Rock opera takes nearly 20 years to visit stage

When you speak with Michael Paul about his new rock opera, Flying Through the Fishbowl, a couple of things are immediately evident; He's proud of his work and enthusiastic about its debut. He should be at the very least relieved that it's about to open. It has been in the making for the better part of twenty years.
Getting there
Flying Through the Fishbowl runs July 8-11 at Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Ave. Showtimes are 8 p.m. July 8-10, with 2 p.m. matinees on July 10-11. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets are available by calling 268-7551 or by logging onto 4popera.com.

Based on personal experiences and relationships, Paul describes his work as autobiograghical in its emotional lessons, if not its events.

"Flying Through The Fishbowl isn't so much about me and my history as the experience of the emotion and its effect," he said. "I think that the end result is that people coming to the show will see themselves in one character or another."

Paul's opera takes on a lofty set of issues in its examination of human relations. The central character Paula has been caught in a series of relationships that lead from one to the next. The story follows her journey in learning how to break the cycle. This cycle of meet, fall in love and break up, only to meet another is the basis for the story as well as the reason for the title.

"Someone told me once that fish swimming in a bowl don't mind their tiny surroundings because by the time they've made the full circuit they've forgotten that they were ever at the starting point," Paul explained. "To me this is the human condition, people making the same mistakes over and over. We forget the pain of our last relationship just long enough to fall in love again."

Flying Through The Fishbowl is presented in two acts with a total of 30 songs. Paul, a songwriter for as long as he can remember, culled the work from songs he had penned between the ages of 17 and 33.

"When I finally started putting this thing on its feet I had 39 songs that constituted three 45-minute sets. I spent a good deal of time editing and paring that down to the show's current incarnation. It runs a little over two hours with an intermission. This version seems to fit and in my estimation serves to tell the story quite well."

The process of putting the piece on the stage came as almost an aside from Paul's songwriting experiences.

"I'd been writing these songs for years. In the past, I'd performed them in coffeehouses and bars on the West Coast. After coming to Nashville and then going to school for music business at MTSU, I became friends with a person that had a lot of theater background. In discussing my music he suggested that the songs would work as a piece of theater and the project built from there."