Despairadise — the musical



		The Story
		A troupe of nihilistic European art-film makers learn the true meaning of despair when their director discovers love and happiness.
	Henri, a Parisian bohemian, writes bleak films. Greta, a middle-aged German Lesbian, produces them. Francesca, an Italian actress so beautiful that men would literally die for her — but are too intimidated to live for her — stars in them. The films embody their worldview and the life they would not trade. They stand proudly in the shadow of their director, Janusz. He is the savant of the avant garde, admired by cineastes the world over for his daringly stark films and his dedication to “The Truth! Only the Truth!” Henri and his cohorts are thrown into upheaval when their director turns up in love. Giddily, happily, unabashedly in love. Worse, it is with an outgoing, well adjusted, All-American girl-next-door from Cincinnati, Ohio. An American! Named Cathy! These new emotions start to alter Janusz’s Weltanschauung and, more dreadfully than that, his art. Humor and hope have corrupted the troupe’s work. Efforts to break up the lovers backfire. Then Henri is handed an opportunity to abandon Cathy at sea when she is swimming off the yacht that hosts the guests of her and Janusz’s engagement party. Henri forges a suicide letter, Cathy is left for dead, and Janusz returns to his old self. For Henri and his friends, everything is back to the way it used to be. Yet part of Janusz cannot let go. The love lives on, even though Cathy does not. Out of guilt, Henri and Greta, who has become an accessory after the fact, cave in to Janusz’s demands to re-inject fantasy and hope into their film. Investors are pulling out their investments. And Henri and Greta further discover that Cathy was a champion swimmer. Distance. Long distance. The longer, the better. In fact, she still holds records in— Well, suffice it to say that prison is now a possibility. But worst of all, they begin to feel Janusz’s genuinely human pain over his loss, in part because they have each discovered such longings for loves of their own. There is no way out of their predicament but to embrace the truth — which turns out to be utterly unbelievable!
AUTHORS MUSIC CONTACT HOME