So, in a nutshell, what is the story of the musical Trompe L’Oeil?
Trompe L’Oeil (an art form that literally means “deceives the eye”) is in many ways a modernized riff on The Wizard of Oz.

 

This version of Dorothy - Demi, a drag queen - finds herself euphoric over the progress that has been made in America circa 2015 - a black president, legalized gay marriage and legalized marijuana! What more to want?! - only to get swept away into what is for her the Oz-like political landscape of Trump that follows in 2016, a landscape she cannot process.

 

How does the ultimate message then differ from the Wizard of Oz? Demi’s ultimate lessons are not like Dorothy’s - she must realize that labeling things as dream-like or surreal only renders her and others useless - this is not an Oz she gets to wake from: the events, however bizarre, are part of her ongoing world and she will need to continue to fight for her truth to prevail. And this is true also for her love interest, Rip. 

 

How do the surreal and trompe l’oeil art forms play a role?
The dissonance she experiences in this process of discovery also provides an opportunity to reference both the surreal and trompe l’oeil art forms and to playfully bring Dali, Magritte, Escher and many other artists into the conversation.

 

How then are the songs themselves also trompe l’oeil songs?
As something of a play on Lewis Carroll’s poem in Through the
Looking Glass where Carroll spelled the full name “Alice Pleasance Liddell” with the first letters of each line of an opening poem, the songs of Trompe L’Oeil explore this idea more aggressively, placing letters strategically within the body of the song to create messages or images that give the ultimate underlying message. Because these texts are sung, some have suggested it is rather “trompe l’oreille” (“deceives the ear”) and in a sense - and at a certain point - that is true, but once one is looking at the text, it is very much trompe l’oeil.