Kit Goldstein Grant introduces a song from Where Angels Fear to Tread, a musical based on E.M. Forster's novel. Pamela and Tyric perform as Harriet and Philip, a Protestant horrified that her sister-in-law's baby will be raised Catholic in Italy. The song is a rapid-fire comedy of complaints about oppressive heat and cultural clash, with Harriet determined to rescue the infant.
Chapters
Hi everyone, I'm Kit Goldstein Grant, and as you can tell, I'm super, super pregnant right now.
First kid, and so yeah, I'm both having a baby and opening a show at Theater Row in November.
So I'm about to deal with all of these things that we're talking about, and hearing Pamela is very inspirational, and I'm gonna sing the lullaby that Lauren wrote in about a month.
So yeah, so to tell you a little bit about this show, the song that you're gonna hear, it's from a musical called Where Angels Fear to Tread, which is based on a novel by E.M. Forster. It's set around 1908, and it's about this upper-class British family who travels to Italy and gets in this major clash of cultures with the locals there. And the song you're gonna hear is sung by Harriet, who is, she's British, she's English, extremely Protestant, and she, her sister-in-law went to Italy, married an Italian, had a baby, and died. Inconvenient. And so she's like horrified this baby is gonna be raised Catholic. And so she decides she's gotta go rescue the baby. And she brings her brother Philip with her to Italy to rescue the baby. The problem is Philip is like totally into just touring, and he just wants to look around Rome and see all the cool like churches and everything. In the middle of a heat wave, so she's a little cranky about this.
So to bring to the stage, could we have Pamela and Tyric are gonna sing the song, and I'm so excited.
Thank you.
I touch my chair. The chair is hot.
I brush my hair. My hair is hot.
The close disgusting air is hot. It's the filthiest place I've ever been.
Harriet, quiet!
The sweet Italian skies are hot.
My nails are hot.
My eyes are hot. I'm swatting flies and the flies are hot.
It's the filthiest place I've ever been. But still you call this heavenly. Your rhetoric soars to the heights.
I'm close to a coma from Roma's aroma. But you want to take in the sights.
Yes!
Your earthly paradise is hot. The map they overprice is hot.
My cold Italian ice is hot. It's the filthiest, foulest land of forevers. And I'm never leaving England again.
I take my chair, the chair of reason.
I brush off my hair, my hair.
It's hot, it's hot, and I know it. So why don't you stow it? You're heating the air with your breath.
To smirk while I complain is sweet. To mock my melting brains, a treat.
And a whiff of that woman there makes it complete. This hell-wretched country is hell. So let's do our task before we expire, or that baby will burn in perpetual fire, and you and I will burn as well.
The sins you can dismiss are hot. The flames of the abyss are hot.
And the devil brings infinite pain. So stop acting depraved, there's a soul to be saved, and then I'm never leaving England again.
