Artists
Musicians featured in this piece are:
Philip Glass – composer, keyboards
Foday Musa Suso – composer, kora
Martin Goldray – keyboards
Benjamin Hudson – violin
Michael Parloff – flute
Allen Blustine – clarinet
Rex Benincasa – percussion
Jerry Grossman – cello
Composed by Philip Glass & Foday Musa Suso. Recorded for the incidental score to Jean Genet’s play The Screens, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, produced by The Guthrie Theater, 1989. Released on The Screens soundtrack album (Nonesuch Records).
“Decorating the Dummies” is the fourth cue on The Screens soundtrack, part of the same Glass/Suso score discussed for “Night on the Balcony.” The scene it accompanies relates to one of the play’s more surreal, satirical passages — Genet’s text uses grotesque, doll-like figures throughout to critique colonial society and its rituals, and the shorter, tighter cues like this one tend to underscore the play’s more absurdist or darkly comic beats rather than its longer emotional set-pieces.
Philip Glass – Decorating the Dummies Lyrics
(Decorating The Dummies is a full instrumental piece by Philip Glass, and there has no lyrics.)
To listen to other songs from the Teleskop 14 program and the full program, click here.