Slip Knot: A Staged Workshop of a Operatic Work in Progress

Adapted and arranged for this production by Rachael Gates, Noel Koran and Rhoda Levine
presented by the Northwestern University School of Music

April 26, 2003
7:30 P.M.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Levere Memorial Temple
Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois

Cast

Arthur, baritone	a young slave
Flora, mezzo-soprano	his mother
Godfrey, bass	a slave owner and Arthur's father
Edward Clark, baritone	a slave owner
Theodona, soprano	his wife
Tambo, tenor	a slave and friend of Arthur
Berta, soprano	a slave and lover of Arthur
Samuel, baritone	a white man, jealous of Arthur
Opechee, mezzo-soprano	a young Mashpee woman, lover of Arthur
Deborah Metcalfe, soprano	a white woman who accuses Arthur of assaulting her
Jennison, tenor	a white vigilante
Isaac Frasier, bass	a notorious Irish thief, in prison
Irish Boy, tenor	also in prison
The Bailiff, bass
The Chief Justice, tenor
The Reverend Maccarty, bass

Synopsis: Arthur, a slave in Massachusetts, returns home after escaping to sea. To the horror of his mother, Flora, he is sold by Godfrey, his owner and father, to another slave owner, Mr. Clark. As his friends Berta and Tambo talk of freedom, Arthur speaks of his love for Opechee, a woman of the Mashpee. Accused of raping Deborah Metcalfe, a white woman, Arthur is imprisoned and finally confronted at his trial by the Chief Justice of the court. Although he protests that he is not guilty of rape, he is condemned to be hanged and goes to his death defiantly singing of freedom.

Arthur:

Ship Ahoy!
I sailed out of Nantucket
On a sloop with Captain Coffin.
I saw the devil's convoy
On its way to Cape Coast Castle
And old Calabar
Where the salty trade winds
Were the only thing we heard.

Back from the West Indies
Where I swigged cane-cutter's rum.
Following the Ides of March.
Voices of women in the night,
The galley din boiled with fistfights.
Ship Ahoy!

Flora:

I almost lost my head.
I dreamt you were dead.

Arthur:

Momma, I was so near
I could see the smoke
From your chimney
Drifting down to me.
A fire of leaves.

Flora:

I thought you were dead
And almost talked you out of my head.

Arthur:

I was on the other side of the hill
With friends who saved my skin.
I was with the Mashpees
Among the birch trees.
All their warriors are dust
Among the songs of ghosts
Dreaming of tomahawks
Against muskets.
Divided in my blood,
I still saw the smoke
From your chimney
Drifting down to me
In a fire of leaves.

Godfrey:

So,
My property returned.

Arthur:

Major Godfrey—
Your name is God, Mister
And Master.

Godfrey:

Yes—My property is back.

Arthur:

I have been out to sea
With Captain Coffin.
With Captain Coffin
I was almost free.

Flora:

Why can you not look
Him in the eye, Sir?
Why do you not see
Each other?

Arthur:

Ship Ahoy!
I am still on my sea legs
And can hear the dark swish
Of cane-cutter's rum in the wooden kegs.
Halfway somewhere out there,
I was no longer on earth.
Captain Coffin's sloop
Sailed past the Cape,
And I swear I could see
A pirate's ghost ship
Wedged on a sandbar,
And the sea was bright
With split bags of gold.
I was being born backwards.

Godfrey:

You were always more trouble
Than you are worth.
All of your thieving
And only God knows what . . .

Arthur:

And Momma, I have touched
A woman—
Many other women.

Godfrey:

I am going to sell you
Out of the country,
To the West Indies
Or Carolina.

Flora:

You swore Never,
You said Never.

Godfrey:

But with your son,
I could never bid
A day's work out of him.

Flora:

My son?
My son...