The Inside Story: The Bitter Suite
In Issue 19 we brought you a special in-depth feature on season five's musical episode Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire, featuring interviews and comments from the cast and crew to celebrate this classic show. This month, Xena's first musical, The Bitter Suite, comes under the spotlight as we go behind the scenes on season three's memorable musical comedy... Feature by Kate Barker, with additional material by Darryl Curtis.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 22
The Bitter Suite heralds the climax of what fans refer to as the ‘rift’ saga - the unravelling of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship over the course of the third and fourth seasons. In Gabrielle’s Hope, Gabrielle bears a child who she cannot bring herself to kill despite the fact that she is the spawn of the evil Dahak. Soon after, in Maternal Instincts, the episode set directly before The Bitter Suite, Hope, now a young girl, murders Xena’s son Solan with the help of Callisto. At the end of the episode, she can only look at Gabrielle with hatred...
GENRE: Musical/Drama
WRITTEN BY Chris Manheim & Steven L. Sears
DIRECTED BY Oley Sassone
XENA Lucy Lawless
GABRIELLE Renee O’Connor
ARES Kevin Smith
CALLISTO Hudson Leick
JOXER Ted Raimi
CAESAR Karl Urban
EPHINY Danielle Cormak
KRAFSTAR Marton Csokas
LILA Wills O'Neill
MING T’IEN Daniel Sing
SOLAN David Taylor
SYNOPSIS
Gabrielle, languishing over her sense of guilt, is undergoing a tortuous 'purification ritual' in a sacred Amazon hut. In anguish herself, and spurred on by the taunting words of Ares, Xena comes charging into the Amazon village, felling Joxer, who has attempted Gabrielle's rescue, and sets about exacting revenge.
In what is known by the fans as the infamous 'Gab-drag' scene, Xena catches Gabrielle's ankles with her whip and drags her along behind a galloping Argo, finally stopping at the top of a steep cliff. Mad with rage, she prepares to throw the semi-conscious Gabrielle off the cliff. But Gabby regains consciousness just in time to pull Xena along with her, and they both fall to their supposedly watery deaths.
This is where things start to get a bit weird.
There are separate murky shots of Xena and Gabrielle falling through water to the sound of an ancient scripture-like narrative, made all the more strange by the fact that the narrator sounds suspiciously like Callisto...
Xena and Gabrielle wake up in separate locations in the surreal world of lllusia and find that their guides to this fairytale land are Callisto and Joxer respectively. While Xena's dealings lead her to the castle of Ares (who seduces her with power, passion and a tango), Gabrielle is taken to her home village of Poteidaia, where the townspeople sing sinister songs preaching the evil of Xena's influence. Weapons at the ready, warrior and bard are manipulated into a confrontation, and it takes Xena just a few short seconds to win the fight.
What follows is more of Ares and his power lines (pun intended - the atmosphere in said scene is electric), Xena and Gabrielle trying to work things out in a hall of hate-induced echoes, and forced once again into dire straits in a reconstruction of the evil Dahak's temple.
They eventually sing their way out of trouble, Xena makes peace with her dead son Solan, and they awake to find themselves frolicking in the tide at the bottom of the cliff from which they apparently fell to their deaths at the start of the episode.
Revenge Is Suite
Lucy Lawless looks back at the highs of filming The Bitter Suite
XENA MAGAZINE: What is starring in a Xena musical actually like?
LUCY LAWLESS: It’s terrific! Even though it’s very involved and very demanding. Your bodies are worked pretty hard, and you're working a lot of hours, especially with rehearsals for dances. Also, it’s not easy to sing those songs to a good standard when you’re filming, because you’re concentrating on everything else. Singing has to be done at other times, and it’s preferable to do it before shooting, because you need to lip-synch to something, so you need to get the tempo down.
Is there anything in The Bitter Suite that stands out for you as being particularly memorable?
I remember Renee and I lying on those slabs and being crucified, and singing that song at the end when Gabrielle is through that curtain of water. I remember that day very clearly; I think it was the second-to-last day of shooting and we were all exhausted and trying to pull a performance out of thin air. Actually, I'm sure we laughed the whole time, but sometimes you laugh wryly and sometimes you laugh wholeheartedly, and with heavy dramas it tends to be more wry than rollicking.
There was certainly a lot of drama in the opening shots of the episode, with Xena exacting revenge on Gabrielle. Was it hard finding the intensity to play that scene?
No, because - that was what they called the ‘Gab-drag’, right? - Renee wasn’t actually being dragged along behind me. In fact, there was nothing being dragged along behind me at all. You don’t see what’s happening when you’re there acting out what’s in the script, and when you see it all cut together it can be to quite a shocking effect, which is obviously what happened.
But Xena had to be out of her mind, because she was going to throw Gabrielle off the cliff, and the real, normal Xena would never do that. It had to be by reason of insanity; there had to be some mitigating circumstances.
Do you think the final cut of The Bitter Suite achieved its full potential?
One thing that Rob always wanted to do was a Wagnerian opera; he knew what he could do with it. He knew that that style of opera would suit the themes that he was looking to explore in the show, and I think that it worked out just right.
Ratings Wars
Fight Ratings
Xena/Amazons
Ephiny: “Amazons attack!”
This isn't exactly a fair fight: Amazon warriors against a vengeful Xena. They had no chance really.
Rating: 2 - it was almost over before it began, and the stunt doubles hardly worked up a sweat
Xena/Gabrielle
Gabrielle: “By the gods, Xena - you killed me!”
This was all of about 30 seconds long; Xena with her sword and Gabrielle with a scythe.
Rating: 2 - no sweat; a few quick swishes and xena wins by plunging her sword into Gabrielle’s chest.
Romance Ratings
Xena/Ares
Ares: “Imagine how awesome together we'd be/come feel what I'm feeling... come melt into me.”
This definitely doesn't fall into the subtext category - there's nothing remotely 'sub' about it. And since there isn't a rating for 'hot passion', this'll have to do. Amongst the armour and swords, Ares seduces Xena with the temptations of war, vengeance and battlelust.
Rating: 5 - steamier than a night in Tartarus.
Joxer/Gabrielle
Joxer: “If you're in a land that's new/l'm the man who'll guide you through/even if you're slightly nude…”
It's no coincidence that Joxer turns up as Gabby's guide through lllusia.
Rating: 2 - unlike Ares or Callisto, Joxer represents the fool - the sweeter side of love.
Subtext Ratings
Xena/Gabrielle
Xena & Gabrielle (singing fit to burst their bonds): “... if we can turn again to love…”
There's not that much subtext, actually, unless you count the prevailing theme of the episode: Xena and Gabrielle have to get it together enough to forgive each other and themselves, and find the love they've lost.
Rating: 3 - you’ll certainly see the subtext in Xena and Gabrielle laughing and rolling about at the end.
Xena/Callisto
Callisto: “You've tasted how evil and good co-exist/the bitter and sweet of it... all in the lips that you've kissed.”
For one thing, someone looking a lot like Callisto plants a kiss on Xena's lips to wake her into the land of lllusia. That and the word games they play during Callisto's rather 'energetic' performances to keep Xena's attention...
Rating: 4 - you can read between the lines here as well, but this time they’re bold and in italics...
Fan Reaction
Fans have argued long and hard about the value and significance of The Bitter Suite to the series’ story arc (just take a look at some of our recent letters pages to see how mixed opinions are). However, there are some elements to the episode which fans’ are in agreement about.
Singing
The most praise has been for Lucy Lawless, followed closely by Kevin Smith, who surprised most fans with his vocal talents. Most surveys showed that, at the time, many fans could ascertain that Gabrielle’s vocals were not sung by Renee O’Connor, and wondered why. Overall, it seems the release of the soundtrack to The Bitter Suite was an inspired idea.
Performance
Accolades went out to all five leads (Lawless, O'Connor, Smith, Hudson Leick and Ted Raimi). Overall, fans were most impressed by Smith's suave seduction scenes as Ares, and Leick's out-of-character portrayal of Callisto in lllusia.
Overall Impression
The scale - both at the time of broadcast and to this day - of fan reaction to the episode has been pushed to extremes, both positive and negative. Some saw it as a refreshing and light change - ever though it was dramatic - to any other Xena episode they'd seen before, while others cited the much-talked about ‘Gab-drag’ scene as such a powerfully disturbing piece of television drama that they had actually become physically ill and couldn't watch any more!
Simply The Best
Celebrating the best of The Bitter Suite...
Best Singer
This is a close one; in fact, too close to call. It has to be a tie between the deep, rich tones of Lucy Lawless singing about Xena's despair, anger, hope and refound love, and the sizzling sensual energies of Kevin Smith, taking Ares to places that we’ve never seen him before. It’s a pity that The Bitter Suite doesn’t have Lawless and Smith singing a duet - perhaps the producers were afraid the camera film would burn up!
Best Song
For angst and drama, Xena and Gabrielle lamenting and then insulting each other and getting deafened in the hall of echoes (“It’s your fault!”; “No, it’s your fault!”), but for entertainment value, the award definitely goes to Callisto’s song welcoming Xena into lllusia. It’s corny but funny, and very colourful in an Alice In Wonderland, Willy Wonka sort of way.
“Glad that you're feeling strong/thought I might lose ya/don’t use words, sing a song/... this is lllusia!” sings Callisto.
“Alright Callisto, cut the song and dance; what’s going on here...?” demands Xena.
Best Dance
Without a doubt, the sultry, tango-like slow dance between Ares in royal armour and Xena in a slinky red dress. On a purely objective level, it’s hot, hot, hot!
Best Performance
Again, this one’s pretty much a one-horse race. Never have we seen the character of Callisto so, well, out of character. Bouncing around like a cross between the mischievous fairy Puck and a manic Mary Poppins, dressed in a tarot-card version of a pageboy outfit, she makes a crazy vision you just have to keep watching. Her words are full of mystery, riddle and rhyme, and she knows just when to go from beckoning curiosity to vocally slicing to the bone.
Best Lyrics
There are some great lyrics here (and some not-so-great ones too), but for sheer emotive and visual power, the award goes to Ares with his first singing lines, capturing exactly what he feels for Xena, as only a god of war can: “You are the most divine, delicious warrior/a man can’t help saluting your return/and if you start my heart it’s just the way you slash and burn.../... bewitching woman straining at the armour plate/you singe me with your ardour, you inflame/and in my carnal heart there’s not a sorry shred of shame...
Best Use of a Prop
It’s not just one prop here but a mixture of several. In rapidly intercut scenes of the castle and the village, the soldiers form lines and toss their swords between them as Xena walks down the middle towards her destiny, and the villagers raise lethal-looking farm equipment as Gabrielle strides through them in the same way. Xena has a sword, Gabrielle a scythe... and they’re about to use them in a very, very short fight...
Best Use of History (real or mythological)
Well it’s not exactly history, but it’s certainly the stuff of superstition and mythology. According to costume designer Jane Holland, many of the outfits and themes in The Bitter Suite were based on the design of a tarot card deck. (There are numerous studies of this concept on various Xena web sites around the world; just log on and look up ‘XWP Tarot’.)
Best Scene
It has to be a tie between the scene featuring the rather bemusing behaviour of Callisto as a manic court jester of lllusia and Ares’ deliciously evil courting of Xena.
Best Moment
Dahak’s temple is pretty impressive, what with the electric fire entity pulling Xena and Gabrielle back to their worst nightmare, then setting them up as sacrifices on a crucifix and stone slab respectively. Adding to the horror effects are the ‘dark’ images of the characters, each with a knife to end the lives of their real counterparts.
The falling-through-water scene near the beginning is also interesting, in a very strange kind of way. Has anybody ever tried to look up those scriptures that Callisto was spouting?