Neptune

watch a scene in development (2008):

The Planet Plays: NEPTUNE

A Boy hears the voice of a god in his bottled water.

A Whale undertakes a harrowing journey to find Prince William.

A beautiful mute Girl swims naked in the flooded Hudson River.

This is NEPTUNE, a collaged fairy tale about how we adapt to a changing world.

While the Whale (portrayed by a singer/songwriter at a piano) tells her story entirely through song, the Boy's tale unfolds through simple storytelling and bold physical theater. A playful, dark adaptation of H. C. Andersen's The Little Mermaid, NEPTUNE explores the nature of sacrifice, the meaning of self, and the question of water.

An excerpt from Neptune:

GIRL

“We don’t have much time,” his giant eyes seem to declare.

“What’s your decision? You have to make a decision!”

The Girl kisses the Boy on his fish lips.

She shakes her head,

“No,”

turns around, and dissolves into the ivory night, leaving the Boy behind.

BOY

And then

He begins to glow.

The chemicals inside his now-nearly-completely-Piscean body swirl and mix together, the last dregs of physical humanity melting into cold blood, and, through the white darkness, radiating, he becomes a ball of brilliant bioluminescence. Green, scaly, and glowing.

N

The Boy slips into the harbor at the prescribed moment of precision, and is a fish. He finds N waiting for him, smiling, emblematic scissors in tow, ready to cut the ribbon on the race of men.

Lyrics from the song “Under Another Bridge”

WHALE: Under another bridge, under another bridge

There's the smell of burning plastic and of hatred so fantastic

You can probably feed the world with it

It's claimed my ocean bit by bit

Under another bridge, under another bridge

Oh Will, did I invent your handsome face?

SATURN