The novel was/is about a man whose wife dominated him, to the extent of abusing him physically. Intriguingly, in the Opera Alive show this year, there are vague hints of this same theme...good grief, am I foisting the idea everywhere? I've had to produce some of the numbers this year, due to the lack of a choreographer/producer/director or whatever. In one of them, Shine On Harvest Moon, the moon (played by one of the girls) stubbornly refuses to shine on the young lovers' romantic pursuits in the outdoors - until the whole chorus pleads with her...and even then it's only when the young man gives her the 'spoon' which is a visual pun on 'spooning' that she relents. Heaven knows what Freudian significance the spoon has taken on as a result! 

That's the milder scene as far as a 'woman' refusing the man and making him beg - the young lover has to embrace her feet (I had nothing to do with that bit, as I recall). But in another piece, which I mostly put together, (I can't give you anything but love, baby), the lone girl is ;surrounded' by the five guys as the song progresses, until she has to force her way out of it. Her reaction throughout has been total nonchalance to their endeavours; it's only when they start pressing in on her, as it were, that she breaks out. I suppose, thinking about it again, neither of those 'scenes' are particularly like the couple in the novel...maybe I've layered on some of my feelings about the novel's action onto the the way I see the Opera Alive pieces...in fact, they're fairly innocuous by comparison. Perhaps it's my feeling about the boys/men's plight in each case that I've latched onto. The young lover in the first has to beg the moon to shine - the young lady has gone inside and left him to it. In the other scene, the five guys all plead to no avail. The idea that love of its own is sufficient (their theory) is tossed out by the girl, who is plainly into self-absorption and self-concern. At the time of the scene, at least, young men have no place in her life. It's the irony of the guys singing about the poverty of spirit of love without dollars attached compared to her reaction that everything is viewed, for her, materialistically. This is all rather heavy philosophising of some fairly innocent stuff, probably! I was just checking out the template again, trying to figure out how to change it so that it's more interesting. I can see more of what it's about, but am still a bit cautious about fiddling with it until I know what I'm doing. It's a matter of reading it as a code, in a sense. Once I figure the code a bit more effectively, I'll give it a go, maybe. I copied it over to AOLPress, but because it wasn't reading all the other stuff that goes with the bits of info attached to dollar signs, it was rather sparse - sparser than the page already is, in fact. This blog has replaced my normal journal writing over the last few days, although it's really only supposed to deal with writing. But that means, in fact, that I haven't done any writing on anything else for the last few days. Exhaustion from rehearsals has set in, and all I can say is that I'm glad tonight is a night off. Otherwise I'd be whacked for the rest of the week. Oh, yes, I've now arranged to have tomorrow morning off, as I normally do on Wednesdays, instead of going in and seeing my fourth rep for the week. Four reps in three days is several reps too many. All those decisions on what book or item to buy. Too much. I wonder why it feels as though I'm writing to somebody when I'm writing here. Rather as though this is an endlessly serialised letter to some foreign correspondent - the trouble is, the correspondent never replies...