The year after Molly Brolin (stepsister of Josh Brolin) and her fellow Berklee grad Justin Johnson moved to Greenpoint in 2010, Johnson saw “a dark sorceress cast a spell of calm over all the bodega workers in Manhattan” while he was working in a stockroom in Soho.
That stress-incited hallucination evolved into Smile Swamp Princess, a rock opera co-composed by Megan Lui and directed by Molly’s neice Eden Brolin. It debuts at Wild Project next week.
Justin Johnson and Megan Lui as Space Cowboy and Swamp Princess.
Lui, whose dynamic singing voice is a major draw of the show (you can listen to the songs online), will star as the deeply conflicted princess of a swamp located “just off the intergalactic highway”: “She can make light dance on the water and frogs croak like a symphony orchestra,” says Molly, who’s the art director of SSP. “Her throne is carved out of a living mangrove tree and she probably sleeps in a giant birds nest somewhere offstage. She’s like the center of this world to the other inhabitants of the swamp but on the inside she’s totally emo, all she wants is to be left alone.”
Enter the love interest: Space Cowboy (played by Johnson) drops in on the swamp in his aurora borealis-fueled ship from an Iceland-like planet “full of rainbow geysers and ice caves, and space cows that tend to wander off to other planets.”
To make sure her setting was authentically swampy, Molly and Justin, who is a native Louisianan, took a trip to Atchafalaya Basin, a 150 mile-long wetland on the outskirts of Baton Rouge that Molly describes as “a Cajun backcountry water world.” (It’s 50 miles away from Atchafalaya, which inspired Beasts of the Southern Wild).
A swamp person.
“The swamp from Justin’s perspective is a metaphor for his or anyone’s hometown,” says Molly. “It’s filled with creatures who are like your hometown friends that slide through the muck and stink of everyday life. They still live in their parent’s basement, smoke too much weed, get in fights and are best friends.”
Despite the lavish backdrop and elaborate costumes of beads, flowers, flowing fabric, and stalks of grass, the story is meant to hit home. “It’s about growing up and the struggle to find your individuality,” says Molly. “It’s about taking ownership of your role as an adult. They don’t tell you how hard it’s going to be.”
Smile Swamp Princess will show at the Wild Project on September 4 and 5 at 8 p.m.
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