using a keyboard⌨️) but with an eye on the big picture, prefers her money do the talking, she's committed to her business (moonlights as a shipping magnate) and lives by the pericope 'You deserve what you let happen to you.']
Ember Libitina, Attorney General Emerita and Mayor[description:= ζ White female, 70s years (30s years in 1978 flashback) /// character:= a charming but deadly Philadelphia prosecutor and former judge (nicknamed the 'Duchess of Death' because she frequently seeks the death penalty for those convicted) who - with her juvenile demeanor - convincingly masks a brutal sociopathic personality, as cunning a politician as she is a ruthless criminal, campaigning for re-election under the guise of "redevelopment", clever, 'actively retired' but will never truly forfeit her power, obsessed with destiny, a greedy IJ Syndicate holdover from the Mayor Luigi era, deliberately willing to
call for wholesale assassinations, loosely modeled after non-particular 20th Century Philadelphia district attorneys and Joker (indirectly)]
A deep dramatic work is almost for naught if it doesn't have a proper epsilon. In my 🧼opera, Easter™, this is the dual role(s) of Maundy - the mastermind behind all of this chaos that's been going on in Brandywine during this turbulent election cycle - and Ember, a treacherous prosecutor.
When I wrote the first incarnations of Maundy, the character was actually an obese male; I had a stereotypical Mediterranean mob boss / crime overlord in the mold of Vito Corleone (or Wilson Fisk). That idea was at first discarded because I thought the world needed to move away from over-subjugating certain persons, and because we've already seen that done many times over. ... and because this part of the storyline didn't have a place to fit such a gangster's history; a requisite for understanding what makes someone like that tick. That was an honest error; I was later seduced to the realization that Cosa Nostra is a credible subplot, so it was re-spawned into a different character.
Really wanting to surprise my audience, I then rewrote Maundy as a cultish elder, but again, too stereotypical; almost borderline tinfoil hat stuff. The easy fix was to just change the gender. Women and their motives (especially in the company of men) tend to be much more difficult to follow on screen/stage when all the audience is given is a few minutes with them. Men are simple to gauge; we have a small menu. Women, on the otherhand are usually (not always) in supportive roles (in the company of men), meaning that there is a lot more on their plate that they're actually dealing with when it comes to keeping waters calm.
Maundy's that person. She is a monster in her own right, though her sophistication will not allow her emotions to devolve into a savage like Egg; nibbling on an oppressive spice like most would-be miscreants is beneath her.
Instead, she's had plenty of time to seduce and manipulate those she needed to to get where she wants to be. Those can be the toughest people to read since you're inadvertently part of their plans. Avarice is her basic instinct. Because she represents absolute power, this character needed to be larger in scope than everyone around her; so slick that we feel we may be dealing with the embodiment of the 👿Devil Herself.
"I'm a competitor. Winning adds value to Life. Losing is a choice, and a poor one. You deserve what you let happen to you." - Maundy
What was demanded was an instant declaration of character. In 1978, the Navy Yard in Brandywine is 'undocking'; having practically been de-commissioned since its last ship was built some eight years prior, the U.S. Military has begun organizing plans to transfer ownership of the grounds to the highest private domestic bidder in an effort to stave off foreign competition towards the end of the Cold War. The opportunistic Old Dominion-based tycoon, Maundy Lindros, has caught wind of the sale and wants to expand her dealings in the corridor. This sets Maundy against the baroness Lambsimon from France in an intense bidding war for the real estate. This happens to coincide with the August 1978 GO incident in Brandywine, where an off-shoot of young Black freedom fighters were brutally and wrongfully attacked by the city's government, leading to historians attributing it - and the similar 1985 massacre on the group by the same police force - as full-fledged racism; reminiscent of the slaughtering on 'Black Wall Street' in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These events made national news, by the way, and are sensationalized in this piece.
Of course, this just happens to be constructed on the wharf that the Lindros company wants ownership of, so city permits surreptitiously fall in her favor. Allthewhile, she manages to prey on people's seemingly natural fear + distaste of Black folk to her advantage, relying on that to keep would-be aggravators at-bay while giving her a headstart onto her true ambition. 
When we meet her in Die, Detective!™ (the work's prelude = the year 1978), we immediately know who sets the tone. A coastal Virginia-born+raised aristocrat instilled with a sense of noblesse oblige (although you wouldn't at first guess this from her affection for cowgirl boots👢), she runs things without titles. Blind (born with optic nerve hypoplasia) - yet visionary - and mute, she's deignly mastered the secret to being in two (2) places at once - by having your DNA all over the place (and holograms). We're not afraid of her, we just would rather not deal with her if we don't have to.
By proxy, her company is also the de facto operator of the Brandywine Water Authority (+ global desalination technology subsidiaries), largest developer of The Shipyard, holder of the Brandywine Gas Company, mutual owner of SPEC (Southeastern Pennsylvania Electric Company), silent majority stakeholder in the Panama Canal Mortgage, and financier of the Thanks Endowment. She doesn't know it yet, but her heavy investment in Securitas AB is about to look more prudent (and dangerous at the same time), thanks to the hiring of Pinkerton consultant Gunyo Gruber.
Like with any control freak, she's grounded in materialism, because to them, possessions are tangible realism. That's what's scary about her; she's bureaucratic, not political.** I made that up, there's no real historical significance. Wink😉 to the Swedish surname.
/// +For reference, Maundy's full name is Maundy Lindros. The name comes from 'Maundy Thursday', retaining Easter nomenclature.
-- Trivia: "Maun-" is derived from Old Norse; akin to Olde English "gemynd", meaning 'think' or 'intellect'. The name 'Lindros' was chosen in honor of of Eric Lindros, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey🏒 team, that's also where the name of her inherited business (Lindros FlyerCast...) comes from. -- She has no siblings, never married, and is childless. We can conjecture that because her traditional parents may have been somewhat disappointed by having a physically disabled/handicapped kid, they decided to not bring any more children into this cruel world, and instead, dedicated all of their resources to her development, which may explain her heightened senses, genius, and work ethic. Her zodiac sign is Pisces♓👍.+The first ban on slavery anywhere in the American (New England) colonies was passed on May 18, 1652 in the territory of what is now Rhode Island. Since this is fiction, anyway, we may assume, for good
measure, that the Lindros family - perhaps upon Quaker conversion after its Virginia settlement - may have had something to do with the passing of that code.
She really is untouchable. Throughout most of the Philly's skyline is my favorite.🤭 |
"'Change and hope' is a fallacy. The only way to rectify anything is to start all over." - Maundy
In the present-day, when the world's richest person, Mr. Alphabet (Dwight Mann), comes to town seeking a second headquarters for his Portsmith, Oregon-based e-commerce firm, Nile LLC, part of the requirements for its new station are that those utility companies being privately held by Lindros be returned to the public sphere. That's billions of dollars in annual income for her potentially at-risk. Couple that with the fact that Mr. Alphabet's business is also in shipping by default (commercial freight: trucking, cargo drones, air, and rail🚆), and has selected Brandywine because of its location and proximity to overseas handlers, things aren't boding well for our heiress. As a precaution, she initiates the 'ArC Project' [NOAH].
Since 1978 when she strong-willed the then-city council to turn over the utilities into her private hands, she's made a vast fortune, acquired extraordinary influence, and become a menace to the jurisdiction, especially the District Attorney's office. Now things are coming full circle for her, but, she is composed, insightful, and vastly as resourceful in her own right. We'll see how this plays out.
What has induced panic in the 🧼opera is, in fact, a combination of things.--There is a serial killer on the loose in Irish Charm that is giving local agencies fits. In an area reputed for its down-and-outness, for some reason, certain city officials all of a sudden seem to care an awful lot about its stability. But, if you listen to these politicians tell it this election season, "Poor people vote, too.".
On a macroscale, the entity named 'SAINT BERNARD' (SB) has made a number of under-the-table deals over the course of the past few months with religious sects worldwide to force either the demolition or removal of the Al-Aqsa Mosque🕌 so that the prophesied Third Temple can be erected.
Meanwhile, a worldwide pandemic in the form of a viral🪱 neurotoxin (biowarfare?) has crippled the global economy, and the anticipated aftermath of a recovery has sparked fears of a hegemonic shift between the Western and Eastern hemispheres; potentially resulting in a clash of cultures and an inevitable world war. SB's deliberate attempt to invoke both the Second Coming✝ and Armageddon tickles the diabolical beaks of war hawks, but not without consequence.
The four-fold arc of the |
Basically, the whole story centers around her, as told from interactions with our eponym (focusing on his point-of-view, which is necessary since he is the 🧼opera's random walker). To some degree - and on a very high-level, the entire piece purveys the rivalry between Maundy - who represents business + organization - and her adversary, Ember Libitina - who represents crime - (essentially leaving Pascha's angle relegated to being a punctual dramatic prop).
For the better part of forty-plus years, these two power brokers have formulated an ongoing mutual disdain for each other; engaging in a soft war of money versus clout. It has taken an outsider and an incredible event to align their singular objectives.
The tricky part about this character is that although, yes, she is the villain, she brings no intentional antagony to the narrative; (other than her younger self's direct involvement with Pascha's reformation, ie. Joseph becoming John or vice versa) she is not the sworn enemy of our protagonist/antagonist. Yet, the ebb+flow of her executive decisions pretty much entangles everyone in her web🕸. For comparison, most people assume the xenomorph is the villainy in the Alien franchise, but, if you think about it, the android is the real villain in each outing. The xenomorph was engineered as a virus programmed to do nothing more than re-populate; whilst the android was created by The Corporation to retrieve said virus so that it can be used as a biological weapon. Being a non-biological humanoid, it slyly blends in with its crew, only to willingly let the crew be murdered in order to fulfill its objectives. Humans, then, would become equal parts host and parasite. In either analysis, the xenomorph and the android are both 'aliens' on a mission solely for self-preservation, which is exactly the mindset of Maundy.
"The only thing a person can genuinely make is a decision." - Maundy
Good and bad are points of view, and Maundy embodies that idiom. She is by far my favorite character in Easter. When writing her, I found myself cheering for her at parts because she's the rare individual with a grand plan and the determination to execute on that plan. She doesn't shy from her sentiment that Pascha went and started some shit💩 and now she's got to finish it.
We've grown accustomed via conditioning from the likes of Hollywood and books to look at people who save our lives as heroes without consideration to the possibility of them having ulterior motives. To offer another perspective, my personal thesis is in agreement with Lex Luthor: Clark Kent is an alien of great power that must be contained, if not eventually destroyed, because he poses a grave threat to humanity altogether. I mean, suppose he's having a bad day or views the foibles of mankind as enough to decimate it? Here, Pascha's done some good in-between the rolling credits, but can we really trust a person who is not even trusted by their own?
A lot of people dream of something and want it to happen - their hubris even leaves them with the expectation of it happening, and then there are the very few that actually make it happen. In that regard, I liken her to a particular former American Vice President. Maundy made bold bets in her youth that paid dividends; she trusts her instinct and is usually always right (to paraphrase Donald Trump: successful people tend to only listen to themselves). Our girl is a boss; a gangster's gangster.
----------
Now in her eighth decade of life, the Attorney General Emerita sees this special election in which she is running for re-election as the culmination of all of her works and possibly her last chance at abusing said coveted office. It's a credibly odd circumvention, but the mayorship of Brandywine caps the efforts of a distinguished legal career and satisfies her public ambition. As the state's former top cop (she transferred from Steelerville to work in the Brandywine DA's outpost for sake of convenience), Ember - who is notoriously "tough on crime" - seeks to re-assert the 'natural order of things' throughout and around the town. Her campaign/tenure is based on adjectives such as reform, gentrification, safety, and progress. She is definitely "in it to win it"."Ultimately, strength prevails. -- There is no balance of power. Equality is a myth, and rather boring." - Ember
{This part (1978) of the story is based largely on historical fiction, so we defer to real people of that time.} |
I actually couldn't tell this story without Ember. One, as the incumbent mayor, she needs a worthy challenger (Curran) in the runoff election that's taking place, and two, in order to keep things from spiraling out-of-control, Maundy's overbearing authority has to be challenged by an adversary from the political sphere. It just does.
This situation (the distribution of Mr. Alphabet's intra-city investment) lends itself perfectly to a winner-takes-all 'Battle for Brandywine' that nobody can actually win. The ever-so-sharp Ember shows us that people's migrant behavior is recycled from patterns of economic health [ie. roughly every two (2) decades or every other generation, the wealthier class relocates back into the city for jobs/employment+transportation before saving their money and moving to the suburbs]. This is an important note and plot point, as we see that residential stagnation is a detriment and impossibility where there exists youth.
One civil mishap has led to another in recent outings (eg. police shootings → arson/riots, bombings, landscape defacing, etc.), and Libitina requests the personal protection and repute of none other than Pascha himself to assist her in navigating this extremely intense social climate as she makes her campaign rounds. He obliges with reservation, suspecting there is more to this assignment than meets the eye.
"I've lived a long, normal life. Like you, I used to be overwhelmed with sadness when people died. Stay in law enforcement👩✈️👩🏾⚖️ long enough, and we all come to the same satisfying conclusion: criminals make it easy to see that not everyone wants or deserves to live." - Ember Libitina
To get this point across, a small sample of actors were considered based on pedigree.
The role of Maundy was originally fleshed out with Robert Englund in mind, and then written specifically for and offered to Glenn Close (who also resides in Montana like me😉) first before a rethink (Ember's character was a byproduct of thought). I wanted Glenn because of her reputation of portraying villainesses on-screen to great effect. I had hoped to get both mother and daughter (Annie Starke) in the production, with Annie playing the 1978 version of the character (there's roughly a reallife forty year age difference between the two, which is necessary for the character).
I also tabbed Dianne Wiest[b] for the part of Ember Libitina after being so impressed with her work in Little Man Tate. I love how she (as Jane Grierson) switched it up in that, going from kind psychologist, to fierce and controlling headmaster in such a short frame.
That's pretty much what happens here; given enough time and resources, we see that the true nature of the beast is to rule. Wiest also had mentioned* in past interviews that she wanted to assume more aggressive roles where she perhaps played a cruel woman, not unlike roles that went to Glenn Close.** Exact quote: "I'd like to play a real cold, mean mass murderer. Some cruel, hard-bitten women, like the roles Glenn Close gets, just to show that I am capable of not being vulnerable and not being fragile on screen." So, regardless of if I could land Dianne Wiest or not, I'd want an actress to mimic her behaviors (eg. soft gentle voice, unassuming demeanor) because I feel that her style of delivery is best suited for the role.
Again, with a rethink due to budgeting, we'll now get the chance to see one actor impersonate two legends in three modes.
Easter is an expansive clues-based MUD (meaning that the viewer can pursue different action perspectives within the timeline, all of which happens concurrently), challenging [mostly because in addition to this being largely ad-libbed improvisational theatre (being mute, Maundy has no speaking parts) from storyboards (that rationale is because the telepresence factor dictates mimicry of "real life", where goals may be planned but usually unscripted), the elements of timing+spacing are critical in polyplexity cinematography ..cf. openworld/360º vcs, making it akin to a live show/one take/single shot] four-chord opera ludo, and the character [lead] of Maundy (coloratura) is featured throughout, so in order to carry the piece the actress would need to have plenty of stamina+ability.
Wiest is one of the very few thespians I could think of that encompasses said range. She's versatile and adept. Her distinction would be welcomed, and as we attempt to record libretto-to-opera with fidelity, relying on her breadth of craftwork (film/television, stage/musical theatre, etc.) can only be a plus when it comes to helping everyone else on set deliver their best performance(s). It's a win-win.
Shout-out: Thanks also goes to the non-profit, #BringChangetoMind, which is aimed at supporting mental health and reducing the stigma of mental illness. -- Mental health is a big focal point in this
opera. My personal angle has to do with autism awareness and support. 