Michael Sahl And Eric Salzman - "Civilization And Its Discontents"

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Civilization and Its Discontents is the title of a famous essay of Sigmund Freud about the ills of society. Civilization & Its Discontents is also the title of a ground-breaking new music theater piece, a lively and biting musical satire written and composed jointly by Michael Sahl and Eric Salzman. It was originally a prize-winning off-off-Broadway music theater comedy, a music-theater recording for National Public Radio that had one of the largest air plays of any work of its kind, and a Prix Italia winner that was aired on radio stations around the world.

The recorded form of the work, especially produced for radio and disc by the authors, originally issued by Nonesuch and now re-issued by Labor, uses the form of a musical radio drama to capture the dark side of the so-called 'me' generation in a whirlwind of 'break-a-leg' dance music, pick-ups, one-night stands, frantic phone calls, egocentric confrontations and mad man hi jinks.

Carlos Arachnid invites us to join him and his friends in Club Bide-a-wee whose motto is "If it feels good, do it!" Dancing alternates with 'freeze-frame' moments of high anxiety, angry words and sexual come-ons.
Scene II is in Jill Goodheart's bedroom where a seduction scene is interrupted by a constant string of phone calls, the arrival of Jill's boyfriend and the deus ex machina appearance of Arachnid who brings us back to Club Bide-a-wee for a deconstructed dance orgy and an ironic morality.

Moments of '80s retro alternate with stunning sound images, a relentless musical flow, seduction music of extreme beauty and a social commentary that is as amusing as it is scary and remarkably up-to-date.

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