Eclipse+
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2021
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s August 2007. Lauren Marks is a 27-year-old actor and a PhD student, spending the month directing a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She’s in a bar, standing onstage, performing a karaoke duet of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’…and then a blood vessel in her brain bursts. When she wakes up in hospital, days later, she has no internal monologue, and a vocabulary of only about forty words.
This is a rerun of an all time fave Allusionist, but with a few extra little bits added. Content note: this episode is about a medical crisis (everyone survives, though!), and has some Category A swears in it.
Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/totaleclipse, and more about Lauren at http://astitchoftime.com.
The special music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin’s own songs at palebirdmusic.com or search for Pale Bird on Bandcamp and Spotify, and he’s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.
The Allusionist's online home is theallusionist.org. Support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/allusionist. Stay in touch at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionists how and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, train language to sit, sit, sit. |
| 0:11.9 | Okay, lie down. |
| 0:13.9 | No, lie down, lie down, now get off, no! |
| 0:18.6 | Coming up in today's show. |
| 0:20.0 | I personally did not want to die in the middle of a 1980s like Power Ballad in like a dingy |
| 0:28.0 | bar in Edinburgh. |
| 0:30.6 | Yes, returning to Eclipse, one of my favourite illusionist pieces because I wanted to hear it again |
| 0:37.0 | and there is particularly beautiful music in it by Martin Allswick. |
| 0:40.9 | Martin makes all of the music you hear on the illusionist, but I'll let you into the |
| 0:44.4 | secret. |
| 0:45.4 | Usually it's his own songs that he's written for his band Pale Bird, but with the vocals |
| 0:50.4 | removed. |
| 0:51.4 | Not this time, because there is a significant song in the story, so I asked him to learn |
| 0:56.8 | to play it and then take it apart to create new music out of it to score this piece. |
| 1:01.6 | If you haven't heard Eclipse before, get ready. |
| 1:04.1 | Also, content note, the piece is about a health crisis, but spoiler, everyone survives. |
| 1:09.9 | If you have heard Eclipse before, I've added a couple of little updates, thanks to which |
| 1:14.4 | I now also have to add a warning that there are some category A's swears in it. |
| 1:20.0 | On with the show. |
| 1:26.8 | Words were everything, I mean, it was all day, every day, on stage, off stage, on the |
| 1:38.0 | page. |
| 1:39.0 | Let's just go back to what happened to you. |
... |
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