Maundy Lindros, coloratura
[description:= ε White female, 70s years (30s years in 1978 flashback), Swedish heritage /// character:= an eccentric and aloof genius who views few as intellectual peers, a classically trained physicist, accomplished (William & Mary PhD in Physics at age 16 -- research on extraterrestrial viscosity dynamics // thesis: "Quantum Leaps in the Material Science of Alloys" -- she remains the youngest person ever elected to the American Academy of Engineering[w]), ultra-conservative of high society pedigree (heiress to the Lindros FlyerCast & Irons, Ltd. company), ambitious entrepreneur with a knack for being in the right place at the right time, has carefully crafted her public persona in order to avoid suspicion, perceptive, callous, willing to do whatever it takes so that the rules are bent in her favor, a not-so-well-known phantom figure that works behind-the-scenes (doesn't get hands dirty/meticulously covers tracks), hates repeating herself, territorial, not to be taken lightly, competitive, proud, immediate, urbane with her head full of white hair, regal, minimalist, mute and blind (visually impaired, born with both blindness and alalia but with heightened senses otherwise, expresses herself 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, impulsive Southern belle-type who made questionable choices in her younger years that are now haunting👻 Pascha, she was frequently at odds with him (then) because of her past dalliances; what's left of their relations these days is mentally apoplectic, but both still honored "the deal", loosely modeled after non-particular 20th Century Philadelphia district attorneys and Joker (indirectly)]
concept artwork is bing ai-generated, these are not prod. images
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
lnq👨🏿🦱; 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
Port Richmond-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.
I have artistic license here, and
use it to make
Maundy a vital shaker in bringing about the creation of so-called '
Meroë' (it doesn't actually exist, but is crucial to the storyline); the aftermath of the
White-on-Black aggression calls for land grants within city limits to be designated to an intentionally
segregated-but-equal Black class as compensation for / compromise of agreed-upon faults. This action was spearheaded by
Maundy herself in the intervening
seven years,
resulting in the
planned community of 'Meroë' (what local bigots deemed 'Niggerville').
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.
Possessing a genius IQ🧠, she has applied it masterfully to naval🛳⚓ architecture. Her enterprise (to which she was a legatee),
Lindros FlyerCast & Irons, Ltd., was instrumental in
building and bringing the first fleet of
slave ships to Rhode Island's wharves
*, and today
controls the regional (Brandywine-
Bay of Virgin Peake corridor)
seaport for
all merchant maritime freight (shipping, shipping containers,
shipping container housing, terminals/docking vessels, and so forth).
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 Pennsylvania settlement - may have had something to do with the passing of that code.
She really is untouchable. Throughout most of the opera, we rarely get to see her in the flesh; she uses holograms exclusively. A diabolical recluse who seldom docks for anyone, Maundy (in the vicinity of her bodyguard/captain/pilot, Lef'fut) resides on a Class A submersible, the Drebbel, that often deep cruises somewhere nearby in the Atlantic Ocean, probably in a bay off the coast of New Jersey. -- Heck, I wrote her and I can't even pinpoint her location.🤷🏿♂️ -- This is to give a sense of how little she thinks of both the limelight and people on land, and the baggage each brings. Allergic to stress (her philosophy for living a long life), she takes great precautions to ensure her well-being.
Philly's skyline is my favorite.🤭
On the business side, she runs Lindros using encrypted holograms with keyboard⌨️ input. The corporate office occupies an ⚓anchored converted corvette on the shipyard, and is managed by her assistant, Lily. It also operates mineral mining camps in Arrow Bow County, Elsewhere.
In addition to being the world's premiere distiller of argon, Lindros is the largest importer of phosphate from Morocco in the Americas. A subplot is that Brandywine's Islamic☪ demographic (spearheaded by her North African Muslim community) wants her company to pay retribution for unfair trade practices between the two countries, and a sizable number of Moroccan mobsters have sprouted inside the City and around the Delaware Valley for this very purpose. To protect her wharf from local mob threats, she employs on-again, off-again imam, Dominique.
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"'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.
Additionally, aggressive geopolitics has taken center stage, and
Maundy's company has been tasked with handling very peculiar seafaring requests from the United States government (particularly the Departments of
Homeland Security and
Defense). Namely, legislation is floating around on Capitol Hill that would
call for - if passed - the annexation of
Liberia as a
territory (the country was formerly an American colony in the
Nineteenth Century).
This is being done under the guise of re-establishing dominance on the African continent to counter growing influence/threat from China and India. But, with all of the current domestic racial strife, we can't be too certain of the motive considering that
Lindros has been
contracted to
build a
superclass frigate and a fleet of vessels that transport 'human cargo
at-scale'.
The four-fold arc of the opera begins with its first chord,
N. The other three (3) chords, in order, are
O,
A, and
H. Her being in shipbuilding invites you to assume that the remainder of the work has something to do with that element of religiosity. By ChordN (the start of Holy Week), her mettle is tested, and we'll see just what she is all about.
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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
Egg 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 Egg 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.
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In the storyline,
Ember Libitina is a hold-over from the
Mayor Luigi era in Brandywine; an indirect characterization of an almagamation of
late-20th Century Philadelphia District Attorneys [DA] (after whom she was loosely modeled).
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.}
Frank Rizzo's tenure as both Chief of Police first and then mayor, was marked as being full of strife and animosity towards Philly's African-American demographic. It may be difficult to gauge his impact today considering the national political climate in aftermath of the Obama presidency and so forth, but he remains a towering figure that may have set a precendent on how to 'handle' crime and criminals in large American cities.
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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, by the way, is the reason the character graduated from the College of William and Mary, because Glenn did) 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.
Iggy is an asshole, who revels in being an asshole. Through the years, he's been lauded, commemorated, decorated, and honored by his country for being an asshole as such. This imposing figure relishes his role. He lives for his next assignment. And even scarier is that he's entirely ready to die in combat, just as long as he can take others to the 'other side' with him. In his mind, no one is innocent (and never was). His 
Pascha has proven himself time and time again to be no easy target🎯. His legend precedes him. Iggy is up for the challenge. This task and his bounty check come directly from the Pentagon: Pascha must be brought in dead or alive. They're coming to kill this motherfucker. Go, get em!
I actually made this casting years ago, when things were first being pieced together. George brings a few things to the table that I am looking for for this role: he's a big guy (6'3''), fit, his phenotypic look is believable for someone whose heritage is supposed to be from the 
Again, in bringing this flashback to life, there was a lot of second-hand study done during my research, but I had a few allies here. There are people still around who can vividly recall the days when acts such as 
Newcomer, 
