the first time, dance and kiss.

 

 

The Scenes in the 3rd Act

 

Scene 1, The White Darkness In Edinburgh, 1949, Teresa attends a literary seminar with her lover Richard. It’s evening in the open-air dance floor. The Armadillos play Boogie Woogie and Bebop. Teresa and Lizzie take their small yellow pills and hallucinate. Teresa looses Richard and dances in the moonlight, lonely and proud. In London shortly after, Teresa’s fiancé Bruce receives his coming wife on the train station. Teresa gives in for the safety and warmth of family life. And gives up freedom and love.

 

Scene 2, Pimlico Teresa with children and husband in Pimlico 1957, still on pills, still longing for the love, she never had. The cold river and its light eternity. Bruce, the inventor, has thought out the ideal gift for the man who has everything, the light capsules! Cold war and the shadows of the Atomic bomb make the whole nation tremble with fear and hate.

 

Scene 3, Ikaros A car factory in 1961, Bruce makes great marketing plans, and receives a telephone call. Death enters the family life and crashes the glorious dreams of Bruce, the inventor. The motherless children.

 

Scene 4, The Deserted City A school in 1961, Ernest the teacher tells the children about the Berlin Wall. The nerd Max is mobbed, George and Jean are having a childish flirt in the schoolyard. The scene ends with the classic song “There’s a Kind of Hush”, foreboding the Summer of Love and the Happy Sixties to come.

 

 

The Scenes in the 4th Act

 

Scene 1, Max, who wouldn’t have a Sweetheart Here come the new times! Rock’n’roll is here to stay! An open air concert in 1966, the rock idols The Whereabouts are about to play another hit song. The children have their autographs and the big girls sit and exchange gossip. Max, the nerd, creeps in from behind and places a bomb to end all vicious girls and all the stupid love he will never have. George in his Beatles jacket meets Louise. The band plays “Modesty Blaise” and the bomb explodes. Good vibrations and bloody terror, a new generation split between Love and War.

 

Scene 2, The White Darkness Stina’s Monologue 1988, strange dreams of vague bodies embracing in the mist, soft cat metamorphoses into hedgehog in rotten leaves. Wild roses moulder and resurrect in a new Golden Summer. The orgasm, the long lost lovers, the family, and the love song to Michael. A party in 1989, Stina meets the real Michael and they unite, while George falls asleep and the women argue endlessly. The Muses meet earthly love and the Bartender miraculously pays the band (for the first time!)

 

Scene 3, Twilight of the Gods The fall of the Berlin Wall 1989, the friends meet the freed East Germans and the End of History. But this is only the beginning of yet another History in a never-ending row of unknown worlds. The small identical houses rest peacefully under a starry sky. The band plays their farewell song “Wrong Number Blues”: Looking for freedom, looking for love, the end of frozen Positions.

 

 

The Main Characters

 

The Friends               Stina, Statistician, Michael’s lover, married to David

                                      David, Marine biologist, married to Stina

                                      Sarah, Daughter of Stina and David

                                      Jean, Priest, Priest, Hank’s lover

                                      Ingrid, nurse, previously married to Jack

                                      Jack, Grammar School Teacher, divorced from Ingrid

                                      Sally, Daughter of Ingrid and Jack

 

Michael’s Family       Teresa, Housewife, Michael and Pete’s mother, married to Bruce

                                      Bruce, Inventor, married to Therese

                                      Michael (Mike), Programmer married to Pat

                                      George, Official, Mike’s big brother

                                      Louise, Grammar School Teacher, married to George

 

Pat’s Family               Patricia (Pat), Geologist, married to Michael

                                      Peggy, Ethnographer, Patricia’s sister

                                      Bert, Barkeeper, married to Peggy

                                      Doris, the daughter of Peggy and Bert

                                      Nicholas, the son of Peggy and Bert

 

The Band                   Lizzie (Lead Vocal)

                                      Jonas (Lead Vocal and Guitar)

                                      Hank (Lead Vocal and sax), the lover of Jean

                                      Keith (drums), Hank’s childhood friend

                                      Jacob (bas), the gay 10% of the band

                                      Ronald (sax and accounts)

                                      Tony (sax)

                                      Freddy (piano)

                                      Peter Rabbit, The roadie of the eternal band

                                      The Bartender, The wicked manager, hotel landlord, official etc.

 

The Muses                 Polyhymnia, Muse of the Hymns

                                      Erato, Muse of the Lyre and the electric guitar

                                      Terpsichore, Muse of the Dance

 

The School                Max, Mentally disordered criminal, George’s schoolmate

                                      Ernest, The class teacher of George and Jacob, Jacob’s lover

 

Other Creatures        Peter, 7-years old, fairy tale figure

                                      Wendy, 7-years old, fairy tale figure

                                      Richard, Don in Cambridge, Teresa’s lover

                                      Kevin Conrad, Journalist from the Daily Horror

 

 

The Songs

 

Lizzie

Banana Strut....................................................... Charleston

Clumsy Humphrey.............................................. Charleston

Love's So Easy.................................................. Ballad (1992)

New York Boogie Woogie................................ Boogie Woogie

 

Jonas/Lizzi

Wrong Number Blues........................................ Boogie Woogie (1991)

 

Jonas

Doubts................................................................. Ballad (1997)

Embracing You................................................... Funk (1990)

Fellatio................................................................ Rock (1974)

Jericho................................................................ Rock ballad (1991)

Limbo.................................................................. Bossa nova (1976)

Modesty Blaise.................................................. Rock’n’roll

The Dead (Touch Me)....................................... Ballad (1973)

The Sun is Shining Cold and Bleak................. Rock (1973)

 

Hank

Water’s Rising above your Sanctuaries.......... Ballad (1973)

 

Jean/Hank

Listen, honestly!

   This place is no fun anymore......................... Classical

 

Jean

It is good that you’re trying to realize your faults    Classical

 

Mike

Open Window, Closed Heart............................ Rock (1972/1997)

Hard to Tell......................................................... Jazz ballad (1992)

 

Stina

Clouds (Winter).................................................. Jazz ballad (1992)

Stina’s Monologue............................................. Classical (2000)

Stina’s Song to Mike......................................... Ballad (2000)

 

Mike/Pat

Christmas........................................................... Reggae (1993)

 

Pat

Spring.................................................................. Ballad (1986)

 

Teresa

How could you hurt me...................................... Classical

A huge A-bomb drill takes place...................... Classical

Good morning! What a lovely weather today!. Classical (2000)

Teresa’s Love Song to Bruce........................... Ballad (2000)

The River............................................................. Bossa nova

 

Teresa et al

There's a Kind of Hush all over the World*)...... Ballad (1964)

 

Bruce/Teresa

A hearty welcome love...................................... Classical (2000)

I think the happy colour’s stimulating................ Classical

 

Ernest

As many of you surely must have heard.......... Classical

 

Sarah/Sally

I’m bored to death!............................................. Classical

 

The Bartender

The Bobby’s Epilogue....................................... Country (2000)

 

Choir

Between the Stars of Heaven........................... Classical

Burn McDonalds................................................ Rock (2000)

Now lengthens ev’ry shadow............................ Classical

Police Choir........................................................ Rock 2000

Settle Down/Leaving Home.............................. Funk (1996)

The Useful Idiots................................................. Rock (2000)

 

If no year is stated, the song is written in 1995. Most of the other songs are taken from the repertoire of my bands Der Prozess (1971-1974), Nekropolis (1975-1978) and Satyricon (1974 – still alive and kicking).

 

*) Music & Lyrics: © Stephens/Reed

 

 

 

The Danish and English Versions of the Musical

 

Frozen Positions was originally written in Danish about parts of Danish History. When a story from a small country like Denmark is presented to an international audience in English, one can choose to keep the exotic Scandinavian surroundings or move the story to a better-known country. The Danish author Peter Hoegh kept the Danish surroundings with great success in the film version of his novel “Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow”. I personally, would not mind the British, German or French audiences seeing the real Denmark behind Hans Christian Andersen, but altogether I think it makes more sense to “localize” the story in a major country. As I was translating the libretto into English, I chose England as my musical’s new home.

 

Photo: Real life Bydga in Norway
(Edinburgh in the English version)

 

The following changes in place and history have been made: Copenhagen became London, Aarhus in Jutland became Cambridge, Bydga in Norway sailed away to Edinburgh in Scotland and the suburb Valby in Copenhagen went to Pimlico in London. The horrible riots on Saint Hans Square in Copenhagen after the EEC elections on May the 18th 1993 where the police shot directly at the crowd have been transferred to a fictive riot in Brixton the same year. Finally, the central music venture of Copenhagen in the 1970’ies, Musikkafeen, became Marquee Club in London.

 

 

 

The Author

Henrik W. Gade was born in 1953 in Copenhagen. After graduating from the Metropolitan Latin School in 1972, he began pursuing a career as a rock musician. His first record with the band Nekropolis was released in 1976. A few years later, in 1979, Gade had his debut as a musical theatre composer on the Café Theatre in Copenhagen with a Baudelaire cabaret. Over the years, H.W. Gade has released over 15 records and written about 40 songbooks and music primers. He is now mainly working with musical drama and has written 8 musicals/operas, the latest work being the musical "Frozen Position" released in the spring of 2001. H.W. Gade plays the electric bass and the guitar. He still tours and records with his band Satyricon. H.W. Gade is the great-grandson of world famous Danish composer Niels W. Gade (1817-90).

Photo: H.W. Gade with Lukas and
Guitarist Sebastian Kalamajski
July 2000, Denmark.
Photo Paula S. Gade ©

 

Technical Information

 

Copyrights

Låste døre / Frozen Positions

ISBN 87-88619-97-4

1st Edition, 1st Issue, Spring 2001

 

 

Digital BooksÔ is a trademark of NORDISC Music & Text, DK-2700 Broenshoej, Denmark

 

Unless otherwise stated, all texts, songs and musical arrangements are by H.W. Gade © 1972-2001. Concept, scenography and sketches by the composer © 1995/2000-20001. Parts of Låste døre / Frozen Positions are based on the play “Tavsed” (Forlaget Drama 1982) by the composer.

 

Copyright Claimer for Låste døre / Frozen Positions

1. The words and music of this work must never be changed or abbreviated in any way without the written consent of the composer himself. See also point 3 in this copyright claimer.

2. The visual visions / dreams in the work must never be excluded when the work is performed in public.

3. The composer will accept no censorship on the texts and the sexual, political or philosophical issues discussed within the work. The sexual parts and the love scenes must never be omitted or changed.

4. All names of persons and places are pure fiction and must not be confused with our physical reality. Where ever that may be!

5. The play “Tavshed” (Forlaget Drama 1982) on which Låste døre / Frozen Positions is partly based, must not be performed in public, sold or otherwise distributed any more as from the 1st of January 1998.

 

 

What does it take to perform Frozen Positions?

Frozen Positions is very demanding both in terms of acting, singing and scenography. You need at least 25 actors, a band and a small symphony orchestra (the latter can be replaced with the MIDI files). You need a large projection screen with background video, text and effects. You also need historical costumes from 1927, 1949, 1957, 1961, 1966, 1972, 1978 and 1996. On top of that, you must build a bridge over a railway and reconstruct a fun fair from 1966 complete with Wheel of Fortune and fish & chips booth. The libretto is richly illustrated to help spark your imagination. There a very few restrictions (see the copyright section), so you may materialize the musical in a thousand different ways according to your budget or your dreams as long as the historical spirit of the scenes stays intense and alive.

And of course you need to train the actors to sing and dance in Charleston, Boogie Woogie and Rock’n’roll style.

Full stop, phew!

 

Playing Time

1st Act
[51min]

Pause

2nd Act
[50min

Pause

3rd Act
[44min]

4th Act
[35min

Total Duration 3hours