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25 Time to Turn the Tables |
From Mary Celeste |
[The silence following this tragic verse is broken by the children's voices, whose words are soon taken up by the rest of the company. Backing at this point is slight]
Children
No! We say No!
we don't believe it has to end this way
we face the coming century
all eager to arrive;
it seems so elementary
we're going to survive by saying
[The music from the Band builds up]
Add Crew
No! (No!) Saying No!
to anything that threatens us today
Our crew were not so clever
but they won't have died in vain
they've shown us we must never
make the same mistakes again, saying
No! (No!) By saying No! By saying No!
[The music has now built up to a very dancey groove]
[The Germs and Sarah Briggs detach and hold up their table-top, which depicts rubber gloves and a heart]
No! to all the lovers who refuse to take precautions
so we're living at the mercy of disease (Stamp it out!)
[Mary Celeste's Owners and the Cabin-boy detach and hold up their table-top, which depicts exchange rate graphs and other monetary symbols]
No! to all the swindlers who amass their secret fortunes
while the workers of the world are on their knees (Stamp it out!)
[Charlotte, Atlanteans and Look-out detach and hold up their table-top, which depicts mystical signs, eye-in-pyramid motifs, Masonic compasses and so on]
No! to mumbo-jumbo and the fatalistic whingers
who pretend we cannot change our destiny (Stamp it out!)
[Temperance League and the Deckhand detach and hold up their table-top, which depicts bottles, tablets and other addicts' apparatus]
No! to all the addicts with their bottles and syringes
who pretend they can escape reality (Stamp it out!)
that's not for me!
[Music now hits a poppy, Motownish sort of mood]
Company
'Cos here and now
we finish with the fables
Now it's you and I
got to try!
No matter how
it's time to turn the tables
as we scream and shout:
time to stamp it out!
[Music back to the dancey rhythm]
[Doctor's Wife and First Mate detach and hold up their table-top, depicting some DNA cell-division monstrosity]
No! to men of science the genetic engineers
creating organisms no-one can control (Stamp it out!)
[Agnes, Priscilla and the Second Mate detach and hold up their table-top, which depicts war weaponry]
No! to men of violence whose fanatical careers
will soon be jeopardising every living soul (Stamp it out!)
[Schliemann and the Helmsman detach and hold up their table-top, whose motif is global warming]
No! to filthy factories all belching gas and heat and
playing havoc with the weather and the air (Stamp it out!)
[The café Waitresses and the Cook detach and hold up their table-top, which depicts famine and plenty]
No! to greedy countries and their chronic overeating
when there's hungry millions dying for a share (Stamp it out!)
[Music goes much quieter as Foreman, and Briggs & Sophia detach and hold up their table-top, which shows power-stations and the radioactivity symbol]
No! to the explosives and the time-bombs we are building
No! to all the dark satanic mills
No! to all the parents who are lying to their children
'bout the power that is harmless 'til it spills (Stamp it out!)
Until it kills!
[Back to the poppy, Motownesque refrain]
Company
'cos here and now
we finish with the fables
Now it's you and I,
got to try!
No matter how
it's time to turn the tables
as we scream and shout:
time to stamp it out!
[Turning the nine table-tops, they reveal the dots and dashes of the Morse S O S: The Company is urging us not only to 'stamp out' the various hazards, but also to 'stamp out' the rhythm of . . . - - - . . . ; this they do as a kind of tap-dance routine, with vigorous abandon]
[Eventually the music goes quiet for the last, stately reprise of the refrain of No 2, Market The Myth]
Company
Take Mary Celeste as a model
a message we wanted to float:
we sent you a ship in a bottle
to say 'we're all in the same boat
and the problems we face are all human'
so if all mankind SOS'ed
we could stop turning into the crewmen
of Mary Celeste
Company
'cos here and now
we finish with the fables
Now it's you and I,
got to try!
No matter how
it's time to turn the tables
as we scream and shout:
time to stamp it out!
Stamp it out!
[Curtain calls as the Band plays the Motownesque refrain ('Here and now' etc.). This show has no central character to receive the usual star accolade: it ends, rather, with applause for the little boy who played Arthur who, at the moment one expects to see a bouquet brought on, is presented with a large green ship model. This new ship, which would ideally be brought out of the planetary globe which flies above Arthur's head, replaces his Mary Celeste toy which was smashed in the Kraken episode: it is intended to symbolise the re-greening of the planet, and the restoration of his lost father's world]