Simple Questions

From 'Simple Questions' come hard decisions

The creative team for "No Greater Love" owes Butte both a story that is inspired by history and one that is compelling and engaging.  The history of the 1917 mine fire is there for our study in books, articles, documentaries and lectures. The whole truth, residing within the history, however, is more elusive than facts because we simply don't know what was felt, thought, said and prayed about when those directly involved underground and those above ground were confronted, in real time, with the chaos and calamity of the 1917 Granite Mountain-Speculator Mine fire.

There are certain times, therefore, when it is incumbent upon the creative team to slow the action and take it in a different direction by singing. Once the creative team had developed a reliable script for "No Greater Love," the challenge was to determine those points in the story that were the most fertile moments for a song. The story isn't stopped during the singing of the song, for it is through the song that the observers of the story gain insight into a character or the relationships between one another. This interaction between music, words, the storyline and the audience creates a reason for all of us involved to care about what really happened in 1917.

One such moment in "No Greater Love" involves Norman Braley, the mine manager. He has to make decisions that ensure the best possible chances for the survival of those miners trapped below. No matter the decision he makes, people will die as a result. How does he come to these decisions? What weighs upon his mind? How does he know that they are the right decisions? What will he say to the foks who wait to hear about the fate of their loved ones? Is he strong enough to brave it all or is he weak? Questions such as these are posed by Braley to himself in a song he sings titled "Simple Questions."

There are things universal in musical productions. Don Quixote in "Man of La Mancha" sings about the imperative ".... to dream the impossible dream." Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof"  asks his wife Golde after 25 years of marriage, "Do you love me?" In "A Little Night Music," the audience is confronted with the valuelessness of the glamourous, frivolous life, the rich life of parties and the falling apart of relationships in "Where are the Clowns?"

One of the universals in "No Greater Love" is brought to the fore in the song "Simple Questions." The song asks us to contemplate our own lives by asking ourselves such questions as: Who are we really when we are faced with life-altering decisions? Do we, in fact, have the courage to make what we feel are the right decisions even though it might fly in the face of the opinion of others? Do we have the fortitude to deal with the possibility that the decisions may be wrong? Can we live with ourselves? Are we the kind of people we think we are, that we want others to believe we are, that we want to be?