April 20, 2025 • 45 mins
Chat out of Hell is back to go where other podcasts won't - in this case, to Jim Steinman's very first musical creation.
This episode we dive into the Dream Engine - produced at Amherst College in 1969, burning a trail through rock and roll history for the rest of time. Our interepid duo dive deep into this murky sea, providing the answers to questions like:
- What sort of socially aware theatre would a bunch of naive teens in Scarborough produce?
- How much does Emma know about Arnaud's theatre of cruelty?
- Are there any actually good songs in this one?
PLUS all the good sundry nonsense including hefty amounts of excitement about going to see the Bat musical and a good bit about anniversary presents.
Keep your comments, reviews and arguments flying in to chatoutofhell@gmail.com, find us on Facebook or Instagram by searching Chat out of Hell and don't forget to use the hashtag #DearA1saucewedontneedyoursaucenowwevegotourown
Chat out of Hell is a is a review podcast: all music extracts are used for review/illustrative purposes. To hear the songs in full please buy them from your local record shop or streaming platform. Don't do a piracy.
Music extracts on this episode taken from the Dream Engine, performed at Mount Holyoke College in 1969. Available from jimsteinman.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam (00:00):
What is This
Emma (00:01):
This Is Chat Out Of Hell.
The only podcast that dares todive deep into the back
catalogues of Meat Loaf and JimSteinman and see if there are
pearls at the bottom of thathorrible ocean.
Sam (00:14):
Who is Meat Loaf?
Emma (00:15):
Meat Loaf was an actor, singer, and musician who doesn't
feature in any of today'sramblings.
Who's Jim Steinman?
Sam (00:23):
Jim Steinman was a musician, writer, and producer
who thought of himself and MeatLoaf as a duo, like Hall and
Oates.
Emma (00:31):
Who are we?
Sam (00:32):
We are Sam Wilkinson and Emma Crossland, the Jim Steinman
and Meat Loaf of Jim Steinmanand Meat Loaf Analysis podcasts.
Emma (00:39):
Let's never discuss who is who.
Sam (00:41):
Welcome to Chat Out of Hell Bow.
Now.
Now, now Bing.
Emma (00:46):
Bing.
Sam (00:47):
I've realized in the edits that every time I sing the
theme, I sing it either much tooslow or much too fast compared
to the actual bit of theme.
And then when I overlay them, itdoesn't work.
Emma (01:00):
Does it matter though?
Sam (01:01):
it Yeah.
I think we're losing thousandsof listeners
Emma (01:06):
they just tune in, they hear that bit.
Yeah.
And then it's like, nah, I'mnot,
Sam (01:09):
not for me.
Not for
Emma (01:11):
it's just not good enough.
Sam (01:14):
Alright, good.
I'm gonna clip that bit out andplay it to myself when I'm
feeling down,
Emma (01:19):
Oh God.
Do I need to do like an oppositenow and say, Sam, you are the
best.
So that you, can
Sam (01:25):
Could you sound less sarcastic when
Emma (01:27):
No, no, I can't.
It's just my voice.
Sorry.
I suffer from what's known asinsincere voice.
Sam (01:35):
I think you are the Jim Steinman
Emma (01:36):
I am not sure whether to take that as a
Sam (01:43):
compliment No, Neither of them are compliments.
So here we go.
Series four Chat out of Hell.
We've now, started more Chatsout of Hell than there are Bat
out of hell albums.
Wow.
in your
Emma (01:57):
Yeah, in face Meat Loaf
Sam (01:59):
Lazy, old, so and so.
We're starting series four.
As weary as we were at the endof series three, which is maybe
a bad sign, but there you go.
But I'm quite excited to getback to listening to Good Meat
Loaf and Jim Steinman works
Emma (02:15):
I'm really looking forward to listening to the bangers and
some of the, fun daft awful
Sam (02:19):
Speaking of fun things, we're looking forward to.
We are going to see the Bat outof Hell musical
Emma (02:23):
week.
I'm so excited.
Sam (02:25):
Yeah.
Listeners, if you are listeningto this on the day it comes out,
we'll be going to see it in justa couple of days.
So last call.
If you do have any thoughts onthe musical or things that we
should look out for, drop us aline, chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
so normally, Emma on thispodcast, the deal is that we
both bring a song by Meat Loafor Jim Steinman to our analysis
machine.
(02:45):
Yes.
And calculate whether or notit's a good or bad song.
To celebrate us going to see thefinal Jim Steinman musical
Emma (02:54):
mm-hmm.
Sam (02:54):
We have decided to review instead the very first Jim
Steinman musical theatre show.
which is a piece called TheDream Engine
Emma (03:04):
Dream
Sam (03:06):
Engine Dream
Emma (03:07):
Engine..
Sam (03:08):
Dreams Which he wrote in college in 1969.
So, listeners, normally I tellyou to go away and find YouTube
or Spotify and listen to thepiece we're about to discuss.
Don't, don't, don't, don't do itnow.
it's over two hours long.
(03:28):
It is Student
Emma (03:30):
It's all available on Jim's
Sam (03:31):
website.
It's all available on Jim'swebsite in the form of a
recording of a performance.
From tape recorder at the backof the room somewhere.
it's low quality in lots ofways, is what we're saying.
We are gonna dive in now.
So listeners don't go away toYouTube or Spotify.
Instead, close your eyes, evenif you're driving.
Close your eyes.
(03:52):
Wavy
Emma (03:53):
lines appear
Sam (03:54):
lines.
Appear, bling, bling bling.
Imagine it's April the 25th,1969.
You're in the sleepy backwoodsof Western Massachusetts.
extensive woodlands areinterspersed with wooden
clapboard churches, weirdantique shops and tourist
attractions with names likeBasketville it's a real place.
(04:14):
Is it?
Yeah, it closed a few years ago.
Um, I think it might actually bein New Hampshire, but it's all
the same there.
What, what, sorry.
Are you about to ask me what thedeal with Basketville is?
Basket
Emma (04:23):
Yeah.
Basketville
Sam (04:25):
yeah.
A big shop that's sold baskets.
Emma (04:28):
Of course it was.
Yeah.
Oh, America has
Sam (04:31):
everything.
America has everything.
Amherst is one of the few townsaround there.
In the 1970 census, it willrecord a population of 26,000,
It's a sleepy college townexactly like the ones you've
seen in films.
It's all grassy quadrangles andbrick halls with a white clock
tower on top and a boy playinghacky sack on the lawn.
This is a hotbed of the liberalarts, in this time means
(04:52):
anti-Vietnam sentiment andlong-haired weirdos with
electric guitars.
In Amherst College's KirbyTheatre, a three night run of a
brand new work by one of theseangry young folk is about to
begin.
The auditorium is crowded, therun has already sold out.
If we extend the artisticlicense far enough, we can
imagine the futureparents-in-law of one of the
(05:13):
future's greatestSteinmanologists in in the
crowd.
The lights go down, the bandstrikes up, and history is about
to be made.
(05:42):
Anyway, that's nine.
Minutes long.
We're not listening to all ofthat.
Good.
Okay, Emma.
we're not gonna Film Club thisand give it a blow by blow, but
what is the Dream Engine about?
Emma (05:55):
what's it about?
Yeah.
Sam (05:58):
Do you want me to say what it's about?
Yeah.
Emma (06:00):
because I, I've
Sam (06:01):
I'm
Emma (06:01):
not bit of
Sam (06:02):
synopsis yet.
it's a rock opera.
This is a big balls out electricguitars everywhere.
Half the cast turns out naked atthe end of it.
1970s Rock opera.
Emma looks so unhappy.
Emma (06:21):
I mean, we had Hair.
That was good.
Sam (06:24):
this was a, an angrier version of Hair.
Jim talks about Hair, I think inan article he wrote for the
student paper about this, wherebasically the, hippie flower
child era of Hair is alreadyover.
Yeah.
And we need this dark, angryyouth uprising Broadly speaking,
it's about a, dystopian futuretype world where a young,
(06:46):
charismatic man called Baaltakes a tribe of
Emma (06:51):
That's it?
Sam (06:53):
Into a, a weird, wouldn't you know it?
A Peter Pan style existence awayfrom the horrible adults.
But the adults keep trying tobring him back and interrogating
him and trying to draft him intothe army.
So he leads a teenage uprising,which destroys the city and
leaves everybody dead.
Now,
Emma (07:13):
Somewhere in my readings around this, there was mention
of it being quite a similar taleto the Manson family.
Sam (07:21):
The events, the events of the Manson family, the crimes of
Emma (07:25):
of Charles man events,
Sam (07:26):
Yes., the crimes of Charles Manson were not committed until
after this was performed.
Yes.
So he very much predicted thezeitgeist, Emma.
Emma (07:34):
Does this mean that Steinman is, if anything, an
inspiration?
Sam (07:39):
Oh God, was Charles Manson next to my mother-in-law in that
auditorium?
That is a synopsis of the plot,but it's, something you have to
work hard to pick out.
There are two.
Actors who play the roles calledMax and Emily, who themselves
then play all the authorityfigures which is very confusing
(08:00):
for a long time, so Max isintermittently a kid trying to
infiltrate the tribe and thenhe's the chief of police and
then he's a psychiatrist
Emma (08:06):
I wonder if we saw this in the visual medium that it was
meant to be seen in, instead ofjust listening to a bad
recording of it.
I wonder if we'd have picked
Sam (08:13):
on that Yeah, we probably would've done.
Yeah.
We do have to address that now.
We listened to a bad recordingof this show.
The show is introduced by anhistorian,
Emma (08:24):
oh God.
Blood or ketchup, ketchup or
Sam (08:28):
our blood.
ketchup of
Emma (08:29):
Or Blood.
Sam (08:29):
kick catch our blood.
The historian, introduces thekey concepts of the show.
Yeah.
In a 15 minute monologue.
Emma (08:38):
style was influenced by elements of Brecht.
Yes.
Which brings us to our first, ofwhat will probably be several,
theatre wanker moments.
Sam (08:48):
theatre wanker.
Emma (08:50):
You and I have both studied, studied.
Sam (08:54):
we have studied the
Emma (08:54):
theatre, we've studied, the theatre and the styles of
Brecht, at A Level which for ourAmerican listeners means that we
were pretentious 18 year olds.
Sam (09:06):
high.
Oh no, I don't like doing theaccent.
Sorry.
America, that was unwarranted.
Emma (09:11):
which of Brecht's plays did you
Sam (09:13):
Emma, I studied, the Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
Ah,
Emma (09:17):
Ah.
'cause I studied the CaucasianChalk Circle.
Okay.
So we have
Sam (09:22):
right.
Do you know, I don't know yoursat all.
No, because why would you readanother Brecht when
Emma (09:27):
Jesus
Sam (09:28):
which Christ.
Quick summary.
Bertolt Brecht was a, theatre.
Writer, director, practitioner,practitioner, yes.
That's what he would've calledhimself.
He was a practitioner whoinsisted that the audience
should never forget that theyare watching a play.
Emma (09:45):
which meant watching the plays was genuinely quite a
punishing ordeal, there was alot of narration.
Sam (09:51):
There's a lot of narration.
There's a lot of reminding youthat you are watching a thing
that we are putting on for youand Ooh, the cast are in the
audience and they're gonna
Emma (09:58):
There was also quite a lot of telling you what was going to
happen before it
Sam (10:01):
happened.
Yes.
Yeah.
Lots of that sort of stuff.
just for info, the ResistibleRise of Arturo Ui is an analogue
for the rise of Hitler, whichtakes place in a market town
that trades cabbages.
Emma (10:14):
Oh, that's nice.
Sam (10:15):
Mm-hmm.
Emma (10:15):
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, is a play about a
peasant woman who saves a babyfrom the governor's family
during a political upheaval.
When the old regime returns, thegovernor's widow claims the baby
as her own, having not raisedthe child.
So it's about themes to do withmotherhood and the judicial
system, and the struggle betweenthe privilege and the oppressed
Sam (10:37):
worthy stuff,
Emma (10:39):
Very worthy
Sam (10:39):
stuff.
That 18 year olds in small town,sixth form colleges are
definitely equipped to handle,anyway, That's the sort of thing
that is influencing young JimSteinman Young, Jim Steinman
writes this piece as part of hisdegree.
it's a piece of independentstudy and he puts it on local
(11:00):
college auditorium.
And it's so good that it's gonnatransfer to another local
college and then to the New YorkShakespeare Festival.
This show is really wellreceived.
Look at your face.
It's big.
It's electric.
It's Brechtian, but it's alsorock and roll.
And it's operatic'cause ofcourse it is,'cause it's Jim and
(11:23):
it's far too long because ofcourse it is, it's Jim.
And everything gets repeated 50times because of course it is.
It's Jim.
It's There's lists.
All the classic elements of Jimare already there.
I
Emma (11:35):
know there are speeches that we've already talked
Sam (11:37):
about.
There are speeches we've alreadytalked about.
There's some others that are yetto come up in, in our coverage
of the songs, but there's a fewother forward references.
I know you hate this, Emma.
Emma (11:45):
I hate it so much
Sam (11:46):
You hate this so much.
I won't say I'm a fan, but I canreally see where this is coming
from.
The historian is the narratorwho is going and mucking about
with the crowd and being a twat.
you've got actors playing Maxand Emily, who themselves are
playing various authority figureroles.
Yes.
And then you've got Jim Steinmanhimself playing the role of
(12:09):
Baal, the charismatic cultleader.
I guess if you write the show,you can cast who you like,
right?
Yeah.
And then you've got anassortment of other people who
are in the cast.
Yeah.
when I opened the cast list, Iwas really desperate to see my
parents in law on there, butsadly, not really.
Don't think it would've beentheir thing.
Emma (12:30):
it all could have been so different,
Sam (12:31):
could have been so different.
We're talking about it becauseit's the first step on Jim's
road to success.
Emma (12:40):
think if this had've been my introduction to Jim, we might
not have been doing this.
Sam (12:49):
It's, it's a really good job.
We've not done this show inchronological order.
We
Emma (12:53):
My first introduction to Jim was in the nineties Bat Out
of Hell Two.
which is incredible and so muchfun.
10-year-old Emma would not haveappreciated.
Sam (13:05):
10-year-old.
Emma would not have loved, uh,
Emma (13:07):
even the music in this.
Sam (13:09):
Do you not like the music
Emma (13:10):
in it?
I hate the
Sam (13:11):
music in it.
All of it.
of it.
Okay.
This is where we might have to,I would like to reiterate, I
don't think this is a good show,but, okay.
I didn't enjoy listening to amuffled tape recording of a
mostly visual show whichcontains a lot of references to
contemporary politics.
Yeah.
Which went obviously right overmy head.
(13:31):
Some bits of it were quitefunny.
Some, some of the songs I quiteenjoyed.
Okay.
The song that I've used as theintro to our podcast Come in the
Night Invocation of the Tribe.
my note here says, I think it'sa genuinely decent song.
It's got a good hook and it'sfull of youthful rage, but it's
just too long, even for amusical theatre number.
(13:56):
it is actually quite catchy andI think it probably has a good
dance that accompanies it.
You know, just like theMacarena.
Emma (14:01):
can we talk about the dance
Sam (14:02):
No.
We want to talk about theMacarena.
Emma (14:04):
There's a preface to this, which is exerpted from Jim's
draft manuscript.
I am not going to read it allbecause as with all Jim stuff,
it's too long.
"I can't help thinking thatArtaud would've adored rock and
found its sources and textures.
A true example of theatre, ofcruelty." And did you do any
theatre of cruelty stuff?
(14:25):
Uh, we did touch on Artaud andtheatre of Cruelty.
Sam (14:29):
what's the general gist of theatre of cruelty?
Emma (14:31):
Oh God.
I mean it's really going back abit, but it's, involving the
audience Okay.
In uncomfortable
Sam (14:39):
involving the audience in this show truly is cruelty.
Emma (14:45):
Jim does go on to talk about the dances.
"All the songs are sung out ofthe action, eg by soloists, like
rock arias on the platformswhile simultaneously on the
disc," which is the stage areathat he's prescribed"these
strongly choreographed ordirected dancers and rituals are
performed.
These rituals cannot be loose orragged or have anything to do
(15:08):
with pop dance steps.
"Neither can they be dancey, iecompletely part of the world of
calculated, deliberate moderndance.
they must convey a ceremonialquality and epic texture,
strenuous, strong, muscular,sensual, and extreme.
Never cute." It's gonna be atough watch that
Sam (15:33):
in
Emma (15:33):
isn't it it Strictly it ain't
Sam (15:37):
So you're saying it's not gonna be like the Macarena,
Emma (15:40):
it's not gonna be like the Macarena you know, the dances
that we've seen in some of Jim'sother music videos,
Sam (15:46):
Yes, yes.
From his solo album around theearly eighties.
It's that, it's it's definitelythat.
Yeah.
this is Jim at his mostpretentious and
Emma (15:55):
Yeah.
Sam (15:56):
but I would, it's astonishing.
But this is the age to be atpretentious and wanky.
Emma (16:01):
Its, it is.
If I'd have had the confidenceand if I'd have been doing the
right kind of course, yeah.
I'd have written some dog shitlike
Sam (16:10):
this.
Agreed.
See, play is horse shit.
Yes.
Yes.
It's, but it's the sort of horseshit that we both would've come
out with at the time.
this show is a response toVietnam.
It's full of teenage youth andanger.
And it does some sort ofinteresting things with the old
characters and stuff, it isexactly what you want people who
(16:31):
go to a prestigious liberal artscollege in the middle of
Massachusetts to be coming outwith.
Yes.
if they're not doing that, mytax dollars have gone to waste.
Please don't write in and tellme that Amherst College is a
private institution.
I already know that.
Emma (16:47):
Oh yeah.
is what you want from the youth.
Sam (16:50):
The youth can either be writing tedious three hour rock
operas mm-hmm.
Or hang out under the bushshelter smoking smoking fags.
And you and me were definitely,tedious.
Three hour rock
Emma (17:02):
opera.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was definitely a rock operakid.
Oh God.
So as much as I dislike this, itis also, I am in this picture
and I don't like what I seeholding
Sam (17:13):
up a mirror to you, Emma.
some of our favorite bits oflater Jim work appear in this.
So we've already talked when wetalked about, Total Eclipse of
the Heart.
That does, you know, the, the,the turnaround refrain comes in
on Come in the
Emma (17:28):
There's God speeding in here as
Sam (17:30):
There's some God speeding.
There is,"there are no lies onmy body", which is a constant
coda in the first act of thisshow and is one of the nice
lines in Left in the Dark, whichis a really lovely song.
Yes.
it's used a really weird way inthis show, let me tell you Who
Needs the Young, and a couple ofother songs from this show are
(17:50):
on Meat Loaf's final album.
Yes.
Braver Than We Are.
Okay.
I would like to talk about howmuch I quite like Who Needs The
Young in this.
Okay.
(18:19):
get the gist.
it's this dark, twisted cabarettype thing is very Brechtian
like Brecht 1 0 1.
He has it performed by thecharacters of Max and Emily who
are young people playing, oldpeople, singing about how young
people are rubbish.
And I think there is somethingreally great in that, which is
then utterly ruined when MeatLoaf, an old man, sings it on
(18:40):
his final album.
Emma (18:41):
Yeah.
It's not got the same, uh,
Sam (18:43):
there, there is something quite knowing in this show about
how he's acknowledging that he'sa young person, raging about old
people, not understanding youngpeople, but also that's a stupid
idea and everybody ends up deadat the end we're all quite angry
at each other and I don't reallyknow why, but a America's
fucked, anyway.
the Mirrors monologue.
appears in this, The Want Ad.
(19:05):
So the Mirrors monologue, isgiven to Baal and it makes sense
coming out of his mouth'causehe's a cult lunatic.
Yes.
The Want Ad sort of makes sensein the context of where it was.
Mm.
It comes in in a bit that iscalled the Voices of
Civilization, where it's acacophony of the whole tribe of
young people reading outdifferent stupid personal ads
(19:27):
all overlapping and shoutingover one another.
Liberation through Painbrackets, Firebird.
Have a listen to this.
Act one has two things happen init, right?
We learn about the tribe andthen, Baal gets interrogated by
(19:49):
the police.
And then I would say 45 minutesis spent initiating a new member
into the tribe.
Yeah.
And this comes at the very endof that.
In a minute, this will get good.
I think I, mean, it may be thatI was listening to this while
(20:19):
driving through the beautifulLake District
Emma (20:42):
Was the screaming particularly, uh, accentuating
Your Drive.
So I think a lot of what'skilled it for me is I know we're
listening to a recording that'sstood from the back of a room
but I found that quite hard topay attention to.
Fair enough.
and also.
(21:02):
I think the singing's dreadful.
Yeah.
And the plinky plonky piano,it's like fucking school
assemblies.
Sam (21:09):
It is the plinky plonky piano.
And some of this is ambitiousand massive and incredible and
some of it is working with whatyou've got.
Emma (21:17):
and I appreciate working with what you've got.
'cause that's what we're allabout.
Sam (21:22):
There is a full band with electric instruments who
accompany some of the songs andThey sound pretty damn good.
They blow out the miccompletely, so you can't really
tell, you can't tell on ourrecording, but they do sound
really quite competent and acool new sound in musical
theatre.
then I, I will grant you some ofthe more traditional solos are
(21:43):
accompanied by a plinky plonkypiano.
And Jim Steinman is playing thelead.
Emma (21:48):
and all I, can see is I'm back at school.
it's school assembly.
We're singing a hymn.
We're being told off for notsinging it well enough.
Sam (21:57):
being projected by an OHP onto the
Emma (21:59):
being projected onto the back wall.
A teacher who can play the pianois accompanying us.
It is a joyless experience forall involved.
Sam (22:08):
Take me down to the Firebird.
Emma (22:13):
Yeah.
that's the vibe, again, I knowit's because they're working
with what they've got.
Yeah.
And I fully expect ourexperience, this week in Jim's
latest musical to be somewhatdifferent to this.
Sam (22:25):
this I should hope so.
But again, this was so good thatJoe Papp of the New York
Shakespeare Festival went, Iwant that show on at my massive
New York theatre festival.
And as it happened, it never gotperformed several times.
For various reasons, the,staging at the New York
(22:48):
Shakespeare Festival didn'treally happen.
I think that was due to thenudity in the show.
Yeah.
And then they tried to stage itat the Arena theatre in
Washington DC and had anincredible cast lined up for
that.
More on that later.
But that didn't happen either.
because Jim fell out with theproducer or possibly the
(23:09):
director.
Either way, bloody Jim ruined itfor himself.
Yeah.
But then this show, he rewroteinto Neverland.
Emma (23:18):
Yes.
It's been his constant work.
Sam (23:22):
This is his constant work in progress.
isn't it?
Indeed.
So when we go see the Bat out ofHell, musical final, it is this,
it is the final edit of this
Emma (23:31):
with some banging songs in it
Sam (23:32):
some better songs in it, and actors who can act because
you messaged me about this theother day.
All of the lines in this showare delivered at
Emma (23:44):
such This is, so when I was listening to the first,
section of it, the, bloods orketchup it's delivered at such a
pace and again, it smacks ofstudents trying to be actors.
Yes.
when they're not really quiteready yet.
Sam (24:01):
I think it, it is fair that I play the listeners a little
bit of the historian'sintroduction.
Emma (24:05):
do.
Sam (24:15):
pause for laughter that didn't come.
(24:50):
He continues in that tone for 15more minutes.
And I don't wanna cast any shadeon Barry Keating, who was just
trying his best to fit JimSteinman monologue into a show,
these are all student actors.
Yeah.
Having a great time.
I dare say they're better than Iwas at,
Emma (25:11):
I reckon Had I been there, you would've been in this, I
would've been desperate to be inthis.
I'd have been all over it.
Did you know that in 2019 atAmherst College,
Sam (25:27):
was this performed again?
This performed again.
Emma (25:28):
again.
Sam (25:29):
Oh, okay.
Right.
One of my notes is to offer youa choice of either seeing this
performed with a big budget WestEnd cast, or we go back in time
to 1969 and watch Jim performit.
Emma (25:48):
Mm.
Sam (25:50):
Listeners, while Emma's thinking about that, if you know
anybody at Amherst College orwas involved in that performance
at Amherst College, please dolet us know.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
I would love to speak tosomebody who,
Emma (26:01):
The historian was still played by Barry Keating.
Nope,
Sam (26:06):
he's not been busy then, has he?
But that ruins the whole thing.
'cause again, the historian isan old man and the joke of the
show, ISN isn't, a young man, isthat young men are playing old
men, playing young men.
Can I talk about a bit that Ithought was really good?
Baal is interrogated by thedraft board.
after he's spoken to the,psychiatrist, he basically
(26:27):
announces the revolution iscoming and the revolution kicks
off.
The historian comes on and doeshis narration.
he describes the tribe attackingthe city and his line, this is
from the script.
"Ideally for these terrifyingscenes of violence and chaos, we
should be able to providemammoth forces of police units
and National Guard platoons.
"Unfortunately, these costumesare impossible to abstain,
(26:49):
therefore, we've done the nextbest thing.
Yeah.
Ball and his tribe will confronta fierce squadron of killer
nuns.
Emma (26:56):
I did laugh at that.
Sam (26:57):
"Why nuns you ask.
Well, don't ask." I did laughquite a lot That That was very
funny.
the play ends in the finalbattle between the nuns and the
tribe.
And everybody ends up dead in abig pile naked with Baal as the
only survivor, delivering astultifying monologue about the
(27:20):
death of America.
I really don't wanna talk aboutmodern American politics, but
some of it's quite prescient ofthat, to be honest.
And we'll just leave that Ithink.
Yeah.
Emma (27:30):
So, did, this prompt some theatrical memories for you?
Sam (27:33):
I do want to talk about student theatre creations'cause
I, I do have a tale to tell.
Excellent.
Emma (27:38):
Let's talk about student theatre.
Sam (27:40):
Hey guys.
Hey
Emma (27:41):
Hey guys.
Let's talk about studenttheatre.
Sam (27:44):
Talk to your kids about student theatre.
We had to write our own play.
Mm-hmm.
Or a, a short piece, I guess apiece of theatre.
I cannot quite remember exactlywhat the brief was, but
ultimately it was a play thathad to be about, prejudice, I
think.
Something along those lines.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you, you're picturing, agroup of 16 to 18 year olds?
(28:06):
Yeah.
have been handed one of the mostdifficult topics in society to
deal with.
We've been told sort this out.
Write a half hour theatre piece.
That'll really tell everybody tothink.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and let me just provide somecontext here I'm from a town
called Scarborough, on the,coast of England, which is one
(28:28):
of the whitest parts of England.
In many places, England is, is avery, cosmopolitan nation in the
big cities, in Scarborough.
I could have counted on one handthe number of non-white faces I
saw growing up.
Emma (28:42):
Yeah.
Sam (28:43):
So, you know, hand those kids this show about
Emma (28:47):
prejudice.
Okay.
Sam (28:50):
It's not quite going where you think, but it's close.
So what we came up with, Emma,uh, uh, let me reiterate.
We didn't want to do this, butwe had to do something for the
brief.
It's okay.
You'll still be friends with meafterwards.
it's charmingly naive, not...
(29:12):
the show.
And I, I think this was the nameof a show within a show.
Okay.
Because we'd been doing ourBrecht, it was about a game show
called Society Pressures, inwhich the host, for some reason
was just a prick to everybodywho came on the game show.
Yeah.
You're picturing that.
Yep.
Why would he go on this gameshow?
Don't know.
(29:35):
Mad was I, I don't think we everwent into that much depth, but,
the host of Society Pressureswas just a prick to everybody,
you know, in the ways that youshouldn't be pricks to people.
But also he wasn't that much ofa prick in the way that,'cause
we all knew, you know, that wasbad.
So we, we, I I, I was about tosay, we towed a very fine line.
We didn't, what we did was shyvery far away from that line
(29:59):
ineffectually, vaguely implyingthat this guy was, all the bad
stuff.
But where I'm going with this,Emma, oh God.
there was a, I don't know howshe came into it.
There was a pop starlet featuredin it at one point, and then we
did a news report of how she'dkilled herself after being on
(30:20):
the show.
'cause the guy was so mean.
Yeah.
Don't ask 16 year olds to towrite this.
here's the bit that I've beenbuilding towards.
Was I, played just some guywho's flatmate was thinking of
going on the show.
Okay.
Okay.
And we had a little scene about,wow, you're thinking about going
(30:41):
on that show, but that guy'ssuch a prick.
And then I left the stage.
Um, and she had a monologue,explaining to the audience that
what you've not realized is thatI'm actually Black.
So, you know, that.
Thank God.
Emma (31:01):
So think on.
Sam (31:03):
Yeah.
What do you think of the DreamEngine now?
Emma (31:08):
I mean, I'm so glad that nobody actually blacked
Sam (31:10):
Oh God.
No, no, no, no, no.
We were so earnest.
Emma (31:17):
so sweet.
Sam (31:17):
yeah,
Emma (31:18):
Um, but yeah,
Sam (31:19):
that I genuinely don't know what was expected of us as a, as
that age, probably the whitestcohort of drama students
anywhere in the country.
Emma (31:27):
Well, you say that.
Oh, But welcome to small townNottinghamshire in the late
nineties, early two thousands.
It turns out
Sam (31:37):
It turns out Emma wrote Society Pressures
Emma (31:39):
we had to produce a piece of theatre.
Again, it's all from scratch.
Yeah.
And so we were given a selectionof starting points.
Yeah.
They like to give startingpoints to see where you go with
it.
And so we were given a, a fewoptions to choose from.
I wanted to go in a differentdirection and look at something
to do with, differences insociety like that.
But somehow we ended up on theMiners' Strike as a theme.
Sam (32:04):
That's fine.
That's a thing that you've gotsome experience of.
Emma (32:07):
of, But Sam, in order to discover more about the Miners'
Strike, bear in mind we're,we're from an ex-mining
community Retford didn't havemines, but Worksop certainly
did.
as in a lot of the surroundingvillages that a lot of the kids
came from.
And so I suppose a lot of theother kids had got secondhand
experience of that time.
'cause the Miners' Strike washappening around the time that a
(32:30):
lot of us were sort of born ormaybe just a little bit before.
and so you'd think, you'd thinkthat with this wealth of
knowledge available to us thatwe would've done some kind of
research.
But why do research when you canjust make shit up?
Sam (32:49):
Oh, no.
Emma (32:51):
Oh, I've blocked a lot of it out.
it was terribly earnest sixthfold theatre.
Yeah.
and I think the, the terriblyearnest nature of all the sixth
fold theatre that I did put meoff pursuing my dreams of
theatre beyond that.
After sixth form, that's whenperformance dropped out of my
life for a really long time.
(33:12):
my confidence was knocked by itall, I think, and I thought I'd
go into a, a quieter.
World.
and part of me regrets notpursuing it.
but also I'm quite glad thatI've come back to performance as
an adult with experience ofthings.
Sam (33:27):
Uh, I'm the same.
did have aspirations of being anactor at that age.
Yeah.
And I was gently steered awayfrom that idea.
Yeah.
partly because an actor's lifeis very difficult and my parents
came from, working classbackgrounds.
Yeah.
And were kind of aspirationalfor us to have better lives.
Yeah.
But also because they could allsee that I wasn't a very good
actor back then.
(33:48):
Probably still aren't now.
Emma (33:50):
Please come and see our shows though.
yeah?
Sam (33:52):
Oh, you want to go to RADA, do you?
Emma (33:54):
do you?
right.
Sam (33:57):
have You considered sitting in a library instead?
Listeners, please tell us aboutyour over earnest, excruciating,
high school and college theatreexperiences.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
We all know you have them.
Emma (34:12):
we would
Sam (34:13):
love to hear them.
This is a safe space
Emma (34:17):
you're in.
Good company.
Sam (34:18):
Absolutely.
I don't think any of you havegot a worse story than Society
Pressures, but if you dochatoutofhell@gmail.com it had a
theme tune.
Oh.
And in fact, I've justremembered.
I also did, I played thevoiceover guy who had introduced
the show.
ladies and gentlemen, welcome toSociety Pressures.
(34:40):
And then I'd have a bit of achat with the host and he would
insult me and my, I think, Ithink we got some mother-in-law
jokes in there.
Oh, Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
I went surfing with mymother-in-law and then he said
something awful.
Yeah, If any of you were inSociety Pressures, um, Yeah, no
(35:05):
wonder we all lost touchchatoutofhell@gmail.com Emma,
would you like to hear the copyfrom the print ad that was in
the student newspaper?
Yes.
"Turned on! A new kind of rocktheatre piece spans the whole
range of theatre from buffooneryto boiling rage, painful,
(35:28):
passionate streaked with aclown's humour.
It churns together in a mixtureof media, including a rock band
with synthesizer, the stuff fromwhich our fantasies are spun.
A maelstrom of energy andecstasy unlike anything you've
ever experienced in the theatre.
And a world premiere" did thatin an American accent, sort of
(35:49):
regretted it about four wordsin.
Emma (35:53):
Well done.
for committing to the bitthough.
Sam (35:54):
Thank you.
But you couldn't hear that myaccent, right?
That wouldn't have
Emma (35:57):
worked.
No.
probably would go and see thatif I'd seen
Sam (36:01):
Yeah.
Written.
do you have an answer to myquestion then?
Would you like to see a Big WestEnd production or would you like
to go back in time and see whereit all began?
Emma (36:10):
I'd like to go and see where it all began, because then
you've got more context to workwith as well.
And I think context is importantfor this particular piece and
the atmosphere and everything.
You know, the crappy recordingdoesn't capture,
Sam (36:26):
it's never the same.
It's
Emma (36:26):
the same.
it's, I'd go back in time andhow about you?
Sam (36:31):
I am really caught'cause the recording is nonsense and
the script is utter horse shit.
Yes.
But somehow everybody loved itin the theatre and therefore I
would really like to see whathappens if I put Cameron
Macintosh's money behind this,if you know what I mean.
Fiction values.
Yeah.
If they weren't, if they gotactors to play roles.
(36:53):
Some thoughts from Jim himselfon this piece.
He calls the character of Baal.
Somewhere between Che Guevara,Mick Jagger, and Billy the Kid.
Emma (37:06):
Oh, Jim.
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jim, Jims.
Sam (37:09):
Jim Jims.
This is one of bits that lets itdown is Baal is this
interesting, charismatic cultleader.
And Jim is Jim Steinman.
I'm not joining that guy's cult.
No way.
This is a quote from Bob Satherwho is in the cast of the
production in New York City.
That didn't happen.
(37:29):
"Barry Keating played Ezra Poundto Steiny's TS Elliot" Steiny
Steiny.
"He took the huge unstageablescript Stein wrote, drastically
edited it, and turned it into abrilliant and effective play".
This is, this is the editedperformable version.
Emma (37:48):
I'm sorry.
What?
Oh, God.
Sam (37:51):
you, Barry.
Emma (37:52):
Can you imagine what Jim's written?
Then?
Sam (37:54):
See if you got that time machine, you could go into Jim's
dorm room and find the scriptunder all those mattresses es
Emma (38:04):
mattress pile of rotting
Sam (38:09):
Barry went on to a highly visible career on the New York
stage.
Where he wrote and directed anumber of award-winning
musicals.
Barry knows what he's doing.
Yeah.
Emma, would you like a quiz?
Emma (38:20):
Yeah.
Sam (38:21):
Here's three facts about the Dream Engine.
Dream Dreams,
Emma (38:26):
engine.
Sam (38:28):
which of these is true?
Mm-hmm.
Is it A David Bowie played Baalin the New York run that didn't
happen.
Is it B Richard Gere played Baalin the Arena Stage Washington
production, which didn't happen?
Or is it C a review in the MountHolyoke Review said,"it says
(38:50):
something about our culture,something delightfully devious.
Probably that a wink wink showhas become a hit.
Like the story, it tells theDream Engine is a one night
stand, but you won't forget hername in the morning." One of
those is true.
Emma (39:07):
I'm gonna, oh, who am I gonna go with?
Oh, no, because I feel like thereview seems the most likely,
but I know your tricksy ways.
Wilkinson.
Oh, let's just, let's go with a,let's go with Bowie.
Sam (39:25):
Bowie didn't play Baal in the New York run, but not
without both sides beinginterested.
there were talks of recruitinghim.
but it just didn't quite happen.
There was a piece in BillboardMagazine, you know, that little
industry rumors section.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Bowie in seriousnegotiations to play the
Broadway lead in Dream Engine.
(39:46):
Wow.
Yeah.
That.
Is a role that is written forsomebody like David Bowie,.
So is it B or C Richard Gere orthe
Emma (39:55):
I'll go with the review.
Sam (39:56):
The review.
Emma.
That was a review of.
Macarena,
Emma (40:03):
I knew this was coming.
I knew it, and yet I still, ah,
Sam (40:08):
"it says something about our culture, something
delightfully devious.
Probably that a Wink wink Clubsong has become an all ages
approved dance step and noveltyhit.
Like the story it tells Macarenais a one night stand, but you
won't forget her name in themorning." And you'll be hearing
more Macarena throughout thisseries.
Yeah.
Richard Gere Gere was playingBaal in the Washington DC
(40:29):
production.
Emma (40:30):
Wow.
Yeah.
Sam (40:30):
Yeah.
Emma (40:31):
He must have been so disappointed for that not to
have come off
Sam (40:35):
it's time for us to rate this musical Emma.
Emma (40:37):
Oh, is it?
Sam (40:38):
And as always, this is a Jim Steinman work.
So we have to rate this on ourpatented Jim Steinman Rating
Scale, which goes Jim Steinmanat the top, Jim Fineman for his
average stuff, and JimDeclineman for the rubbish that
he churned out.
But Emma, what's this?
I know what you think it is.
(40:58):
I'm not, I don't disagree.
Emma (41:00):
So is it a,
Sam (41:00):
Declineman?
It is a Jim Declineman.
Emma (41:03):
For a number of
Sam (41:04):
reasons, for a number of reasons.
It, I, I don't think this isever gonna be an incredible,
this isn't ever gonna be a LesMis.
Even if I do get CameronMacintosh put it on, it's gonna
be an interesting piece of weirdwhere you go, oh, okay.
I see where he built up from.
Emma (41:20):
it's fringe.
It's fringe theatre.
Sam (41:22):
Oh, you are absolutely right.
You could put this on atEdinburgh Fringe.
Yeah.
And sell out while making acolossal loss.
Emma (41:30):
Let's put on a show.
Sam (41:33):
I sort of am tempted now.
This is good, interesting fringetheatre that I would like to see
somebody perform properly,
Emma (41:42):
or would like to participate in adequately.
Sam (41:48):
Thanks for the review,
Emma (41:50):
Talking about myself as well.
Sam (41:51):
Oh yeah.
Fair enough.
Emma (41:53):
could play the auspicious girl.
Sam (41:55):
Oh, well you can either play Girl or Emily,
Emma (42:00):
who knows.
Or maybe I could be thehistorian.
Sam (42:02):
Oh, oh, that's gender.
Flip the whole thing.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, Take that.
We're going.
Society Pressures on this
Emma (42:11):
thing.
and what you didn't know was Iwas a girl all along.
Sam (42:20):
Good.
grief.
Emma (42:22):
Listeners, if you want to sponsor us to take the Dream
Engine to Edinburgh.
Sam (42:28):
If you are Cameron Macintosh and you'd like to pay
us the put on a Performance ofthe Dream Engine brackets gender
flipped version, do drop us anemail chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Emma, what songs are we gonnabring next time?
Ooh, because listeners, we aregetting back on the road next
time.
Yes, we're diving deep intoproper Meat
Emma (42:49):
songs
Sam (42:49):
songs.
Yay.
Emma (42:51):
I'm going back to Welcome to the Neighborhood and I'm
going for running for the RedLight brackets I Got a Life
Sam (42:58):
And I'll be going back to the album Dead Ringer, which it
turned out is actually quitegood for the song.
Dead Ringer for Love, that's gotCher on it.
It can be bad.
So listeners, you can do yourhomework on those.
You'll have a lovely time.
Give'em a listen.
Do you have any thoughts onthose songs?
Do you have any thoughts on theDream Engine?
Were you at Amherst College in2019?
Do you know anybody who was atAmherst College in 2019?
(43:20):
Would you like to pay us to puton a performance of the Dream
Engine?
What was your earnest studenttheatre experience?
It's okay.
You are among friends.
Let us know.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Did you see Meat Loaf on a waterskiing trip to the beach?
Emma (43:35):
I have some other business.
Sam (43:37):
Emma has some other business halfway through my
traditional wrap up speech.
It's okay.
Let us know if you saw Loafdoing that
chatoutofhell@gmail.com Emma,AOB
Emma (43:47):
This comes out on Monday.
that turns out to be the firstanniversary of Chat out of Hell.
I've bought you an anniversarypresent, Sam.
Oh.
So in, marriages there arespecific,,categories for,
anniversary presents.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, and in podcasting there aredifferent so the podcasting one
year anniversary is a bottle ofA1 Sauce Happy anniversary, Sam.
Sam (44:14):
Hashtag dear a one steak sauce.
We don't need your sauce.
I've got a bottle now.
Emma (44:20):
Thank you very
Sam (44:21):
much.
original Steak sauce.
Next time we're recording atmine, I'll do you a bacon
sandwich.
Emma (44:26):
Delicious.
and ruin it with some A1 sauce
Sam (44:30):
with some
Emma (44:30):
A1
Sam (44:30):
one sauce.
Great.
In marinades.
Marvelous.
Thank you
Emma (44:35):
much.
You're welcome.
I thought it was a timely
Sam (44:38):
A lovely gift.
I knew our anniversary wascoming up, but I didn't
Emma (44:42):
I I had a little look back in, It's, we've been doing this
for a year.
We
Sam (44:47):
have been wasting our
Emma (44:49):
Good.
Could have got a job
Sam (44:53):
But Emma, how are you gonna get a job without a thorough
knowledge of
Emma (44:58):
the Dream Engine?
Sam (44:59):
So that was Chat out of Hell.
Thank you so much for listening.
It's gonna be a interestingedit, this one, but luckily it's
a long weekend.
We are gonna go hang up ourheadphones and by the time
you're listening to this, we'llbe queuing for the opening of
the Bat out of Hell Musical.
Even though we've got tickets,we can just, just go.
We don't have to camp outsidethe theatre for two days, but
(45:20):
we're gonna do it anyway.
ready.
Yeah.
so we'll see you all after we'veseen the Bat out of Hell
musical.
Changed people.
Thank you all so much forlistening.
We'll see you all in another twoweeks time for another episode
of Chat out of Hell.
Bye
Emma (45:37):
Bye
Sam (45:38):
Bow Now.
Emma (45:41):
Bing.
What is This
Emma (00:01):
This Is Chat Out Of Hell.
The only podcast that dares todive deep into the back
catalogues of Meat Loaf and JimSteinman and see if there are
pearls at the bottom of thathorrible ocean.
Sam (00:14):
Who is Meat Loaf?
Emma (00:15):
Meat Loaf was an actor, singer, and musician who doesn't
feature in any of today'sramblings.
Who's Jim Steinman?
Sam (00:23):
Jim Steinman was a musician, writer, and producer
who thought of himself and MeatLoaf as a duo, like Hall and
Oates.
Emma (00:31):
Who are we?
Sam (00:32):
We are Sam Wilkinson and Emma Crossland, the Jim Steinman
and Meat Loaf of Jim Steinmanand Meat Loaf Analysis podcasts.
Emma (00:39):
Let's never discuss who is who.
Sam (00:41):
Welcome to Chat Out of Hell Bow.
Now.
Now, now Bing.
Emma (00:46):
Bing.
Sam (00:47):
I've realized in the edits that every time I sing the
theme, I sing it either much tooslow or much too fast compared
to the actual bit of theme.
And then when I overlay them, itdoesn't work.
Emma (01:00):
Does it matter though?
Sam (01:01):
it Yeah.
I think we're losing thousandsof listeners
Emma (01:06):
they just tune in, they hear that bit.
Yeah.
And then it's like, nah, I'mnot,
Sam (01:09):
not for me.
Not for
Emma (01:11):
it's just not good enough.
Sam (01:14):
Alright, good.
I'm gonna clip that bit out andplay it to myself when I'm
feeling down,
Emma (01:19):
Oh God.
Do I need to do like an oppositenow and say, Sam, you are the
best.
So that you, can
Sam (01:25):
Could you sound less sarcastic when
Emma (01:27):
No, no, I can't.
It's just my voice.
Sorry.
I suffer from what's known asinsincere voice.
Sam (01:35):
I think you are the Jim Steinman
Emma (01:36):
I am not sure whether to take that as a
Sam (01:43):
compliment No, Neither of them are compliments.
So here we go.
Series four Chat out of Hell.
We've now, started more Chatsout of Hell than there are Bat
out of hell albums.
Wow.
in your
Emma (01:57):
Yeah, in face Meat Loaf
Sam (01:59):
Lazy, old, so and so.
We're starting series four.
As weary as we were at the endof series three, which is maybe
a bad sign, but there you go.
But I'm quite excited to getback to listening to Good Meat
Loaf and Jim Steinman works
Emma (02:15):
I'm really looking forward to listening to the bangers and
some of the, fun daft awful
Sam (02:19):
Speaking of fun things, we're looking forward to.
We are going to see the Bat outof Hell musical
Emma (02:23):
week.
I'm so excited.
Sam (02:25):
Yeah.
Listeners, if you are listeningto this on the day it comes out,
we'll be going to see it in justa couple of days.
So last call.
If you do have any thoughts onthe musical or things that we
should look out for, drop us aline, chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
so normally, Emma on thispodcast, the deal is that we
both bring a song by Meat Loafor Jim Steinman to our analysis
machine.
(02:45):
Yes.
And calculate whether or notit's a good or bad song.
To celebrate us going to see thefinal Jim Steinman musical
Emma (02:54):
mm-hmm.
Sam (02:54):
We have decided to review instead the very first Jim
Steinman musical theatre show.
which is a piece called TheDream Engine
Emma (03:04):
Dream
Sam (03:06):
Engine Dream
Emma (03:07):
Engine..
Sam (03:08):
Dreams Which he wrote in college in 1969.
So, listeners, normally I tellyou to go away and find YouTube
or Spotify and listen to thepiece we're about to discuss.
Don't, don't, don't, don't do itnow.
it's over two hours long.
(03:28):
It is Student
Emma (03:30):
It's all available on Jim's
Sam (03:31):
website.
It's all available on Jim'swebsite in the form of a
recording of a performance.
From tape recorder at the backof the room somewhere.
it's low quality in lots ofways, is what we're saying.
We are gonna dive in now.
So listeners don't go away toYouTube or Spotify.
Instead, close your eyes, evenif you're driving.
Close your eyes.
(03:52):
Wavy
Emma (03:53):
lines appear
Sam (03:54):
lines.
Appear, bling, bling bling.
Imagine it's April the 25th,1969.
You're in the sleepy backwoodsof Western Massachusetts.
extensive woodlands areinterspersed with wooden
clapboard churches, weirdantique shops and tourist
attractions with names likeBasketville it's a real place.
(04:14):
Is it?
Yeah, it closed a few years ago.
Um, I think it might actually bein New Hampshire, but it's all
the same there.
What, what, sorry.
Are you about to ask me what thedeal with Basketville is?
Basket
Emma (04:23):
Yeah.
Basketville
Sam (04:25):
yeah.
A big shop that's sold baskets.
Emma (04:28):
Of course it was.
Yeah.
Oh, America has
Sam (04:31):
everything.
America has everything.
Amherst is one of the few townsaround there.
In the 1970 census, it willrecord a population of 26,000,
It's a sleepy college townexactly like the ones you've
seen in films.
It's all grassy quadrangles andbrick halls with a white clock
tower on top and a boy playinghacky sack on the lawn.
This is a hotbed of the liberalarts, in this time means
(04:52):
anti-Vietnam sentiment andlong-haired weirdos with
electric guitars.
In Amherst College's KirbyTheatre, a three night run of a
brand new work by one of theseangry young folk is about to
begin.
The auditorium is crowded, therun has already sold out.
If we extend the artisticlicense far enough, we can
imagine the futureparents-in-law of one of the
(05:13):
future's greatestSteinmanologists in in the
crowd.
The lights go down, the bandstrikes up, and history is about
to be made.
(05:42):
Anyway, that's nine.
Minutes long.
We're not listening to all ofthat.
Good.
Okay, Emma.
we're not gonna Film Club thisand give it a blow by blow, but
what is the Dream Engine about?
Emma (05:55):
what's it about?
Yeah.
Sam (05:58):
Do you want me to say what it's about?
Yeah.
Emma (06:00):
because I, I've
Sam (06:01):
I'm
Emma (06:01):
not bit of
Sam (06:02):
synopsis yet.
it's a rock opera.
This is a big balls out electricguitars everywhere.
Half the cast turns out naked atthe end of it.
1970s Rock opera.
Emma looks so unhappy.
Emma (06:21):
I mean, we had Hair.
That was good.
Sam (06:24):
this was a, an angrier version of Hair.
Jim talks about Hair, I think inan article he wrote for the
student paper about this, wherebasically the, hippie flower
child era of Hair is alreadyover.
Yeah.
And we need this dark, angryyouth uprising Broadly speaking,
it's about a, dystopian futuretype world where a young,
(06:46):
charismatic man called Baaltakes a tribe of
Emma (06:51):
That's it?
Sam (06:53):
Into a, a weird, wouldn't you know it?
A Peter Pan style existence awayfrom the horrible adults.
But the adults keep trying tobring him back and interrogating
him and trying to draft him intothe army.
So he leads a teenage uprising,which destroys the city and
leaves everybody dead.
Now,
Emma (07:13):
Somewhere in my readings around this, there was mention
of it being quite a similar taleto the Manson family.
Sam (07:21):
The events, the events of the Manson family, the crimes of
Emma (07:25):
of Charles man events,
Sam (07:26):
Yes., the crimes of Charles Manson were not committed until
after this was performed.
Yes.
So he very much predicted thezeitgeist, Emma.
Emma (07:34):
Does this mean that Steinman is, if anything, an
inspiration?
Sam (07:39):
Oh God, was Charles Manson next to my mother-in-law in that
auditorium?
That is a synopsis of the plot,but it's, something you have to
work hard to pick out.
There are two.
Actors who play the roles calledMax and Emily, who themselves
then play all the authorityfigures which is very confusing
(08:00):
for a long time, so Max isintermittently a kid trying to
infiltrate the tribe and thenhe's the chief of police and
then he's a psychiatrist
Emma (08:06):
I wonder if we saw this in the visual medium that it was
meant to be seen in, instead ofjust listening to a bad
recording of it.
I wonder if we'd have picked
Sam (08:13):
on that Yeah, we probably would've done.
Yeah.
We do have to address that now.
We listened to a bad recordingof this show.
The show is introduced by anhistorian,
Emma (08:24):
oh God.
Blood or ketchup, ketchup or
Sam (08:28):
our blood.
ketchup of
Emma (08:29):
Or Blood.
Sam (08:29):
kick catch our blood.
The historian, introduces thekey concepts of the show.
Yeah.
In a 15 minute monologue.
Emma (08:38):
style was influenced by elements of Brecht.
Yes.
Which brings us to our first, ofwhat will probably be several,
theatre wanker moments.
Sam (08:48):
theatre wanker.
Emma (08:50):
You and I have both studied, studied.
Sam (08:54):
we have studied the
Emma (08:54):
theatre, we've studied, the theatre and the styles of
Brecht, at A Level which for ourAmerican listeners means that we
were pretentious 18 year olds.
Sam (09:06):
high.
Oh no, I don't like doing theaccent.
Sorry.
America, that was unwarranted.
Emma (09:11):
which of Brecht's plays did you
Sam (09:13):
Emma, I studied, the Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
Ah,
Emma (09:17):
Ah.
'cause I studied the CaucasianChalk Circle.
Okay.
So we have
Sam (09:22):
right.
Do you know, I don't know yoursat all.
No, because why would you readanother Brecht when
Emma (09:27):
Jesus
Sam (09:28):
which Christ.
Quick summary.
Bertolt Brecht was a, theatre.
Writer, director, practitioner,practitioner, yes.
That's what he would've calledhimself.
He was a practitioner whoinsisted that the audience
should never forget that theyare watching a play.
Emma (09:45):
which meant watching the plays was genuinely quite a
punishing ordeal, there was alot of narration.
Sam (09:51):
There's a lot of narration.
There's a lot of reminding youthat you are watching a thing
that we are putting on for youand Ooh, the cast are in the
audience and they're gonna
Emma (09:58):
There was also quite a lot of telling you what was going to
happen before it
Sam (10:01):
happened.
Yes.
Yeah.
Lots of that sort of stuff.
just for info, the ResistibleRise of Arturo Ui is an analogue
for the rise of Hitler, whichtakes place in a market town
that trades cabbages.
Emma (10:14):
Oh, that's nice.
Sam (10:15):
Mm-hmm.
Emma (10:15):
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, is a play about a
peasant woman who saves a babyfrom the governor's family
during a political upheaval.
When the old regime returns, thegovernor's widow claims the baby
as her own, having not raisedthe child.
So it's about themes to do withmotherhood and the judicial
system, and the struggle betweenthe privilege and the oppressed
Sam (10:37):
worthy stuff,
Emma (10:39):
Very worthy
Sam (10:39):
stuff.
That 18 year olds in small town,sixth form colleges are
definitely equipped to handle,anyway, That's the sort of thing
that is influencing young JimSteinman Young, Jim Steinman
writes this piece as part of hisdegree.
it's a piece of independentstudy and he puts it on local
(11:00):
college auditorium.
And it's so good that it's gonnatransfer to another local
college and then to the New YorkShakespeare Festival.
This show is really wellreceived.
Look at your face.
It's big.
It's electric.
It's Brechtian, but it's alsorock and roll.
And it's operatic'cause ofcourse it is,'cause it's Jim and
(11:23):
it's far too long because ofcourse it is, it's Jim.
And everything gets repeated 50times because of course it is.
It's Jim.
It's There's lists.
All the classic elements of Jimare already there.
I
Emma (11:35):
know there are speeches that we've already talked
Sam (11:37):
about.
There are speeches we've alreadytalked about.
There's some others that are yetto come up in, in our coverage
of the songs, but there's a fewother forward references.
I know you hate this, Emma.
Emma (11:45):
I hate it so much
Sam (11:46):
You hate this so much.
I won't say I'm a fan, but I canreally see where this is coming
from.
The historian is the narratorwho is going and mucking about
with the crowd and being a twat.
you've got actors playing Maxand Emily, who themselves are
playing various authority figureroles.
Yes.
And then you've got Jim Steinmanhimself playing the role of
(12:09):
Baal, the charismatic cultleader.
I guess if you write the show,you can cast who you like,
right?
Yeah.
And then you've got anassortment of other people who
are in the cast.
Yeah.
when I opened the cast list, Iwas really desperate to see my
parents in law on there, butsadly, not really.
Don't think it would've beentheir thing.
Emma (12:30):
it all could have been so different,
Sam (12:31):
could have been so different.
We're talking about it becauseit's the first step on Jim's
road to success.
Emma (12:40):
think if this had've been my introduction to Jim, we might
not have been doing this.
Sam (12:49):
It's, it's a really good job.
We've not done this show inchronological order.
We
Emma (12:53):
My first introduction to Jim was in the nineties Bat Out
of Hell Two.
which is incredible and so muchfun.
10-year-old Emma would not haveappreciated.
Sam (13:05):
10-year-old.
Emma would not have loved, uh,
Emma (13:07):
even the music in this.
Sam (13:09):
Do you not like the music
Emma (13:10):
in it?
I hate the
Sam (13:11):
music in it.
All of it.
of it.
Okay.
This is where we might have to,I would like to reiterate, I
don't think this is a good show,but, okay.
I didn't enjoy listening to amuffled tape recording of a
mostly visual show whichcontains a lot of references to
contemporary politics.
Yeah.
Which went obviously right overmy head.
(13:31):
Some bits of it were quitefunny.
Some, some of the songs I quiteenjoyed.
Okay.
The song that I've used as theintro to our podcast Come in the
Night Invocation of the Tribe.
my note here says, I think it'sa genuinely decent song.
It's got a good hook and it'sfull of youthful rage, but it's
just too long, even for amusical theatre number.
(13:56):
it is actually quite catchy andI think it probably has a good
dance that accompanies it.
You know, just like theMacarena.
Emma (14:01):
can we talk about the dance
Sam (14:02):
No.
We want to talk about theMacarena.
Emma (14:04):
There's a preface to this, which is exerpted from Jim's
draft manuscript.
I am not going to read it allbecause as with all Jim stuff,
it's too long.
"I can't help thinking thatArtaud would've adored rock and
found its sources and textures.
A true example of theatre, ofcruelty." And did you do any
theatre of cruelty stuff?
(14:25):
Uh, we did touch on Artaud andtheatre of Cruelty.
Sam (14:29):
what's the general gist of theatre of cruelty?
Emma (14:31):
Oh God.
I mean it's really going back abit, but it's, involving the
audience Okay.
In uncomfortable
Sam (14:39):
involving the audience in this show truly is cruelty.
Emma (14:45):
Jim does go on to talk about the dances.
"All the songs are sung out ofthe action, eg by soloists, like
rock arias on the platformswhile simultaneously on the
disc," which is the stage areathat he's prescribed"these
strongly choreographed ordirected dancers and rituals are
performed.
These rituals cannot be loose orragged or have anything to do
(15:08):
with pop dance steps.
"Neither can they be dancey, iecompletely part of the world of
calculated, deliberate moderndance.
they must convey a ceremonialquality and epic texture,
strenuous, strong, muscular,sensual, and extreme.
Never cute." It's gonna be atough watch that
Sam (15:33):
in
Emma (15:33):
isn't it it Strictly it ain't
Sam (15:37):
So you're saying it's not gonna be like the Macarena,
Emma (15:40):
it's not gonna be like the Macarena you know, the dances
that we've seen in some of Jim'sother music videos,
Sam (15:46):
Yes, yes.
From his solo album around theearly eighties.
It's that, it's it's definitelythat.
Yeah.
this is Jim at his mostpretentious and
Emma (15:55):
Yeah.
Sam (15:56):
but I would, it's astonishing.
But this is the age to be atpretentious and wanky.
Emma (16:01):
Its, it is.
If I'd have had the confidenceand if I'd have been doing the
right kind of course, yeah.
I'd have written some dog shitlike
Sam (16:10):
this.
Agreed.
See, play is horse shit.
Yes.
Yes.
It's, but it's the sort of horseshit that we both would've come
out with at the time.
this show is a response toVietnam.
It's full of teenage youth andanger.
And it does some sort ofinteresting things with the old
characters and stuff, it isexactly what you want people who
(16:31):
go to a prestigious liberal artscollege in the middle of
Massachusetts to be coming outwith.
Yes.
if they're not doing that, mytax dollars have gone to waste.
Please don't write in and tellme that Amherst College is a
private institution.
I already know that.
Emma (16:47):
Oh yeah.
is what you want from the youth.
Sam (16:50):
The youth can either be writing tedious three hour rock
operas mm-hmm.
Or hang out under the bushshelter smoking smoking fags.
And you and me were definitely,tedious.
Three hour rock
Emma (17:02):
opera.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was definitely a rock operakid.
Oh God.
So as much as I dislike this, itis also, I am in this picture
and I don't like what I seeholding
Sam (17:13):
up a mirror to you, Emma.
some of our favorite bits oflater Jim work appear in this.
So we've already talked when wetalked about, Total Eclipse of
the Heart.
That does, you know, the, the,the turnaround refrain comes in
on Come in the
Emma (17:28):
There's God speeding in here as
Sam (17:30):
There's some God speeding.
There is,"there are no lies onmy body", which is a constant
coda in the first act of thisshow and is one of the nice
lines in Left in the Dark, whichis a really lovely song.
Yes.
it's used a really weird way inthis show, let me tell you Who
Needs the Young, and a couple ofother songs from this show are
(17:50):
on Meat Loaf's final album.
Yes.
Braver Than We Are.
Okay.
I would like to talk about howmuch I quite like Who Needs The
Young in this.
Okay.
(18:19):
get the gist.
it's this dark, twisted cabarettype thing is very Brechtian
like Brecht 1 0 1.
He has it performed by thecharacters of Max and Emily who
are young people playing, oldpeople, singing about how young
people are rubbish.
And I think there is somethingreally great in that, which is
then utterly ruined when MeatLoaf, an old man, sings it on
(18:40):
his final album.
Emma (18:41):
Yeah.
It's not got the same, uh,
Sam (18:43):
there, there is something quite knowing in this show about
how he's acknowledging that he'sa young person, raging about old
people, not understanding youngpeople, but also that's a stupid
idea and everybody ends up deadat the end we're all quite angry
at each other and I don't reallyknow why, but a America's
fucked, anyway.
the Mirrors monologue.
appears in this, The Want Ad.
(19:05):
So the Mirrors monologue, isgiven to Baal and it makes sense
coming out of his mouth'causehe's a cult lunatic.
Yes.
The Want Ad sort of makes sensein the context of where it was.
Mm.
It comes in in a bit that iscalled the Voices of
Civilization, where it's acacophony of the whole tribe of
young people reading outdifferent stupid personal ads
(19:27):
all overlapping and shoutingover one another.
Liberation through Painbrackets, Firebird.
Have a listen to this.
Act one has two things happen init, right?
We learn about the tribe andthen, Baal gets interrogated by
(19:49):
the police.
And then I would say 45 minutesis spent initiating a new member
into the tribe.
Yeah.
And this comes at the very endof that.
In a minute, this will get good.
I think I, mean, it may be thatI was listening to this while
(20:19):
driving through the beautifulLake District
Emma (20:42):
Was the screaming particularly, uh, accentuating
Your Drive.
So I think a lot of what'skilled it for me is I know we're
listening to a recording that'sstood from the back of a room
but I found that quite hard topay attention to.
Fair enough.
and also.
(21:02):
I think the singing's dreadful.
Yeah.
And the plinky plonky piano,it's like fucking school
assemblies.
Sam (21:09):
It is the plinky plonky piano.
And some of this is ambitiousand massive and incredible and
some of it is working with whatyou've got.
Emma (21:17):
and I appreciate working with what you've got.
'cause that's what we're allabout.
Sam (21:22):
There is a full band with electric instruments who
accompany some of the songs andThey sound pretty damn good.
They blow out the miccompletely, so you can't really
tell, you can't tell on ourrecording, but they do sound
really quite competent and acool new sound in musical
theatre.
then I, I will grant you some ofthe more traditional solos are
(21:43):
accompanied by a plinky plonkypiano.
And Jim Steinman is playing thelead.
Emma (21:48):
and all I, can see is I'm back at school.
it's school assembly.
We're singing a hymn.
We're being told off for notsinging it well enough.
Sam (21:57):
being projected by an OHP onto the
Emma (21:59):
being projected onto the back wall.
A teacher who can play the pianois accompanying us.
It is a joyless experience forall involved.
Sam (22:08):
Take me down to the Firebird.
Emma (22:13):
Yeah.
that's the vibe, again, I knowit's because they're working
with what they've got.
Yeah.
And I fully expect ourexperience, this week in Jim's
latest musical to be somewhatdifferent to this.
Sam (22:25):
this I should hope so.
But again, this was so good thatJoe Papp of the New York
Shakespeare Festival went, Iwant that show on at my massive
New York theatre festival.
And as it happened, it never gotperformed several times.
For various reasons, the,staging at the New York
(22:48):
Shakespeare Festival didn'treally happen.
I think that was due to thenudity in the show.
Yeah.
And then they tried to stage itat the Arena theatre in
Washington DC and had anincredible cast lined up for
that.
More on that later.
But that didn't happen either.
because Jim fell out with theproducer or possibly the
(23:09):
director.
Either way, bloody Jim ruined itfor himself.
Yeah.
But then this show, he rewroteinto Neverland.
Emma (23:18):
Yes.
It's been his constant work.
Sam (23:22):
This is his constant work in progress.
isn't it?
Indeed.
So when we go see the Bat out ofHell, musical final, it is this,
it is the final edit of this
Emma (23:31):
with some banging songs in it
Sam (23:32):
some better songs in it, and actors who can act because
you messaged me about this theother day.
All of the lines in this showare delivered at
Emma (23:44):
such This is, so when I was listening to the first,
section of it, the, bloods orketchup it's delivered at such a
pace and again, it smacks ofstudents trying to be actors.
Yes.
when they're not really quiteready yet.
Sam (24:01):
I think it, it is fair that I play the listeners a little
bit of the historian'sintroduction.
Emma (24:05):
do.
Sam (24:15):
pause for laughter that didn't come.
(24:50):
He continues in that tone for 15more minutes.
And I don't wanna cast any shadeon Barry Keating, who was just
trying his best to fit JimSteinman monologue into a show,
these are all student actors.
Yeah.
Having a great time.
I dare say they're better than Iwas at,
Emma (25:11):
I reckon Had I been there, you would've been in this, I
would've been desperate to be inthis.
I'd have been all over it.
Did you know that in 2019 atAmherst College,
Sam (25:27):
was this performed again?
This performed again.
Emma (25:28):
again.
Sam (25:29):
Oh, okay.
Right.
One of my notes is to offer youa choice of either seeing this
performed with a big budget WestEnd cast, or we go back in time
to 1969 and watch Jim performit.
Emma (25:48):
Mm.
Sam (25:50):
Listeners, while Emma's thinking about that, if you know
anybody at Amherst College orwas involved in that performance
at Amherst College, please dolet us know.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
I would love to speak tosomebody who,
Emma (26:01):
The historian was still played by Barry Keating.
Nope,
Sam (26:06):
he's not been busy then, has he?
But that ruins the whole thing.
'cause again, the historian isan old man and the joke of the
show, ISN isn't, a young man, isthat young men are playing old
men, playing young men.
Can I talk about a bit that Ithought was really good?
Baal is interrogated by thedraft board.
after he's spoken to the,psychiatrist, he basically
(26:27):
announces the revolution iscoming and the revolution kicks
off.
The historian comes on and doeshis narration.
he describes the tribe attackingthe city and his line, this is
from the script.
"Ideally for these terrifyingscenes of violence and chaos, we
should be able to providemammoth forces of police units
and National Guard platoons.
"Unfortunately, these costumesare impossible to abstain,
(26:49):
therefore, we've done the nextbest thing.
Yeah.
Ball and his tribe will confronta fierce squadron of killer
nuns.
Emma (26:56):
I did laugh at that.
Sam (26:57):
"Why nuns you ask.
Well, don't ask." I did laughquite a lot That That was very
funny.
the play ends in the finalbattle between the nuns and the
tribe.
And everybody ends up dead in abig pile naked with Baal as the
only survivor, delivering astultifying monologue about the
(27:20):
death of America.
I really don't wanna talk aboutmodern American politics, but
some of it's quite prescient ofthat, to be honest.
And we'll just leave that Ithink.
Yeah.
Emma (27:30):
So, did, this prompt some theatrical memories for you?
Sam (27:33):
I do want to talk about student theatre creations'cause
I, I do have a tale to tell.
Excellent.
Emma (27:38):
Let's talk about student theatre.
Sam (27:40):
Hey guys.
Hey
Emma (27:41):
Hey guys.
Let's talk about studenttheatre.
Sam (27:44):
Talk to your kids about student theatre.
We had to write our own play.
Mm-hmm.
Or a, a short piece, I guess apiece of theatre.
I cannot quite remember exactlywhat the brief was, but
ultimately it was a play thathad to be about, prejudice, I
think.
Something along those lines.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you, you're picturing, agroup of 16 to 18 year olds?
(28:06):
Yeah.
have been handed one of the mostdifficult topics in society to
deal with.
We've been told sort this out.
Write a half hour theatre piece.
That'll really tell everybody tothink.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and let me just provide somecontext here I'm from a town
called Scarborough, on the,coast of England, which is one
(28:28):
of the whitest parts of England.
In many places, England is, is avery, cosmopolitan nation in the
big cities, in Scarborough.
I could have counted on one handthe number of non-white faces I
saw growing up.
Emma (28:42):
Yeah.
Sam (28:43):
So, you know, hand those kids this show about
Emma (28:47):
prejudice.
Okay.
Sam (28:50):
It's not quite going where you think, but it's close.
So what we came up with, Emma,uh, uh, let me reiterate.
We didn't want to do this, butwe had to do something for the
brief.
It's okay.
You'll still be friends with meafterwards.
it's charmingly naive, not...
(29:12):
the show.
And I, I think this was the nameof a show within a show.
Okay.
Because we'd been doing ourBrecht, it was about a game show
called Society Pressures, inwhich the host, for some reason
was just a prick to everybodywho came on the game show.
Yeah.
You're picturing that.
Yep.
Why would he go on this gameshow?
Don't know.
(29:35):
Mad was I, I don't think we everwent into that much depth, but,
the host of Society Pressureswas just a prick to everybody,
you know, in the ways that youshouldn't be pricks to people.
But also he wasn't that much ofa prick in the way that,'cause
we all knew, you know, that wasbad.
So we, we, I I, I was about tosay, we towed a very fine line.
We didn't, what we did was shyvery far away from that line
(29:59):
ineffectually, vaguely implyingthat this guy was, all the bad
stuff.
But where I'm going with this,Emma, oh God.
there was a, I don't know howshe came into it.
There was a pop starlet featuredin it at one point, and then we
did a news report of how she'dkilled herself after being on
(30:20):
the show.
'cause the guy was so mean.
Yeah.
Don't ask 16 year olds to towrite this.
here's the bit that I've beenbuilding towards.
Was I, played just some guywho's flatmate was thinking of
going on the show.
Okay.
Okay.
And we had a little scene about,wow, you're thinking about going
(30:41):
on that show, but that guy'ssuch a prick.
And then I left the stage.
Um, and she had a monologue,explaining to the audience that
what you've not realized is thatI'm actually Black.
So, you know, that.
Thank God.
Emma (31:01):
So think on.
Sam (31:03):
Yeah.
What do you think of the DreamEngine now?
Emma (31:08):
I mean, I'm so glad that nobody actually blacked
Sam (31:10):
Oh God.
No, no, no, no, no.
We were so earnest.
Emma (31:17):
so sweet.
Sam (31:17):
yeah,
Emma (31:18):
Um, but yeah,
Sam (31:19):
that I genuinely don't know what was expected of us as a, as
that age, probably the whitestcohort of drama students
anywhere in the country.
Emma (31:27):
Well, you say that.
Oh, But welcome to small townNottinghamshire in the late
nineties, early two thousands.
It turns out
Sam (31:37):
It turns out Emma wrote Society Pressures
Emma (31:39):
we had to produce a piece of theatre.
Again, it's all from scratch.
Yeah.
And so we were given a selectionof starting points.
Yeah.
They like to give startingpoints to see where you go with
it.
And so we were given a, a fewoptions to choose from.
I wanted to go in a differentdirection and look at something
to do with, differences insociety like that.
But somehow we ended up on theMiners' Strike as a theme.
Sam (32:04):
That's fine.
That's a thing that you've gotsome experience of.
Emma (32:07):
of, But Sam, in order to discover more about the Miners'
Strike, bear in mind we're,we're from an ex-mining
community Retford didn't havemines, but Worksop certainly
did.
as in a lot of the surroundingvillages that a lot of the kids
came from.
And so I suppose a lot of theother kids had got secondhand
experience of that time.
'cause the Miners' Strike washappening around the time that a
(32:30):
lot of us were sort of born ormaybe just a little bit before.
and so you'd think, you'd thinkthat with this wealth of
knowledge available to us thatwe would've done some kind of
research.
But why do research when you canjust make shit up?
Sam (32:49):
Oh, no.
Emma (32:51):
Oh, I've blocked a lot of it out.
it was terribly earnest sixthfold theatre.
Yeah.
and I think the, the terriblyearnest nature of all the sixth
fold theatre that I did put meoff pursuing my dreams of
theatre beyond that.
After sixth form, that's whenperformance dropped out of my
life for a really long time.
(33:12):
my confidence was knocked by itall, I think, and I thought I'd
go into a, a quieter.
World.
and part of me regrets notpursuing it.
but also I'm quite glad thatI've come back to performance as
an adult with experience ofthings.
Sam (33:27):
Uh, I'm the same.
did have aspirations of being anactor at that age.
Yeah.
And I was gently steered awayfrom that idea.
Yeah.
partly because an actor's lifeis very difficult and my parents
came from, working classbackgrounds.
Yeah.
And were kind of aspirationalfor us to have better lives.
Yeah.
But also because they could allsee that I wasn't a very good
actor back then.
(33:48):
Probably still aren't now.
Emma (33:50):
Please come and see our shows though.
yeah?
Sam (33:52):
Oh, you want to go to RADA, do you?
Emma (33:54):
do you?
right.
Sam (33:57):
have You considered sitting in a library instead?
Listeners, please tell us aboutyour over earnest, excruciating,
high school and college theatreexperiences.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
We all know you have them.
Emma (34:12):
we would
Sam (34:13):
love to hear them.
This is a safe space
Emma (34:17):
you're in.
Good company.
Sam (34:18):
Absolutely.
I don't think any of you havegot a worse story than Society
Pressures, but if you dochatoutofhell@gmail.com it had a
theme tune.
Oh.
And in fact, I've justremembered.
I also did, I played thevoiceover guy who had introduced
the show.
ladies and gentlemen, welcome toSociety Pressures.
(34:40):
And then I'd have a bit of achat with the host and he would
insult me and my, I think, Ithink we got some mother-in-law
jokes in there.
Oh, Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
I went surfing with mymother-in-law and then he said
something awful.
Yeah, If any of you were inSociety Pressures, um, Yeah, no
(35:05):
wonder we all lost touchchatoutofhell@gmail.com Emma,
would you like to hear the copyfrom the print ad that was in
the student newspaper?
Yes.
"Turned on! A new kind of rocktheatre piece spans the whole
range of theatre from buffooneryto boiling rage, painful,
(35:28):
passionate streaked with aclown's humour.
It churns together in a mixtureof media, including a rock band
with synthesizer, the stuff fromwhich our fantasies are spun.
A maelstrom of energy andecstasy unlike anything you've
ever experienced in the theatre.
And a world premiere" did thatin an American accent, sort of
(35:49):
regretted it about four wordsin.
Emma (35:53):
Well done.
for committing to the bitthough.
Sam (35:54):
Thank you.
But you couldn't hear that myaccent, right?
That wouldn't have
Emma (35:57):
worked.
No.
probably would go and see thatif I'd seen
Sam (36:01):
Yeah.
Written.
do you have an answer to myquestion then?
Would you like to see a Big WestEnd production or would you like
to go back in time and see whereit all began?
Emma (36:10):
I'd like to go and see where it all began, because then
you've got more context to workwith as well.
And I think context is importantfor this particular piece and
the atmosphere and everything.
You know, the crappy recordingdoesn't capture,
Sam (36:26):
it's never the same.
It's
Emma (36:26):
the same.
it's, I'd go back in time andhow about you?
Sam (36:31):
I am really caught'cause the recording is nonsense and
the script is utter horse shit.
Yes.
But somehow everybody loved itin the theatre and therefore I
would really like to see whathappens if I put Cameron
Macintosh's money behind this,if you know what I mean.
Fiction values.
Yeah.
If they weren't, if they gotactors to play roles.
(36:53):
Some thoughts from Jim himselfon this piece.
He calls the character of Baal.
Somewhere between Che Guevara,Mick Jagger, and Billy the Kid.
Emma (37:06):
Oh, Jim.
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jim, Jims.
Sam (37:09):
Jim Jims.
This is one of bits that lets itdown is Baal is this
interesting, charismatic cultleader.
And Jim is Jim Steinman.
I'm not joining that guy's cult.
No way.
This is a quote from Bob Satherwho is in the cast of the
production in New York City.
That didn't happen.
(37:29):
"Barry Keating played Ezra Poundto Steiny's TS Elliot" Steiny
Steiny.
"He took the huge unstageablescript Stein wrote, drastically
edited it, and turned it into abrilliant and effective play".
This is, this is the editedperformable version.
Emma (37:48):
I'm sorry.
What?
Oh, God.
Sam (37:51):
you, Barry.
Emma (37:52):
Can you imagine what Jim's written?
Then?
Sam (37:54):
See if you got that time machine, you could go into Jim's
dorm room and find the scriptunder all those mattresses es
Emma (38:04):
mattress pile of rotting
Sam (38:09):
Barry went on to a highly visible career on the New York
stage.
Where he wrote and directed anumber of award-winning
musicals.
Barry knows what he's doing.
Yeah.
Emma, would you like a quiz?
Emma (38:20):
Yeah.
Sam (38:21):
Here's three facts about the Dream Engine.
Dream Dreams,
Emma (38:26):
engine.
Sam (38:28):
which of these is true?
Mm-hmm.
Is it A David Bowie played Baalin the New York run that didn't
happen.
Is it B Richard Gere played Baalin the Arena Stage Washington
production, which didn't happen?
Or is it C a review in the MountHolyoke Review said,"it says
(38:50):
something about our culture,something delightfully devious.
Probably that a wink wink showhas become a hit.
Like the story, it tells theDream Engine is a one night
stand, but you won't forget hername in the morning." One of
those is true.
Emma (39:07):
I'm gonna, oh, who am I gonna go with?
Oh, no, because I feel like thereview seems the most likely,
but I know your tricksy ways.
Wilkinson.
Oh, let's just, let's go with a,let's go with Bowie.
Sam (39:25):
Bowie didn't play Baal in the New York run, but not
without both sides beinginterested.
there were talks of recruitinghim.
but it just didn't quite happen.
There was a piece in BillboardMagazine, you know, that little
industry rumors section.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Bowie in seriousnegotiations to play the
Broadway lead in Dream Engine.
(39:46):
Wow.
Yeah.
That.
Is a role that is written forsomebody like David Bowie,.
So is it B or C Richard Gere orthe
Emma (39:55):
I'll go with the review.
Sam (39:56):
The review.
Emma.
That was a review of.
Macarena,
Emma (40:03):
I knew this was coming.
I knew it, and yet I still, ah,
Sam (40:08):
"it says something about our culture, something
delightfully devious.
Probably that a Wink wink Clubsong has become an all ages
approved dance step and noveltyhit.
Like the story it tells Macarenais a one night stand, but you
won't forget her name in themorning." And you'll be hearing
more Macarena throughout thisseries.
Yeah.
Richard Gere Gere was playingBaal in the Washington DC
(40:29):
production.
Emma (40:30):
Wow.
Yeah.
Sam (40:30):
Yeah.
Emma (40:31):
He must have been so disappointed for that not to
have come off
Sam (40:35):
it's time for us to rate this musical Emma.
Emma (40:37):
Oh, is it?
Sam (40:38):
And as always, this is a Jim Steinman work.
So we have to rate this on ourpatented Jim Steinman Rating
Scale, which goes Jim Steinmanat the top, Jim Fineman for his
average stuff, and JimDeclineman for the rubbish that
he churned out.
But Emma, what's this?
I know what you think it is.
(40:58):
I'm not, I don't disagree.
Emma (41:00):
So is it a,
Sam (41:00):
Declineman?
It is a Jim Declineman.
Emma (41:03):
For a number of
Sam (41:04):
reasons, for a number of reasons.
It, I, I don't think this isever gonna be an incredible,
this isn't ever gonna be a LesMis.
Even if I do get CameronMacintosh put it on, it's gonna
be an interesting piece of weirdwhere you go, oh, okay.
I see where he built up from.
Emma (41:20):
it's fringe.
It's fringe theatre.
Sam (41:22):
Oh, you are absolutely right.
You could put this on atEdinburgh Fringe.
Yeah.
And sell out while making acolossal loss.
Emma (41:30):
Let's put on a show.
Sam (41:33):
I sort of am tempted now.
This is good, interesting fringetheatre that I would like to see
somebody perform properly,
Emma (41:42):
or would like to participate in adequately.
Sam (41:48):
Thanks for the review,
Emma (41:50):
Talking about myself as well.
Sam (41:51):
Oh yeah.
Fair enough.
Emma (41:53):
could play the auspicious girl.
Sam (41:55):
Oh, well you can either play Girl or Emily,
Emma (42:00):
who knows.
Or maybe I could be thehistorian.
Sam (42:02):
Oh, oh, that's gender.
Flip the whole thing.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, Take that.
We're going.
Society Pressures on this
Emma (42:11):
thing.
and what you didn't know was Iwas a girl all along.
Sam (42:20):
Good.
grief.
Emma (42:22):
Listeners, if you want to sponsor us to take the Dream
Engine to Edinburgh.
Sam (42:28):
If you are Cameron Macintosh and you'd like to pay
us the put on a Performance ofthe Dream Engine brackets gender
flipped version, do drop us anemail chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Emma, what songs are we gonnabring next time?
Ooh, because listeners, we aregetting back on the road next
time.
Yes, we're diving deep intoproper Meat
Emma (42:49):
songs
Sam (42:49):
songs.
Yay.
Emma (42:51):
I'm going back to Welcome to the Neighborhood and I'm
going for running for the RedLight brackets I Got a Life
Sam (42:58):
And I'll be going back to the album Dead Ringer, which it
turned out is actually quitegood for the song.
Dead Ringer for Love, that's gotCher on it.
It can be bad.
So listeners, you can do yourhomework on those.
You'll have a lovely time.
Give'em a listen.
Do you have any thoughts onthose songs?
Do you have any thoughts on theDream Engine?
Were you at Amherst College in2019?
Do you know anybody who was atAmherst College in 2019?
(43:20):
Would you like to pay us to puton a performance of the Dream
Engine?
What was your earnest studenttheatre experience?
It's okay.
You are among friends.
Let us know.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Did you see Meat Loaf on a waterskiing trip to the beach?
Emma (43:35):
I have some other business.
Sam (43:37):
Emma has some other business halfway through my
traditional wrap up speech.
It's okay.
Let us know if you saw Loafdoing that
chatoutofhell@gmail.com Emma,AOB
Emma (43:47):
This comes out on Monday.
that turns out to be the firstanniversary of Chat out of Hell.
I've bought you an anniversarypresent, Sam.
Oh.
So in, marriages there arespecific,,categories for,
anniversary presents.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, and in podcasting there aredifferent so the podcasting one
year anniversary is a bottle ofA1 Sauce Happy anniversary, Sam.
Sam (44:14):
Hashtag dear a one steak sauce.
We don't need your sauce.
I've got a bottle now.
Emma (44:20):
Thank you very
Sam (44:21):
much.
original Steak sauce.
Next time we're recording atmine, I'll do you a bacon
sandwich.
Emma (44:26):
Delicious.
and ruin it with some A1 sauce
Sam (44:30):
with some
Emma (44:30):
A1
Sam (44:30):
one sauce.
Great.
In marinades.
Marvelous.
Thank you
Emma (44:35):
much.
You're welcome.
I thought it was a timely
Sam (44:38):
A lovely gift.
I knew our anniversary wascoming up, but I didn't
Emma (44:42):
I I had a little look back in, It's, we've been doing this
for a year.
We
Sam (44:47):
have been wasting our
Emma (44:49):
Good.
Could have got a job
Sam (44:53):
But Emma, how are you gonna get a job without a thorough
knowledge of
Emma (44:58):
the Dream Engine?
Sam (44:59):
So that was Chat out of Hell.
Thank you so much for listening.
It's gonna be a interestingedit, this one, but luckily it's
a long weekend.
We are gonna go hang up ourheadphones and by the time
you're listening to this, we'llbe queuing for the opening of
the Bat out of Hell Musical.
Even though we've got tickets,we can just, just go.
We don't have to camp outsidethe theatre for two days, but
(45:20):
we're gonna do it anyway.
ready.
Yeah.
so we'll see you all after we'veseen the Bat out of Hell
musical.
Changed people.
Thank you all so much forlistening.
We'll see you all in another twoweeks time for another episode
of Chat out of Hell.
Bye
Emma (45:37):
Bye
Sam (45:38):
Bow Now.
Emma (45:41):
Bing.
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