The Ruse of Medusa (La Piege de Meduse)
Produced by the North Carolina Stage Company & BMCM+AC
August 25th, 26th, 27rh and September1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 2005

Audio
25 minute MP3 (35MB - right-click to Save As..) of the entire performance in French

Sheet Music
Erik Satie: Piano Album
Contains some versions of the Ruse

Play Descriptions & Notes
A lengthy description can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Pi%E8ge_de_M%E9duse. It sounds like there have been many arrangements (originally for prepared piano and since for accordion!).

Notes from Satie home page and news group:

A lyrical comedy in one act by Erik Satie with dance music by the same gentleman. Satie described his play as follows: "This is a pure fantasy... unreal. A joke. There is no point in trying to interpret it in any other way. Baron Medusa is a kind of portrait... my self-portrait, even... in full length." At the play's premiere Satie put pieces of paper between the pianostrings in order to obtain a mechanical effect - the first known example of prepared piano. This music sample is really odd, you will not hear a piano but an accordion...
Performed by Teodoro Anzellotti. ? Winter & Winter, Germany. Cat.no. 910 031-2.

I know that Madelaine Milhaud staged La Piege de Meduse twice in the USA. The first time during world war 2, I think, the next one in the fifties. She did this at the college she was teaching at. Maybe in California, I'm not sure. The play was staged in Paris during Satie's life and has later been recorded on a CD, complete with music and sounds. You can by it in FNAC in France. It is published by Le Castor Astral.

The word "sergots" is a slang word for police officers.
Le Piege de Meduse has been annotated by O. Volta and edited in Paris, ed. du Castor astral, 1988, and in Hofheim (Germany) at Wolke, in 1990 (German translation by Silke Hass). You can also find it in English in Erik Satie, A

Satie Bio
http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/intro.html

Original Program