The Inside Story: Lyre, Lyre, Hearts On Fire
In one of our earliest issues of Xena Magazine, we brought you a special report from the set of season five's classic episode Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire. This month, we bring you a special in-depth retrospective on this very popular show, chronicling the episode's most memorable events, high points and low points, and bringing you behind-the-scenes comments from the cast and crew. Feature by Kate Barker, with additional material by Darryl Curtis.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 19
Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire is an injection of laughter amidst the intense drama of the fifth season. A single entity in itself, Lyre, Lyre is a piece of light entertainment, with no reference to the episodes around it except that Xena is still pregnant and mom Cyrene is still trying to find her a man….
FIRST AIRDATE 17 January 2000 (US)
GENRE: Musical/Comedy
WRITTEN BY Adam Armus/Nora Kay Foster
DIRECTED BY Mark Beesley
XENA Lucy Lawless
GABRIELLE Renee O’Connor
JOXER/JACE Ted Raimi
DRACO Jay Laga’aia
CYRENE Darien Takle
AMORIA Gillian Iliana Waters
Synopsis
Draco and his army are combing the countryside in search of one of the golden lyres of Terpsichore, the Muse of Song. Within minutes, they are delighted to find the object of their long search, but their discovery has been made on Amazon turf, and Amoria and her tribe insist the lyre belongs to them.
Arriving on the scene with Gabrielle and Joxer in tow, Xena breaks up the fight before it gets going, and announces that there should be a contest to determine ownership of the Lyre: a battle of the bands...
The episode's events take place in Melodia, music capital of Greece, and as news of the upcoming contest spreads throughout the town, excited singing and dancing breaks out amongst the people. While Gabrielle prepares to audition the various bands eager to compete, Xena gets a visit from her mother, who, we discover, plans to find her daughter a father for her baby...
Gabby watches in dismay as the various bands audition and all turn out to be disastrous. There's hope, however: a new entry arrives unexpectedly who we soon discover is Joxer's brother, Jace, and whose flamboyant rendition of 'Dancing in the Moonlight' goes down a storm.
The Amazon leader Amoria, meanwhile, has taken a bit of a shine to Joxer, and begins to flirt rather outrageously with everyone's favourite fool. But it seems Joxer's attempts at romance are doomed to failure: Jace interrupts the young lovers in the hope of enjoying a brotherly reunion, and Joxer makes it quite clear that he wants nothing to do with his extrovert elder sibling.
While Jace takes Joxer's rejection to heart, and Gabby attempts to make Joxer see the error of his ways, Xena has to contend with her mother's meddling. Things go from bad to worse when she discovers that Cyrene has actually put out an advertisement seeking a potential father for Xena's child.
In the meantime, Gabby, who is finding the prospect of a suitor for Joxer rather unappetising, gets an unwelcome visit from Draco, who is still under a love spell and longs to spend eternity with the bard. Gabrielle is repulsed by the notion, but the scene switches to a dream in which Draco sings - somewhat out of tune - to Gabrielle, and declares that if he can't have her, no one will...
Elsewhere, Joxer, still embarrassed by his brother's behaviour, discovers that Amoria is rather enamoured of his elder brother. Realising that by rekindling his friendship with Jace he will be able to impress Amoria, he seeks the Latino singer out in order to apologise for his behaviour.
Xena, meanwhile, decides she's had enough of her mother's interfering antics when she is approached by yet another potential suitor. She pays a visit to Cyrene, and the conversation soon turns to song, with Xena and the Amazons giving a rousing rendition of 'Sisters are Doin' it for Themselves'. Cyrene admits she was wrong to meddle, but can't stop herself from asking who the child's father is...
The action comes to a head in the bands' deciding contest, when Gabrielle is kidnapped by Draco and set up in a cage at the side of the stage, wearing a two-piece go-go outfit (yes, in possibly the only similarity to the previous musical episode The Bitter Suite, this is where it all gets a tad surreal).
Xena enters the scene in a blaze of musical glory, and proceeds to fight with Draco, involving him in a - literally - very bad rap. Naturally, Draco is defeated, Gabrielle is released, Joxer and Jace finally make friends, Xena wins the golden lyre and bequeaths it to the city of Melodia, and they all get to sing together at the end!
Warrior, Princess, Klutz
Lucy Lawless recalls her own fond - and not so fond - memories of shooting Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire…
XENA MAGAZINE: Was shooting Lyre, Lyre easier than shooting Bitter Suite?
LUCY LAWLESS: Yes it was, just because it was a lighter episode.
Was it what you expected?
Originally, Rob had planned to use a couple of songs that I really, really love, and it turned out that they couldn’t be worked into the script. They were axed in favour of these two kind of stomping anthems ‘War’ and ’Sisters Are Doin’ it’.
They turned ‘Sisters’ into something a bit more soulful, and I liked that very much... But ‘War’ was the one where Ted [Raimi] and I couldn’t get our steps right…
You’ve previously mentioned that you didn’t feel overly confident about doing the dance numbers. How did you find the dancing in general?
I can get by, but I can’t really dance. We’d had a week off before shooting, and we did all the dance rehearsals in that time. But I was five months pregnant at the time and couldn’t see my feet, let alone make them do what I wanted them to! Ted and I had one another to console, because we were both klutzes.
We were so bad at doing War that we just had to laugh. In fact, we were laughing that we’d had one of those humbling experiences where you’re going along in life and doing pretty well at almost everything you're committed to, and then you do something at which you absolutely slink!
We thought it was really good seeing ourselves as human beings who just really suck in the worst way at something! It was good to be able to say, ‘I remember what a putz I am outside of this...’ It just reminds you that you’re not really the star of the world!
So we managed to laugh through the whole thing. Once again, Renee just breezed through it and kind of carried the dance numbers, as she does...
Can you tell us which were your favourite musical numbers in the episode?
My favourite song is Draco’s, ‘Always Something There to Remind Me'. I thought that was a great twist on a wonderful song. I thought the ‘Xena Rap’ was cool too - Joe LoDuca did all that, and worked with a couple of rap stars. I don’t know what made it onto the soundtrack, but I really loved the original version.
With ‘Sisters Are Doin’ it', I never really liked that song, but they did such a great reworking of it in such an amazing way. Joe LoDuca and Gillian Iliana Waters [Amoria] were lovely to work with, so it was really quite pleasant. When I watched the finished product of ‘Sisters’, I thought it worked out beautifully.
Aside from being an excuse for a little light entertainment, what do you think was the overriding theme of Lyre, Lyre?
It was about tolerance; accepting people who are different, and them accepting themselves and their family accepting them. In this case we chose homophobia... or rather, flamboyant-phobia!
Speaking of flamboyant, whose idea was the shot of you in Gabrielle’s go-go outfit at the end of the episode's credits?
I'd just snuck back to say goodbye to our Director of Photography, who was leaving. I was there a bit early, just hanging around, and as always happens when you have idle hands, the devil finds work for them! I went and popped on Gabrielle’s double's go-go dancing outfit - cos she's closer to my size than Renee is - but I told everybody it was Renee’s costume and I was getting into it anyway. I snuck in the back of a chorus line for one of the shots, and just effectively ruined the shot. But it was a great send-off for that particular crew member.
For Kiwis to be doing that in front of other Kiwis doesn’t seem that big a deal, but with Americans it's incredibly unconventional for a pregnant woman to be showing herself, let alone a pregnant actress allowing herself to be seen like that - unless it was all beautifully set up, with a photographer and everything. I do think it's good for people not to be ashamed of their bodies, no matter what shape they are. Especially if you’re pregnant, because that's a wonderful shape to be!
But our producers aren't prudish at all. and I think they just thought it was good fun, so they did it. I love it, just because it makes me laugh!
Dressing The Dance
Designing the costumes for Lyre, Lyre was a high point for Holland, which she describes as an episode in “a world of its own.”
One of Holland’s most memorable tasks was coming up with the outfit for Joxer’s brother, Jace. “The Jace character was very flamboyant,” she admits. “There’s stuff that’s written in the script that sort of gives you a picture of him, and that’s basically how it evolved.”
Joxer’s own costume remained the same throughout the episode, as did Xena’s. In fact, Gabrielle was the only one of the three regular cast members whose outfit changed in the episode, when she became a go-go dancer for one of the final scenes. “Gabrielle was Gabrielle, up to the point when she was captured and put into a... particular little number,” Holland laughs.
Most of the ‘little numbers’ in Lyre, Lyre, both in music and clothing, are far removed from the usual Xena style, and Holland explains that this was the result of a conscious decision to ensure the episode stood out. “It was another world that we don’t really go into,” says Holland of the Lyre, Lyre setting. “We were looking for a world that didn’t have the realism that we normally have.
“The way we go about constructing things is that there’s a lot of hand crafting involved in the materials we use,” Holland continues, “and the reality of our Xena world is quite organic. So I guess we were looking at the musical as being a heightened world, and not just Xena going into another village. There was something about it that was a bit special.
“So my approach to it was that it was more graphic than organic, and of course there’s that flamboyance of a musical in there as well.”
So where did the overall look of the Lyre, Lyre characters came from? “Really, there was just a bit of madness involved,” Holland says, smiling.
Fan Reaction
Fan opinion of Lyre, Lyre has been very mixed, ranging from hilarity to praise to boredom. Obviously this episode is comedy in contrast to Bitter Suite's drama, and this fact seemed to go down well with a lot of fans as well as to work against its popularity with others.
Singing
Although some fans have commented that they were not impressed with the choice of songs in the episode, most seem perfectly happy with the way the characters sing them. The singing talents of all the leads have been highly praised, although Jay Laga’aia and the boys’ screaming version of ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ didn’t go down very well with fans (we rather liked it actually). Ditto with the ‘Xena Rap’, although it does win the prize here for most ridiculous lyrics.
The general consensus seems to be a significant vote for Lucy Lawless and Ted Raimi as the best singers on the block.
Performance
In terms of slow, sensual soul, Xena and the Amazons slide nicely into second place with their steamroom version of ‘Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves’... but there is no competing with Ted Raimi as Jace, performing a Latino-disco revival (complete with mirrorball and young dancing boys) of ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’. That man has talent!
Overall Impression
As previously stated, fan reaction to the overall concept of Lyre, Lyre was a mixed bag. The fact that it’s a comedy, with the various interpretations of well- known songs; something different yet still within the seemingly limitless scope of the series; and also showcases the singing skills of a much-talented cast, all contribute to a well-rated episode which, for the most part, has gone down most effectively with audiences.
Ratings War
Fight Ratings
Draco et al/Amazons
Draco: “Well if it's a war you want, Amazon…”
A would-be fight that only wound up being a shouting match (Xena stopped it by jumping in with the opening lyrics: "War! What is it good for...").
No rating given.
Draco/Xena
Xena: “Let's get it on 'cos I'm getting' bored…”
Eerily reminiscent of Draco and Xena's first fight, atop people's heads in the very first episode Sins of the Past. This could have scored higher, but for the addition of bad rap and hip-hop in the middle of the scene.
Rating: 3 - a punch-up to lay money on if you have nothing better to do.
Romance Ratings
Draco/Gabrielle
Gabrielle: “I wouldn't marry you if you were the last mar on earth!”
Draco is suffering long-term effects from one of Cupid's arrows, but that doesn't stop him from trying to kill Gabrielle when she spurns his advances.
Rating: 3 for Draco - Cupid’s arrow has found a mark; 0 for Gabrielle - no time for romance: the only passion here is for song.
Joxer/Amoria
Amoria: “Relax - I won't bite... hard.”
An assertive Amazon tries to pull a very shy guy out of his shell.
Rating: 2 for Joxer - he’s kinda sweet, in a cringing sort of way; 3 for Amoria - Cupid has hit his mark again... at least until Amoria decides to play ’rocker chick’ with one of Draco’s men.
Joxer/Gabrielle
Gabrielle: “Not a chance in Tartarus.”
It's the same sad story; Joxer wants it; Gabrielle doesn't,
Rating: 2 for Joxer, I for the bard (sigh).
Subtext Ratings
Believe it or not, there are hardly any... unless you counr the 'she's mine' look that Gabrielle gives Draco when Xena asserts her skills (well okay, maybe that's just one way to look at it...)
Simply The Best
Celebrating the best of Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire…
Best singer
Lucy Lawless and Gillian Iliana Waters are very sharp, but the award has to go to Ted Raimi - singing both as Joxer and his flamboyant brother face... at several points in the same song!
Best Song
Since most of the songs were covers, it's a little hard to pick, but on the basis of interpretation, it would have to be Xena and the Amazons' slow and soulful rendition of 'Sisters Are Doin' it for Themselves'.
Best Dance
There's just no competition here. Jace and his golden disco boys win this category hands-down for the wonderfully outrageous 'Dancing in the Moonlight'.
Best Performance
From his performances as the under-confident Joxer to the delightfully camp jace, Ted Raimi shows us just how talented he is. The supporting performers in 'Dancing' and 'People Got to be Free' were great too, and in both instances simply added to the masterpieces of Raimi's exceptional talent.
Best Lyrics
Since there are very few lyrics in Lyre that are Xena originals, there aren't that many options left to choose from, so it would have to be between 'Gettin' Ready' and the 'Xena Rap', neither of which has received that much positive feedback.
The prize would probably have to go to Gabrielle's stress-induced plea in the middle of 'Gettin' Ready': “But you've got it all wrong/there's no talent to find/if this concert's too big/l'll go out of my mind!”
Best Use of a Prop
Xena using the golden lyre to play a heavy rock opening of the show's very own theme song, followed closely by Draco's flame-throwing guitar.
Best Use of History (real or mythological)
A passing reference to the Greek muse Terpsichore, to explain the presence of the golden lyre near the town of Melodia, “music capital of Greece”.
Best Scene
There are some great action shots and vocal punchlines, such as the Brady Bunch-esque multiplying windows at the end of 'Gettin' Ready'; Xena pasting up posters advertising the concert while whistling her theme tune; Gabrielle trapped in the go-go cage in Draco's heavy metal number, yelling at the audience to “Gimme a rock!”; and Gabrielle again in the final performance, go-go dancing like the three naked Gabrielles in the comedy episode The Quill is Mightier.
But for reasons mentioned earlier in this article the scene in which Gabrielle auditions tone-deaf bands (Joxer: “They can't all be... mediocre.” Gabrielle: “No... they all suck.”), leads nicely into the most get-down-and-boogie musical number of the show: Jace and his showboys singing 'Dancing in the Moonlight'. We sense a major plot device when Joxer walks out in disgust...
Best Moment
This just has to be the out-take of a very pregnant Lucy Lawless dancing around outrageously in Gabrielle's two-piece go-go outfit shown during the closing credits. Go, Lucy!
Last Word
Lyre, Lyre is a light-hearted and much-needed break from the somewhat tense events in the rest of Xena's fifth season.
Although the premise may not be significant to the rest of the season, neither is it entirely devoid of a connection. The episode contains the comedy, romance and drama that we are so used to seeing; the plotlines have their usual twists and turns; the characters live up to their personalities as they always do; and the addition of all the elements of a musical simply adds to what is already a very entertaining episode.
May the muses inspire the Xena creators again...