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Overture

We open with a full frame view of the star-filled heavens, majestic and infinite in the silence of space. The stars and galaxies slowly rotate as the camera moves toward a single star at an incredible speed that is only realised as we pass by planets and dust clouds. The camera slows down as we arrive at planet earth, turning to enter the atmosphere, rotating and decelerating as it flies through the golden clouds of a late afternoon sky.

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Song One

I’ve Gotta Get Out of Here

Beneath the layers of cloud, the camera glides through a desert landscape of monumental rock structures. As it continues to slow down, we pass through a canyon where the rocks form the shapes of twisting spirals that merge into the organic sculptures of seashells honed by wind and sand storms over thousands of years. The music kicks in with the heavy guitar riff as the title ‘PRODIGAL’ overlays the screen. The anthemic music plays out like a fanfare trumpeting in our arrival to a city that has been carved out of the enormous rock formations at the end of the canyon.

The camera travels through pillars and gateways of what appears to be an abstract sand sculpture, leading us deeper into the centre of the city where we enter a palace at the heart of the city. Passing through cathedral-like passages and high doorways, the camera slows as we enter a huge banquet hall where a wedding feast is in progress. The hall is filled with guests enjoying the wedding celebration of one of two brothers, both sons of the king who rules this desert kingdom.

The camera passes through the throng of beautiful dancers and players who entertain the guests on the dance floor. As the bodies pirouette and part before us we arrive at the top table of the wedding, where we see the bride and bridegroom laughing in intimate conversation, flanked either side by their family members, all merry on the joy of the occasion…all except one…..the groom’s younger brother, who sits alone, bored and miserable amidst this wonderful event.

The camera finally comes to rest on him, and as the drumbeat snaps to a halt, the room is suddenly frozen like a fracture in time. Nobody moves as time stands still. Nobody that is except the unhappy son who begins to sing his song of dissatisfaction…….” I’ve got to get out of here.”

As the words of the song and the music play out, he walks around the room berating the frozen elders of his father’s court. Pouring scorn and derision on the wealthy guests and family members whom he despises for their wisdom and worldly wealth of knowledge and fortune.

“I’m sick of all the regulations, tired of all the rules, I cannot stand the law onboard this sinking ship of fools…I’ve gotta get out of here!”

As the instrumental guitar solo plays out, the court comes back to life as time is restarted. But having been aware of all that was said while they were frozen in time, the mood of the room has changed to that of solemnity and disbelief at the younger son’s behaviour.

At the climax of the song he asks his father to give him his inheritance, but at the same time snatches the jewels from the necks of his mother and sister who recoil at his actions. In the height of this emotional exchange, his eyes lock hard on to those of his brother, as the new bride collapses in tears beside him. His brother looks for help from his father the king, but his gaze turns away and looks sorrowfully into the eyes of his rebellious child.

The royal fanfare that welcomed the presence of our camera, sounds once more to announce its departure as well as that of the young prince. As the party disperses, the family members are left alone to say farewell to their beloved son and brother.

Standing defiantly, his mother and sister remove his royal robes to reveal a denim jacket and jeans. His father and brother remove their own jewels and place them into a brown leather suitcase, together with other treasures to make up the inheritance that was demanded of them.

At this point his family forms a circle around him, and outside that forms another circle of elders, and outside that another made up of the other courtiers and servants from the disbanded wedding party. In a ceremony of farewell, the son’s denim-clad chest begins to glow with light, and then one by one the rest of the circling family and guests, radiating out until everyone in the hall is filled with light. Tilting his head back and looking up to the ceiling of the hall, he opens his mouth as the light travels up through his throat and emerges from his mouth, hovering above his head like a ball of pulsating light.

This now happens to the rest of the room in what appears as concentric circles of light glowing and pulsating together, each one rising from their human hosts in order to say goodbye to the one leaving. The circles of light begin to move in rotating motion around the central source of light, and then like a flock of white doves they swarm around him, before flying out of the open windows together with his own spirit of light. Like a swarm of starling murmurations they fly around the shell-like spires of the city, enjoying their last moments together before returning to the hall and back into the bodies from which they came.

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Time to Say Goodbye

As the congregation are re-animated by the return of their spirits, and with the glows fading within their chests, the circles are broken to form a corridor of people lining the entrance of the hall. His father, mother, sister and elder brother bid a silent, sorrowful farewell as the words of the song “Time to say Goodbye” play out. He then begins the slow walk out of the palace, out of the city and beyond the city gates. But before he begins the next stage of his journey, he turns and looks back to see the low sunlight gleaming off the towers of the palace of his former home, and on the highest tower the speck of an old man in royal robes lifting his hand to say farewell. But with arrogant distain for this ‘cotton wool’ existence, he turns away with a cold heart from his former life and sets out into the desert to seek a new life with his fortune.

Against the backdrop of the setting sun, he walks for miles as the landscape changes from majestic rock formations in the shapes of seashells, to the man-made ruins of earlier civilisations and fallen statues. Gradually the ruins that are being consumed by the desert become buildings like old gas stations where oil drums and burned out automobiles litter the landscape. Old newspapers and empty bottles of alcohol lie strewn across the wasteland in the light of dusk, and as twilight descends, he arrives at a crossroads lit by a streetlamp.

Dropping his suitcase to the ground he looks up at the four-way signpost that reads “The Past, The Future, Right Way and Wrong Way”.

The past is behind him now, but which “Future” should he take?

The musical piece finally draws to an end as the piano echoes the melodies in the song that have led to this moment.

“I’m standing at the crossroads with my fortune in my hands, got my life inside a suitcase and the clothes in which I stand. I’ve got no sense of direction, don’t know which way to turn. But there’s a fire…deep inside….and it beckons me to burn.”

In an effort to find inspiration, he looks up to the stars in the night sky that have penetrated through the dark blue velvet of twilight. The earlier ‘Overture’ that introduced the heavenly realm of the universe, returns to remind us of the scale of our existence against this infinite backdrop. The vast sea of shimmering lights is awe inspiring as seen from the loneliness of the desert and without the warm candlelit rooms of home to gaze out from. But before a glimmer of regret can enter his heart, his eyes are transfixed upon a shooting star searing like a burning arrow through the starlit heavens. The shooting star is now a meteor that roars across the sky above him, landing beyond the horizon with a flash of brilliant light, and a low boom of thunder that shakes the ground beneath him and sucks the air from his lungs.

Picking up his case, he swiftly crosses the road and heads toward the glow of orange light . With the crossroads decision now made for him, and with his heart pounding at the thought of what lies ahead, he wonders if this is the fire that beckons him? Is this a guiding light of what is meant to be?

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Song Two

Welcome to My World

After a couple of miles, half running with excitement, he arrives at the site of where the meteor has landed. He stops aghast at the sight of a crater where a large wooden church had once stood. With its spire torn down and twisted, it still tries to stand tall, like a hunted animal defiant against its killers. Glowing in the fires of this devastated structure that once harboured the spiritual welfare of the community it served, we read the sign that proudly stood before this house of faith, hope, and worship. “The Church of the Lost Souls”

As he makes his way through the destruction of this once Holy house, through its graveyard and toward the centre of the crater, he begins to hear a rhythmic melody and the pulse of a beat emanating from the glowing centre of the crater. As he gets closer, he peers over the edge and realises he is standing on the edge of a large sinkhole that descends deep into the earth’s crust.

He is now aware of other people arriving through the graveyard and standing at the edge of the crater. These lost souls who have also been wandering in the desert appear to be making their way down into the sinkhole. So after hiding his suitcase behind one of the gravestones, he begins to make his own way down on a pathway that spirals through the rock face walls of this cylindrical shaft.

As he and his fellow desert walkers descend further into the sinkhole, they are greeted by slender young men and women dressed in black liquid body suits. These hosts and hostesses flirtatiously caress and stroke the new arrivals as they speak in unison the words of the music that has grown louder during their descent.

“How low, will you go, tonight? How far, will you stray, from the light?”

Arriving at what appears to be the bottom of the shaft, he finds himself at the opening of a large subterranean cavern where hundreds of people are dancing beat. It’s like a giant underground nightclub with flashing lights and huge projections on the walls of the cave, the likes of which he has never seen before.

Apart from the hosts and hostesses with their black liquid bodysuits, everyone else is dressed in fabulous, flambouyant colours and wearing beautiful feathered masks that cover their eyes.

The huge images projected onto the walls and ceiling of the cavern display hypnotic, mesmerising forms and shapes that expand and contract in time with the music, evolving like molten lava into the liquid shapes of faces and bodies that allude to a much darker place beyond this cavern or even this state of mind.

As he stares open mouthed, he is aware of the crowd being parted by several of the black bodysuited hostesses, to reveal the figure of a tall strangely handsome man dressed in an elegant, red, two-piece suit. The skin of his naked torso beneath the jacket is made up of mirror-like, metallic scales that shimmer with the reflections of all those who see themselves in him. Without his red suit he would simply disappear into the crowd, translucent and at one with all.

As the scales of his body reach his neck they dissolve into what appears to be skin that has been applied like some kind of makeup layer in order to cover the scales that lie beneath. His facial features are chiseled and gaunt, his almond shaped eyes amber and black like that of a cat, and of course horns, standing proudly like chrome, coiled snakes from his thick mane of black hair.

The Devil (as he clearly is), with serpent-like cane in hand, takes a bow before him as if to recognise his royal descent, and as he raises himself back to a standing position, he smiles to show silver pearl-like teeth. With welcoming open arms he proclaims himself as the artist of all that is desirable, saying:

“Hello, Hello,……………Welcome To My World”

Putting his hand to his mouth the devil appears to regurgitate a handful of white pellets into his palm. One by one he places them onto the tongues of the dark angels that surround him. In close up we see that the pellets are insect larvae that wriggle and squirm on their tongues before they are swallowed whole. But the tallest and most beautiful of these dark angels merely retracts her tongue and walks toward our fallen prince; cupping his face in her hands she kisses him while depositing the maggot on her tongue into his mouth. In a mixture of fear and excitement he swallows the insect larva and within seconds he becomes delirious with the ecstasy of intoxication: the music sends him into a trance as he dances with the dark angels.

‘I’ve taken the potion, I dance in slow motion, like waves on the ocean, a slave to emotion”

Now that she sees that he vulnerable and ready to take the next step, the one who kissed him starts to unbutton his faded denim jacket, and we see another go behind him to help remove the jacket, revealing his naked torso. Meanwhile the Devil is presented with an ornate looking dagger which he swiftly takes to cut the palm of his other hand which bleeds with blood as black as ink. Clenching his hand to stem the flow of blood he offers the blade to our fallen prince who in his dream-like state does the same.

The Devil then opens his own jacket to bare his breast, as it is crystal clear what needs to be done, and what is on offer in exchange. So our prince places his blood-soaked hand onto the chest of the Devil, like some pre-historic caveman making his mark on a cave wall in order to register his existence. Removing his hand the blood-red handprint is absorbed into the scaly flesh of the Devil who inhales deeply with a fleeting glow of ecstasy.

With the music pulsing, the distorted electric guitar provides the soundtrack to this swiftly conducted initiation ceremony. Having received the blood oath, the Devil now does the same to our fallen prince. He places his black handprint onto the young man’s chest as the three dark angels hold him firm in order to avoid any resistance and to brace him from the power of the darkness that is about to enter his soul.

As the Devil withdraws his hand, the black blood print is absorbed into the skin and begins to spread through the veins of the prince’s chest, neck, and arms. Working its way down toward his loins, where his faded denim jeans are soaked with the ink-like blood and have become shiny wet leather. As the blood works its way up into his head, we see his lips drain of colour and his blue eyes turn a cold steely grey. The dark angels now run their fingers seductively through his hair as it turns from golden curls to jet black waves of silk. Finally his warm, sunkissed skin turns pale grey, and as a shiver fills his body, the dark angels are quick to re-dress his torso with a black leather bikers’ jacket that brings some warmth and comfort back to his poisoned flesh.

As the music builds, in his trance-like state, he feels like he is falling, and we cut between the dance scene, a view of him actually falling toward the camera, and we see a macro close-up of the pure white insect lava bursting open inside his head, giving birth to the black fly that now lives and eats from within.

“I’m falling down into a rabbit hole. My head is spinning and I’m out of control. As all I wanted was a starring role. Will I get what I want for the price of my soul?”

As the song draws to a close the Devil moves off into the crowd in search of another arrival, leaving our newly dressed black prince to reflect upon his new appointment, as he begins to feel the powerful effects of the darkness within.

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Song Three

I’m Letting Go

Although the dance music continues for the hoards of people on the dance floor, he now sees them all dancing in slow motion to a more reflective guitar piece that weaves its melody like a trail through the forest of slow-moving bodies.

He now knows that this level of the cave is filled with people who are not looking for anything more than a good time. They are self-obsessed and their vanity makes them shallow and self-serving. Even the Devil passes over them as they are already won in his eyes, so there is no need to make an effort to fight for them. But the prince knows that he was a worthy catch, a trade worth spilling blood for, a prize among men that needs to be rewarded for his loyalty and allegiance.

He also knows that the people on this level lack the courage to go deeper into the cave. To explore the depths of human experience. To free the mind and the body from the constraints of self discipline and moral fibre. To really let go of all that one is in order to become what one might be. This is his path. This is what he needs to do. So he makes his way into the deeper part of the cave where he can feel the beat of the music once again, drawing him down into yet another sink hole. It is here that he sees the floor littered with the glamourous clothes and feathered masks of those that have left them behind in order to descend deeper.

As the music builds, he feels the flutter of excitement within his stomach, and the black fly flutters its wings inside of him.

“I can feel the beat, in my body and my soul. I’m a loaded gun, that is ready to explode. Like a tragedy that is starting to unfold.”

As the pathway once again spirals down, he becomes aware that the floor of the cave is moving in the glow of red light that shrouds this lower level. He soon realises that the movement is that of the naked bodies of those whose clothing was left behind. He is in a mass orgy of the flesh. The bodies sweating in the heat of passion, as the flames of desire that can never be put out, burn so brightly within them, a thirst that can never be quenched.

The fallen prince is about to join in this revelry as hands and arms wrap around his body, caressing his flesh and pulling at his jacket, but he cannot help but look over the side and down into the bottom of this sinkhole. There he sees the bodies of the elderly who no longer have the strength to join in, sitting around a swirling whirlpool of misty white light.

He realises that they have spent their lives in the depths of this cave. Having been fed only by their carnal lust and sexual desire, they have wasted away to become the frail husks that host the last flickers of their life light.

Now, with nothing to show for their time here, and with no reward or fulfilment for their courage in pushing the boundaries of human experience, they wait beside the pool to die and fall into the white light.

In a spark of inspiration, and a clarity of thought, he knows that to dive into the whirlpool of light while still alive is the only way out of this ‘living hell’. The only way to “Break on through to the other side”. The only way to cheat the Devil out of the deal and still come out on top. He also knows that he is not the first to realise that this is the way out.

The remains of a stone bridge that once passed high above the pool forms a narrow platform from which a person could jump. As he makes his way down toward the level where the platform can be accessed, he passes scenes and rooms off of the spiral gallery where the sexual acts appear to be becoming more and more depraved. Where pain and torture are going beyond the realms of fantasy, pleasure and eroticism. Where the participants although naked, are once again wearing masks, not like before made of beautiful jewels and feathers, but of animals such as dogs, goats, and bulls. Worn in order to hide the shame of what little humanity is left within them, and so that they can fully be at one with the animals they have become.

Although the voyeuristic temptation to look at these spectacles is extremely tempting, he knows that to enter those rooms may mean that he would never leave and that the opportunity to jump from the bridge would be forgotten.

So he presses on toward the “Great Escape” as the screams of pain and pleasure grow louder from the torrent of writhing bodies that engulf these lower levels.

Shaking off the sea of hands and arms that are trying to prevent his departure, he scrambles along a thin ledge one level above the remains of the bridge.

“I’m letting go, I’m letting go tonight. Into the fire, into the blinding light”

Suddenly he is aware of a commotion in the levels above, and he looks up to see a dozen or more of the dark angels racing down the spiral walkway toward him, like a pack of wild cats and dogs hissing and snarling as they run. He sees the tall one who kissed him stop her run and lean out from a high ledge, her amber eyes on fire with expectation. She opens her mouth to reveal rows of black pointed teeth as she lets out a cat-like hiss.

He looks down at the remains of the narrow bridge below him and without a second thought, he jumps onto the crumbling stone walkway as the screams of the pack pierce his eardrums. Trembling now with fear he steps cautiously along the stone walkway to the edge of the broken bridge. He looks down into the swirling pool of light below and knows that the desire to leave this place is far greater than all the desires and temptations it offers. As he knew he must leave his home, he now knows without a doubt, he must jump.

“I’m going down, I’m going down tonight. Into the flames of desire that burn so bright.”

As the song plays out, he sings the last line;

“This blinding light”

…..and swan dives into the whirlpool of light in slow motion, as the camera rotates 180 degrees to make it look like he is now diving in an upward direction instead of a downward one. As he enters the swirling mist, he closes his eyes, and the speed of his entry slows down even more to match the speed of impact and the punching through of his outstretched fists into the blinding light of the next world.

As the music reaches a crescendo of cymbal crashes, guitar chords, and church bells, we see his hands and forearms punch out through the earth of a fresh burial mound in a graveyard. As the sunlight breaks through the crumbling soil he pulls himself up and out of a black charred coffin in which he had been buried. Bringing himself to a standing position, the blackened earth of the freshly dug grave falls like ash from his body and he raises his arms into the air above him, with the clenched fists of victory against the backdrop of a rising sun.

Free once again!...........

Brushing himself down, he surveys the scene around him. He is back in front of The Church of the Lost Souls, which appears to have been rebuilt, but with one major difference. The white clapboarded building is now black and charred by fire but not destroyed. All the wooden crosses and head stones in the cemetery are also black, so that none of the names or dates can be read. It was as if the meteor strike had never happened, yet this church had been transformed like some dark reflection in an alternate reality.

Behind the headstone of the grave from which he just emerged, is the suitcase he hid the night before. Brushing the dust and ash from the lid, he opens it to check that his fortune is still intact, but to his astonishment the case is no longer full with the jewels and gold of his inheritance. Instead it has all been filled to the top with $100 dollar bills, some of which are caught by the smokey breeze and flutter away into the blackened church yard. Closing the lid sharply he grabs one of the notes and studies the intricate designs on the paper. He assumes that this too is part of the transformation that has taken place, in this dark, mirror-like dreamscape into which he has been transported.

On the opposite side of the road he sees a row of shiny black hearses parked in a queue to either pick up or deliver the dead. At the end of the row his eye is caught by a bright red Cadillac Eldorado convertible surrounded by three strangely beautiful dark-haired girls. As he approaches the car, one of the girls leans across the bonnet and jingles the ignition key temptingly toward him. Quickly looking around at the deserted street, he turns to snatch the keys from her. Swiftly throwing his suitcase in the trunk he gets in into the driving seat and fires up the engine. With a roar of the exhaust and a screech of white walled tyres he sets off in a cloud of dust toward the highway.

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Song Four

Billion Dollars

This song is a 1980’s style rock anthem that is both being played on the car radio and sung by our leather jacketed prince. In a montage video edit, we follow his journey across the landscape of the mid west. Stopping to pick up attractive young hitchhikers and exchange the decorated paper bills for bottles of champagne, he soon finds himself flying high on a drug and booze filled road trip against the backdrop of an ever shifting landscape of countryside and cities.

On a euphoric high he stands inside the speeding car with his foot on the steering wheel, throwing caution and money to the wind as a super moon rises above the desert mountains. With screams of excited encouragement from the party in the car he shouts out to the moon;

“I feel like a Billion Dollars, I feel on top of the world. Every day a different city, every night a different girl”

As their silhouettes play like shadows against the cratered white disc of the moon, the champagne swigging girls transform into the outlines of she wolves and hyenas, howling with glowing amber eyes behind his back. He cannot believe his luck. Everything he wants is at his fingertips. This is the life of freedom and enjoyment that he had been longing for. He is young, he is good looking, and he is filthy rich. Nothing can stop him now… he feels invincible! But all is not quite as it seems as the final lyrics of the song spell out his self-delusion.

“I feel so invincible, …………..I feel like I win when I lose”

Again we return to the piece of music that puts everything back into perspective, and as he stares into the rearview mirror that fills the frame, we see his cold grey eyes staring back at him like the empty, crater-filled lunar landscape that lights their desert night drive toward the neon oasis of another Las Vegas style city ahead.

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Song Five

The Distant Lights of Home

As he senses the change slowly manifest itself within him, he reflects upon his journey to this point, and in a moment of home sickness, he thinks back to the place he so longed to escape from. But within this song he dispels those feelings with the fact that although he has fallen from grace with his father and family, he remains open hearted toward a life of new encounters and new experiences, and it is this self-affirming resolve that becomes his primary motivating factor, even though he is tormented by the emotional attachment to his former life.

Pulling off the highway, he gets out of the car to pause in his journey and sing of his rejection of the past and the emotional attachment that keeps tugging at his heart. In the acceptance of what he has become, he shakes off this sentimentality as weakness and seeks comfort in the honesty of who he now is.

“For here I am, a fallen man, with open arms and broken wings”

Having travelled through many towns and cities in search of the perfect watering hole for himself and his fellow travellers, the convertible cruises into the downtown district of the largest city they have encountered. Filled with high towers of glass and neon, the engine slows and we see the city of casinos and luxury hotels reflected in the windshield and mirrored sunglasses of our prince and his gorgeous entourage.

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Song Six

Get Out of My Way

As the song begins, we hear the call and answer of “Hello, Hello” echoing the welcome from his earlier encounter. As the calls attract attention from people on the street, a crowd soon forms close to the car, as people begin filming and photographing his arrival.

“Get out of my way, can’t you see I’m coming through?..... so get out of my way!”

Leaving the car for the valet attendants, the man and his entourage enter the largest and most spectacular hotel on the strip.

He announces to the concierge, “I’ll take the room at the top, for the rest of my stay” and he is swiftly shown to the high roller penthouse suite at the top of the skyscraper hotel, where his companions set about making themselves at home.

Walking out onto the balcony with outstretched arms, he calls out again “Hello, Hello!” and surveys the glittering towers of gold and silver, stacked high like piles of gambling chips. Looking up he sees an airship with a large clock face suspended beneath it, ticking away the minutes of this 24/7 city of glamourous distraction.

“The clock is ticking on the wall, and it will catch up with us all ,….some day.”

As the camera rotates 360 degrees, the city is seen in time lapse acceleration, with neon signs blurring into the streams of car headlights, and the vapour trails of executive Lear jets, as night falls and the stage fades into darkness.

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Song Seven

It’s All About the Money

The dawn of a new day brings the warming glow of sunrise, kissing the tops of the glass towers with golden light that soon melts down into the city streets below.

The hotel corridor of the penthouse suite sees a procession of bell boys in round hats and braided jackets carrying gift wrapped boxes and bags from the designer stores below.

The staccato guitar gives us a knock at the door of the suite, which is flung open to reveal a plethora of activity inside. Our fallen prince is surrounded by large oval mirrors, as tailors, manicurists, and hairdressers scurry about in a blur of scissors and tape measures transforming him once again in a chorus of…

“Clothes maketh the Man”

Discarding the rebellious black leather biker jacket and replacing it with a designer suit, handmade shoes, and slicked back hair, the prince emerges the suave sophisticated businessman. Walking with the confident stride of a multi-millionaire, he is hell bent on becoming even wealthier than he already is. So he moves through the suite to another group of people presenting financial strategies and investment opportunities, where he signs cheques and documents to the greedy hounds who sing a chorus of

“Gotta get what you can”

The scenery shifts to another part of the suite where a beautiful young girl waits patiently at a champagne breakfast table for two. The perfect girlfriend to suit his fabulous lifestyle. But the lyrics of the song soon expose both of their hidden agendas.

His arrogant contempt for her feelings moves to another level, as he mocks her shallow, social media existence and foretells the predictability and boredom of a relationship with her.

“I’ve seen this film before……and I know how it ends.”

As she storms out of the suite, he waves goodbye and continues his mission to make more money and indulge himself in greed and avarice.

After endless days in the clubs and casinos he has become quite the celebrity gambler. Blowing thousands of dollars without a care in the world, he soon develops a complete disregard for the value of the money, and as he bets heavier in order to recoup his losses, the contents of his suitcase slowly begins to disappear.

The house always wins, and at the end of another long day of throwing his fortune down the drain, he finds himself alone in the high roller suite filled with hangerson and party animals. Having had his fill of booze and drugs, and in no mood to party, he retires to his bedroom flicks through the channels on the huge plasma screen TV.

Slowly the penny drops as he sees the world reflected in a series of lifestyle advertisements for cars and real estate, interwoven with news reports of poverty and famine in war- torn countries, where there is rioting and civil unrest against the wealthy rulers and corrupt governments.

In a fit of rage and disgust at what he has become a part of, he throws the remote at the TV which cracks and splutters out a blank blue screen. In a frenzy of rage he walks out through the open doors to the roof terrace, where he screams at the world from his fifty storey penthouse suite,

“It’s all about the money, …………….and it’s all about the game”

………….but no one hears a word of it.

As the track ends the stage turns black, and as the lights come back up again, we see the room bathed in the cracking blue light of the broken plasma screen. Our fallen prince is crashed on the sofa, surrounded by half naked bodies that are asleep amongst the debris of empty booze bottles and drug paraphernalia.

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Song Eight

What if all these things are just lies?

Through the open doors to the roof terrace the dark clouds of the night sky part to release a shaft of moonlight, which crawls on a cloud of mist into the room together with the ghost-like figure of his sister. He sits up, startled at the vision of her radiant beauty as the chords of the song begin.

As the words of the song question his happiness and beckon him to consider the higher questions about his material and spiritual life, he moves uncomfortably about the room, partly knowing that this vision is merely a dream, but troubled by the truth within her words, and the possibility that he is still being deceived by the devil, who is distracting him from his spiritual destiny.

At the end of the song he sings in harmony with his sister, enjoying her presence and feeling the warmth of her love in this fleeting moment. As the song ends, the funereal chords play out as she leaves the room through the open doors, the mist following her like the train of a wedding dress. He tries to follow her but realises he is in a dream, as the clouds close to take back the moonlight, leaving the room in a broken, blue glow once again.

As the echoes of those final chords can still be heard, he sits back down on to a piano stool and turns to the keys of a white grand piano that was left to the hotel by a once famous pianist.

Pondering the words and message in his sister’s song, he picks up a half smoked joint and lights up. He then uses the match to light one of the many candles of a candelabra that sits on top of the piano. He plays the last few notes of the dying chords, but as the light from the candle begins to glow brighter, his heart is filled with despair, having realised that money, booze, and drugs cannot provide what he is looking for. So he finally turns his attention toward ‘love’ as being the answer to his needs.

As he continues playing the depressing funereal chords on the piano, the party animals begin to wake, and realising that the party is over they leave the penthouse one by one. As the last one leaves, the fallen prince blows out the candle flame and wanders out onto the terrace where the clouds part again to reveal the wonder of the star-filled sky.

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Overture Reprise

Another moment to pause for thought and reflection, as he realises that his fortune and so called “friends” have all gone. He is left feeling alone, hopeless and helpless in a world where his former wealth had sustained his lifestyle and his ego, but now it was all gone.

As he buries his head in his hands, a spark of a match and the light of a flame catches his eye from the corner of the gloomy room. The small glowing light separates into a second and then a third, as out from the darkness come the flames of three glowing candles, illuminating the faces of three familiar dark-haired beauties.

As they lead him to the bedroom of the suite, it is clear to him now that they will give him the love he so craves, in exchange for that which they so desire of him.

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Song Nine

Dark Angels

This haunting song sees the dark trinity cast their spell over him once again, and this marks the beginning of his journey into obsession, addiction, and insanity, as he is drawn deeper into the darkness.

As their bodies twist and writhe in the blackness of the silk sheets of his bed, the dark angels begin to multiply, squirming and wriggling out of the rolling flesh. Bursting out like a nest of black spiders, their laced costumes covering their bodies like black webs.

“Dark Angels in my bed again. Dark Angels in my head again.”

As the dark music continues, the hotel room is transformed into their lair of silk threads that begin to form the structure of a giant spider’s web. Only the bed remains untouched as a sanctuary for his nocturnal existence, as the lines are blurred between sleeping and waking, between dreams and reality, between sanity and madness.

As the song ends, their work is done, and all the dark angels return to the bed where they are swallowed up to leave him alone again to sleep.

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Song Ten

Sex House

When he wakes up, his bedroom is almost unrecognisable. The thick chords of a spider’s web travels like latticework through the penthouse suite, blocking out the light, and leaving the spluttering blue screen to flicker the dull reception of his cognitive awareness.

As the music begins, we hear the sound of finger nails scraping through the metal airducts of the hotel’s air conditioning system. As he looks around, the melancholy notes of the opening few bars lament the loss of his female companions.

Finding the TV remote on the ground he approaches the TV screen in the hope that he can find something to break the blue gloom and bring him some relief to the needs and desires he has become accustomed to.

Banging the blue screen sends ripples of blue light through the strands of the web that has been woven around it. Rapping his knuckles again on the plexiglass screen, the pulses radiate like sonar signals through the network of this dark web and are soon returned with a glowing red wave that sparks the TV screen into action once again.

Pouring out the warm flesh tones of pornographic imagery, the plasma screen brings a rush of sensual excitement to the primal nerve center of his brain. Like oxygen to the flames of lust and desire, he is captivated by the visual stimulation, powerless to turn away and intoxicated by the voyeuristic elixir that leaves him unsatisfied and wanting more.

As the days pass, he becomes tired of viewing repetitive sexual scenarios, bored by uninspired sexual behaviour, and so he begins to seek out more perverse and disturbing content to satisfy his unquenchable thirst. As he progresses through this imagery, he begins to find scenarios that remind him of the rooms he saw in the depths of the devil’s catacombs before he came to this world through the pool of light.

In a moment of self-disgust, he sees that his search for love has led him to pursue the carnal abominations of mankind’s incurable fascination with evil. Suddenly the Sex House reveals itself to be yet another Devil-made distraction, designed to sabotage the prince’s journey toward his spiritual goal of enlightenment.

“I want to tear down the walls of the sex house, and set free, that part of me, that lives in the sex house.”

As the flashing scenes of blurred pornography imagery accelerate out from the screen in the hope that one of the scenes may just break his resolve, he averts his eyes in order to crawl from his bed and smash the screen with his bare hands.

As the music builds to its final crescendo, with guitars and drums in time with the striking of his fists upon the screen, the tiled screen imagery of bodies dissolve, and the wide plasma screen is filled with the face of the devil staring hatefully back at him through the shattered screen.

Recoiling back in fright and terror, he hears the sound of a distorted electric guitar growing louder and louder in his head as the smashed screen fades to black and the room is shrouded in darkness.

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Song Eleven

Time

The song begins with the sound of child’s music box lost in the gloom, and as the piano plays out the melody, an early morning sun breaks with fragments of golden beams through the wreckage of the decimated hotel suite. The tattered sagging ropes of the spider’s web hang like the fallen rigging of a pirate ship that crashed onto rocks in the storm of the night before.

Striking a match to light the remains of a joint, our fallen son sits cross legged on the stained sheets of the Emperor sized bed.

“Time has not been on my side, and time has taken me for a ride”

Summing up his journey so far, he realises that life has become a series of distractions, every one of them seeming to be an escape from the last. Caught in this vicious circle, he sees that the devil has simply been winding down the clock, and the time he has left to live.

Moving out of the bedroom and back into the living room of the penthouse suite he turns on another TV screen to see the faces of people in advertisments, smiling and living the lies of their social media lifestyle, exchanging the backgrounds of their claustrophobic inner-city slums, to that of enticing white sand beaches and snow-capped mountain ranges.

“We live in our daydreams, lost in our green screens, like wannabe kings and queens”

Shouting the chorus from his balcony he finally succumbs to his circumstances, and in giving up the futility of his search, he admits defeat and returns to the gloom of the bedroom where he returns to the unsmoked joint.

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Song Twelve

Butterflies

As he lights up, the smoke drifts through the air and animates into butterflies that move in slow motion around him. Then bidding them farewell, he sinks deeper into the darkness of his depression as the rays of hope and sunlight fade.

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Act Two keyboard_arrow_upJump to Act 1

Song One

Living in a Submarine

We open the second act with a small submarine lying on the bottom of the seabed. Inside the submarine is the lost son who sings to us through the portholes of the submersible.

“I lost all my friends, they all got the bends, as none of them seemed to care, to go to the depths of my despair.”

The isolation and loneliness of his depression are symbolised by the lack of both light and oxygen in this undersea world, where the deep sea monsters of fear and anxiety circle him constantly, keeping him locked inside this manmade prison cell.

This is ‘Rock Bottom’. This is where he realises that unless he does something now, he will be lost forever, he will be declared Lost at Sea, as no one knows where he is, and no one will ever find him. Does the prince want to be saved? Does he deserve to be rescued? Was he Hell Bent on self destruction? When you have sunk this far, do you have to feel the ocean floor beneath your feet in order to push back up to the surface?

He thought that in doing what he wanted he was free, but despite his endeavours he has been brought to his knees, and in this place of isolation and with the light fading and the air running out, he finally and humbly asks for help.

As this silent inner prayer radiates out like a sonar pulse through the darkness of this watery grave, he does not realise that he has found hope in the humility of his situation. But he becomes aware of a light source outside the submarine, and summoning what little strength and courage he has left, he climbs inside the airlock. Holding his breath, he opens the hatch to find a glowing searchlight on the top of the submarine. Grabbing hold of its handles he shines his searchlight around looking for something or someone that might see his beacon.

“I’m sending out an SOS to let you know that I am in distress.”

Then as the song reaches its climax we see through the gloom that there are hundreds of other submarines on the seabed, and as each one of them sees his beacon, they become aware of their own searchlight distress beacons and one by one they light up the murky depths, shining their lights into the darkness and scaring away the monsters of fear and anxiety.

At the height of the song we are filled with hope at the thought of rescue, we are comforted that we are not alone in our depression, and we find strength to carry on with the hope in our hearts that we might find a way out.

But knowing that he is not alone in his loneliness brings only a temporary respite, as although he wants to find comfort in this fact, he cannot help or be helped, as none of the others are able to open their hatches except him. They are too frightened of drowning, too pre-occupied with preserving what little oxygen they have left, and soon their lights dim and the seabed fades once again back to darkness, and the dark shapes return.

Looking around at his circumstances he gives out his last breath to accept the fate of his drowning, but realises that he can still breathe, although with some difficulty. The sand dunes at the bottom of the ocean also look the same as the sand dunes of the desert, the difference being that one environment is under the sea, with the cold pressure of water all around. The other is hot with the absence of water and equally as inhospitable. The difference in perception of these two extremes highlight the way we see the world, as the illumination of our surroundings can sometimes help set us free from them.

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Ocean of Fear

As the song ends, the music continues into our darkest phase of the story, as our lost son climbs out of his submarine and begins to walk slowly across the seabed. Struggling to breathe, he sings out.

“Everything I had has gone, and everything I thought, was wrong. Everything I held so dear, is lost beneath an ocean of fear.”

As he collapses into the sand, he falls unconscious, and as the lighting changes from murky blue to warm desert sunshine, we wake again into another dream-like state where his fear, together with the monsters of the deep, have left him.

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Song Two

This Returning Tide

Puzzled as to where he actually is, and whether or not he is alive or dead he runs his hands through the dry sand that surrounds him.

“We built a world made out of sand and watched it crumble in our hands.”

On the screen behind him we see glass buildings rising out of the desert sand and then blown into shattered fragments by the wind.

We see children dancing around him like ghosts in a playground from when he was a child, and as he reaches out to touch them, they again evaporate into the into the breeze.

Do our lives have any meaning? Does death really cancel out our existence?

“Are memories just washed away by this returning tide?”

A cascade of images and memories play out on the giant screen, from birthday parties to games he played with his siblings. He watches his life pass before him, and wonders whether there was something he missed. Something he should have learned. Is all you have to show at the end of the journey the wealth and the treasure that you hold in your heart?

“Just give us wings to fly home, made of love and our memories.”

As the instrumental plays out, we watch as a landscape filled with crosses and gravestones is washed away by the incoming tide. Stone angels and tomb stones made of sand crumble and fall into the waves of the incoming tide. In the sky we see storm clouds gathering as the sand dune desert is once again consumed to become the undersea world. As he scurries about looking for refuge, he finds his hotel bed amongst the dunes.

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Song Three

When Hope is Gone

He crashes onto the bed and falls into a deep sleep. As he dreams, apparition of his mother enters through a shaft of light.

As her song begins, we see him on the giant screen as a baby in the womb, and his heartbeat sets the timing of the song.

She then sings about how she misses him and how as a mother she had to let him go free to undertake this journey of self discovery. In her song she sends her invitation for him to return, and in her response to his SOS, she plants the seeds of hope in his heart.

“If you believe in miracles, if you believe in love, if you believe there’s hope for us, then all is not lost.”

As she leaves, the shaft of light is drawn back into the sky and the scene plunges once again into darkness.

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Song Four

Digging in the Dirt

Within the gloom we see the shapes of animals like cats and giant rats scampering through the dunes, their eyes lighting up red in the darkness. As the stage moves around, we see the wreckage of burned out cars and piles of rubbish. Trash cans spilling out and the glowing remains of fires surrounded by the half naked bodies of the homeless.

As the distorted sound of guitars and drums kick in, we find our lost son inside the burned-out wreckage of the red Cadillac he stole from the devil.

As he begins to sing, he climbs out of the car and starts hunting for scraps of food in the dustbins.

“Like the lost son in a pigpen, I’m just digging in the dirt.”

As the song progresses, he becomes repulsed and ashamed by the way he is now living. He looks up to see himself back in his previous life, in a home where he was loved and cared for. He remembers that he once lived in a palace where everyone lived better than this.

“How did I lose my way?”

Picking himself up he reflects on the choices he has made to arrive in this situation. As the clouds part another shaft of light pours down on him, and in this moment of revelation, he knows that he must free himself from the bonds of pride, and this self-centered and destructive existence.

“For I must find some peace of mind, so that I can untie these hands of mine.”

As the beam of light fades, we see the spires of his palace home and are transported back to find his brother walking through its corridors.

This is the brother who was married at the start, who toed the line and remained obedient. This brother has a less colourful story and yet his journey in remaining faithful and not falling off the path prepared for him is equally important when we look at the decisions we make in our lives and the consequences that can accompany them.

This next song is designed to show the nature of this brother. Firstly in his despair at the way more people are choosing to take the path of his rebellious brother, and secondly in his positive outlook of self-sacrifice, and the belief that we as a collective and not as individuals can make the world a better place.

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Song Five

Make Tomorrow Brighter Than Today

As the drum shuffle begins, he walks toward a huge set of doors, and as he pushes them open the piano music begins, and we find ourselves in the middle of a huge salt flat in the desert that stretches for miles into the distance. On the ground is a large black circle with a bright red ‘X’ in the middle, and as he continues walking, he sees dining room waiters placing sun loungers and deck chairs in concentric circles around the ‘X’ circle. He then comes across crowds of people walking among the chairs, pushing and shoving their way to the front.

“My brother is a stranger to me, my brother doesn’t care much for me.”

He soon notices that the people (who are now arguing over the seats), are wealthy. The men from all nationalities are mostly obese, smoking cigars and pointing at people who are in their seats to get out. The women are wearing diamonds and fur coats.

As they settle down to prepare for the event, the waiters pour them glasses of champagne.

The people ousted from the front seats soon claim seats further back and this shuffling in the ranks of wealth travels outwardly, like the ripples of a stone dropped into a pond.

As he walks on he sees families and children sitting behind their parents, and unable to see past them, they bury their heads into their phones, left to their own devices.

“Now everybody’s turning away, and all the kids are being led astray.”

As the camera pulls back high above the salt flats, we see thousands of seats in ever increasing concentric circles around the place where ‘X’ marks the spot. Each seat is soon occupied in preparation for an event which no one knows anything about. All they know is that it is not to be missed.

As he climbs up the mountain, away from the flats, he turns to look at the spectacle of those who have spent their lives acquiring the wealth and power to be closer to the ‘X’, chasing the dream of a front row seat to who knows what?

Sensing the futility of the situation, the brother sings quietly to himself, as to sing loudly would only fall on deaf ears.

“We gotta make tomorrow brighter, spread the load a little lighter, gotta make tomorrow brighter than today.”

As the music reaches its crescendo a meteor enters the earth’s atmosphere high above the gathering, and as it heads down toward the ‘X’ we see the faces of the expectant crowd. Some fear struck and looking in horror, some laughing, some closing their eyes in disappointment and some screaming with rage and anger.

Cutting back to the mountaintop, we see the brother putting on his sunglasses and in their reflection we see the meteor hit the ‘X’ like an atom bomb, exploding across the plain, destroying everything and everyone on the ground.

The ‘sold out’ spectacle of oblivion.

After the final chorus is sung to the audience, the message is clear, and as the drum shuffle returns to end the song, he turns to walk back through the huge doors of the palace which close abruptly behind him.

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Song Six

Going Home

Waking from his dreamlike state in the cold light of day, our lost son has found a resolution to his problems, in the thought of returning home and abandoning this reckless and unfulfilling life in the gutter.

Set free from the blindness that consumed him, the veil of deception is lifted and his foolish endeavour exposed.

“For now I see the fool that was the man I tried to be.”

Filled with the warm feeling of returning home, he realises how blessed he was in his former life. How he took it for granted and how he had rejected the peace and tranquillity it provided.

Swallowing his pride and on his knees he knows that he must ask his father and his family for forgiveness, and humbly ask to be taken in the lowest position so that he may work to somehow pay off the debt of what he has squandered.

Standing up in the morning sunrise he is filled with the strength that this new hope and resolve has charged him with, and as the music gathers pace, he begins to run across the desert sand in the direction of home.

“For I was lost but now have found the turn I missed to that higher ground of home.”

Home is where the heart belongs and the thought of returning to it fills us with joy. A real home, and a true home, may not be on this earth for many people, but a spiritual home that may well await us, is more than just a concept or a nice idea if it resonates so strongly within our hearts. This may not be just wishful thinking, but a promised land that we hope and yearn for, a sanctuary where we escape from fear and pain and sadness. A new life and an enveloping love.

“There’s nothing like Going Home……..”

As the bells of celebration ring out, the camera flies through the glass cities of the world, where we see the churches and cathedrals that are now dwarfed and confined by these skyscrapers, these pinnacles of worldly power and wealth. Almost hidden, empty and long forgotten, these once spiritual homes preserved the message to mankind of a life and a world that can only now be seen through all this glass darkly. But even with just one returning to that spiritual home is enough to warrant ringing the bells that have been so silent for so long.

Returning to the desert, our camera finds the speck of our awakened son heading across the desert sand at the start of his journey home in the late afternoon sun. A small figure with a large shadow stretching out across the dunes.

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Song Seven

The River

As the end of the day draws near, he wearily climbs up a large ridge of sand, and at the top he falls to his knees at the sight that meets his eyes. For he is standing on the bank of a wide, fast flowing river that stretches for miles in either direction with no means of crossing.

Then he remembers back to the pool of light that he dived through in order to enter this world, and he now realises that that he has to cross this river in order to find his way home. But with great sadness in his heart, he knows that he cannot swim across, he knows that he will drown and never see his family again, and that they will never know that he had this change of heart and is truly sorry for the hurt he has caused.

“But the river is wide, and the current is strong. I must do what is right to take away what is wrong.”

So he kneels to ask that they may hear his prayer in their dreams, as he heard their voices in his dreams. That they may know his need for forgiveness, know that his love had been dulled by his selfish dreams and desires, and that he is now awake and more alive than ever before. That he was blind and now sees.

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Song Eight

Did You Find Love?

As he finishes his prayer, a silence falls upon the rushing waters of the river and he lifts his head to see a gentle mist moving over its calm surface. As he stands he peers through the mist to see a small boat heading across from the other side, the cross of its masts silhouetted against the leaden evening sky as it moves gracefully through the shrouding mist.

“The slow boat arrives at the end of our lives and we sail away, beyond the skies.”

As the boat with no sails draws nearer, he sees the dark figure of a hooded man at the back of the boat guiding the rudder. The boat soon reaches the bank and he steps in.

“With heavy hearts and heads held high, we leave this world and wave goodbye.”

As the song builds the boat slowly makes its way to the opposite bank, and we see the soft focus, dream like scene of an old woman on her death bed next to a large open where soft translucent drapes breathe in and out with the gentle breeze. As the song asks us some of the most profound questions of our beliefs, she reaches out he hand towards the open window.

Is someone waiting for you in the light? To save you from the darkness of the night? To rest their hand upon your beating heart? To be there at the end as from the start?

As the song reaches its climax the evening sun breaks through from under the edge of the leaden sky on the horizon. The golden light setting the underside of the cloud base on fire with hues of gold and red.

Whether this journey across the river is death, or the bypassing of death by drowning in the river, he does not know or fully understand. All he knows is that the love in is heart for his family outweighs everything he has been through and is all that he has to show for this insane venture.

Standing in the boat as he sings this song to the audience, the passage of his journey is paid for in the love that he has found again in his heart, and so he turns to the audience to ask them the question, …..the question they must ask themselves at the end of their lives,

……………Did you find love?”

As the song draws to its end we watch a montage of the womans memories in the form of home movies, where couples kiss on their wedding days, new born babies are held in their mothers arms for the first time, children hug their parents on family holidays, teenagers kiss and old people hold hands as the sun sets through the open window and the fiery sky returns to grey.

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Song Nine

Follow the Light

Finding himself on the other side of the river, he sees the distant lights of home on the horizon and realises he still has a way to go yet. There is also a growing anxiety about how he will be received, or whether he will simply be rejected.

Knowing he deserves nothing, and will be grateful for anything, he holds on to the hope that he has found in his humility. He knows that the things he has done cannot just be washed away. There needs to be atonement, and that can only come through forgiveness.

It is this hope that becomes his guiding light in the nighttime crossing of the desert dunes, the last leg of his journey home. The walk of shame, the walk of penance and supplication.

As the music slowly begins, we hear what sounds like the rhythm of a ticking clock, and on the big screen we see a giant hourglass half filled with sand. As the warm orchestral strings begin this classical piece of music, we fly around the glass domes to see the plume of sand falling through the pinch point, and then back up to the top dome where we pass through the glass to the level sand above.

This landscape of sand is the desert that is slowly falling away beneath the ground to the dome below. As the strings of the orchestra builds, we hear the three instruments of piano, guitar, and Bazooka Synth emerging through a warm orchestral string section. As it continues to build, our returning son begins to sing.

“We follow the light to know where we’re going, we follow the light to find our way home.”

Pausing to rest and unaware of the fact that this world of sand is passing away beneath him, the returning son has a vision of the hourglass, and as the guitar solo begins, he sees people falling from the sky toward him, and that he is standing in the plume of sand that pours down and out of the upper dome. As they fall past him, they too become like sand and dust forming the cone like shape of the pile below. He knew that these were the people who had lost sight of the light, who had lost their way in the desert. These were the bodies on the floor of the cave, these were the ones left trapped in their submarines, these were the lost souls in the graveyard, the children that were led astray, the ones that never got out of the sex house, the ones that bought the front row seats to oblivion.

Then, as he looks at the faces of the falling bodies, he realises that each of them has his face, and these were all the deaths that he could have had along the way.

As the vision ends and he draws nearer to the city, the sky grows bright again, and soon the early morning sunlight catches the tops of the spires, turning them to gold.

Squinting in the brightness of their radiant glare, he sees a distant figure walking swiftly toward him. With nervous anticipation he quickens his pace in order to recognise the man who is backlit from the glowing brilliance of the city bathed in golden light.

With arms raised and clearly shouting things he cannot hear, the figure is distorted by the heat haze and glare of the morning sun, like a mirage, like a vision…like the shape of his father.

Breaking into a run he quickly reduces the distance to bring him into sharp focus. Now in full recognition of his father’s joy-filled face, he drops to his knees as his father catches him with an embrace that pulls him tightly into his chest.

As the warm strings of the orchestra rise again, the son turns his head from his father’s chest to face the audience.

“I followed the light,…….and found my way home”

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Epilogue Part 1 / Song Ten

Lost and Found

Returning to the great hall that we first encountered in the wedding scene at the beginning of this story, we now find the disgruntled brother, who cannot understand the father’s acceptance of this Prodigal son back into the family, with full reinstatement of royal robes, wealth, and privileges.

Why has reckless disobedience been forgiven and not punished? Why has his return been celebrated and so highly valued, and why has he not received the same kind of attention for being so loyal, and so obedient?

As the song plays out in a dialogue between the father and the brother who conformed and was complicit, we find our way back to the Biblical story that lends its words to the hymn Amazing Grace.

“This is my son who was lost and now is found, who was blind but now he sees”

When this is explained to the brother, he finally understands that the love of his father transcends and conquers all. That forgiveness is at the heart of all reconciliation and that love, hope and faith are undefinable gifts that we can choose to accept or reject. Whether it is a day or a thousand years, he remains patiently waiting for our return with open arms.

The song ends, and the stage once again returns to darkness. We prepare for the finale of our story.

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Epilogue Part 2 / Song Eleven

The River (Reprise)

As we began, we once again see the night sky filled with stars and as we travel through gas clouds and nebulas we arrive at a star in full eclipse by the black disc of a planet. Drawing closer, our wide screen is filled with the arc of the planet’s horizon and the glowing corona of flares and solar activity.

On the stage, we see three female angels who sing the reprise of the song sung by our newly found son, when faced with the wide river.

“He made it across the river tonight. Though the river was wide and the current was strong, he did what was right to take away what was wrong…….Alleluia.”

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Song Twelve

Let the Sun Shine Down

The Prodigal Son now stands before the audience in full confession of who he was and who he is now. He thanks them for being with him on his journey and wishes them well on their own journeys through life.

“I hope you find some peace of mind, and that you will always see that the road eventually will lead back home.”

As the song builds, we see the cast assemble, as the stage is bathed in rainbows, forming beautiful patterns and shapes across the stage and the audience. As it reaches its crescendo, we see the massive black disc that blots out the sun start to slide downwards, revealing the brilliant white light that has been held behind it, separating us from its radiance.

The black disc is now lit from the light and we see from the crescent that it is the sphere of a planet, and as the camera moves between the sun and this planet we see that it is not our world but a new earth, lit by sun and bathed in the love of its creator.

……and everyone sings;

“So let your sun shine down, and let your love rain down, and let your son shine down on me.”

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