Q&A: Stephin Merritt

"When you only have one person in your orchestra you have to be devious. So I'm being extra devious."

In 1999, singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields released “69 Love Songs,” a pop album that, nonetheless, owes a serious musical debt to the works of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. So it's no surprise that, 10 years later, he's working on an Off-Broadway musical “Coraline.” Metromix chatted with Merritt about adapting the original Neil Gaiman children’s book for the stage, unorthodox piano construction and why children should watch at their own peril.

Tell me about the story “Coraline.”
“Coraline” is a novel about a girl who goes through a door in her British suburban flat and meets her Other Mother, who turns out to be a gruesome entity. And things get worse and worse from there.

What inspired you to turn Neil Gaiman's novel into a musical?
I was friends with Neil Gaiman. He said “I've got a book coming out” and could I do a song for the audio book? So I wrote “You are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home,” which sums up the entire plot of “Coraline.”

Did it point you in a direction for the musical's style or did you leave it behind?
We're using different kinds of piano. We're doing a [adult] piano, a prepared piano and toy piano. We're also trying to use extended vocal techniques to match the extended piano techniques. When you only have one person in your orchestra you have to be devious. So I'm being extra devious.

What is a “prepared piano?”
It's when you take your ordinary baby grand piano and you put rubber and metal in between the strings. We're also using extended piano playing, such as scraping the strings with a garden claw, rubbing the strings with a metal brush and bowing one of the strings with fishing wire.

How do you compose for a one-person/many-piano orchestra?
Phyllis [Chen] is good at playing the toy piano and the prepared piano at the same time. And sometimes the toy piano and the adult piano. The prepared piano sounds like an entire junkyard playing at the same time.

Do you have a favorite character in “Coraline”?
Mr. Bobo. [He]'s a crazy old man who runs the mouse circus. Our actor Elliot Villar rolls his Rs both backwards and forwards, which is something I've never heard before. So I've written a song in which he can roll his Rs backwards and forwards.

Will the show appeal to kids?
I want to disabuse the readership from its opinion that it's a show for children because it isn't particularly a show for children. In fact, all children under five will be killed immediately, they won't be allowed into the theater.

What will kids find disturbing?
There's a question of whether the Other Mother will eat Coraline. So if the Other Mother notices kids in the audience, they could themselves be eaten. It could be bad. She could chomp right through the fourth wall.

That's the sort of the show that I want to see.
Oh good!

MCC's Coraline begins previews on May 7 at the Lucille Lortel Theater (located at 121 Christopher Street) on Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 7 pm, Thursdays thru Saturdays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 2 pm and Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are available by calling 212-279-4200 or going to Ticket Central.