IATR 1993 MYSTIBLU de ROBERTO RAMOS-PEREA. TRADUCCION DE CP THOMAS. MODERN INTERNATIONAL DRAMA
EDITORS
Anthony M. Pasquariello
George E. Wellwarth
EDITORIAL BOARD
Eric Bentley
Herbert Blau
Robert J. Clements
Robert Corrigan
Jon V. Falconieri
Ulrich Goldsmith
Laurent LeSage
Leonard Pronko
Henry F. Salerno
Roger Shattuck
VOLUME 26/NO. 2
\fODER'\ I'\TER:--IATIONAL DRAMA
Published in October and April. INSTITUTIO'\.-\L s·_
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TRANSLATED BY CHARLES PHILIP THOMAS (ORIGINAL IN SPANISH)
THE PRESENT by Decio Cinti
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT GORDON AND JOHN LONDON (ORIGINAL IN ITALIAN)
by Eduardo Quiles
TRANSLATED BY ANA GIMENO AND JUAN V.
3n1BA1S/Vtl
(1)/Q!JS!Vt/)
(NV:J HI Ol "M3:0d)
THE AUTHOR
Roberto Ramos-Perea was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico in 1959. He is a playwright, actor, director, journalist, researcher and theatre critic. Currently he is the Executive Director of the Ateneo Puertorriqueno and in December, 1992 he was named Executive Director of the Instituto de Literatura Puertorriqueno of the University of Puerto Rico.
In December, 1992 it was announced that Ramos- Perea was named winner of the Tirso de Molina Prize of the Instituto de Cooperacion Iberoamericana del Ministerio de Asumos Exteriores in Madrid for his play Mienteme mds.
THE TRANSLATOR
Charles Philip Thomas has translated many Latin American plays that have previously appeared in this magazine.
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Mistyblue, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Empire, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion pictures, recitation, public readings, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation in foreign languages are strictly reserved. For performing rights, contact Dr. Charles P. Thomas, 1931 Crane Street, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901.
ROBERTO RAMOS-PEREA
MISTY BLUE
(PUERTO RICAN)
Translated from the Spanish by Charles Philip Thomas
LIST OF CHARACTERS
THE COUNT OF SAINT
GERMAIN (Count of Rogoczy)
GIACOMO GIROLAMO
CASANOVA (Chevalier of Seingalt)
MADONNA (Rock singer)
ACT I SCENE ONE
(Lustful and exasperated Bach. The 18th century delivers all its sensuality with the first flash from temfying flickering lights. Lights out of nowhere invade with blue mystical shadows. Everything happens very quickly. Nocturnal fog to create a mysterious atmosphere. Laughter and cheers. A cloaked figure in a carnival mask crosses the stage. To the rear, watching him go away, and with great caution, MADONNA arrives at center stage to tell us some great gossip.)
MADONNA (rock heroine of the eighties. Short, wild, blond hair like a ravished goddess. She's carrying a small bag of groceries in her arms. She looks all around. The Bach is turned down. She speaks in a bold whisper): Madame Durfe, the noble crazy lady, went completely bonkers when she found out that Giacomo Casanova had deceived her, promising her eternal youth. Besides, he not only took away her menopause, but he also cheated her out of her last penny. But even with all that, she loved him
desperately. She saw him in her dreams, she screamed his name when the moon came out, and every half-hour she'd masturbate wildly in front of his portrait until she died. (With self-confidence she sits down next to the bag, blowing bubbles with her chewing gum.) Marcolina, accomplice "putana" in the comedy that they made out of the sacred ritual, didn't get money or marriage for her service. Cheated just like Durfe, without giving it a second thought, she published a scandalous lampoon where she told all, and it certainly seems to be all true. And not only the little affair about eternal life what's worse, she publicly denied that Casanova was endowed with (She gestures.) ... equestrian qualities. In addition, she said his amatory instruments were of astonishing Lilliputian smallness. (She gestures.) So, all Europe found out about the much anticipated disgrace: Casanova was an old fart. (She pops a bubble.) That beautiful fame that was known far and wide nothing. Just stories. No more furious orgasms, no more coming semen and blood . . . His famous dead prick put half of Europe in mourning.(She gets up.) The deflated lover now needed what he had promised to Durfe. He needed . . . eternal life. A perpetual erection. (With smooth sarcasm.) In his search, he fled from Paris intimidated, a victim of the most degrading humiliation. On the run, he came to this Caribbean island called Puerto Rico. It's a port whose richness is a great mystery, for all they've stolen from her in the past five centuries. (She picks up her bag while she pops a bubble.) Casanova has come here in search of the super famous Count of Saint Germain, my boss. Philosopher, cabalist, alchemist, and magician who, using a philosophers' stone, found the elixir of eternal life, blending it into a fantastic potior: that people have named Mistyblue. They something very important about thi5 anyone who drinks one drop \\ i:: ::., :: :: .:. hundred years. But, if years you would want to Sto!' won't be able to. (Very ca'.:_··-... antidote for Misty blue. S ::c now my : __ : searching for an a::::.::::---:: -he's so .:.::.: :·:-:_ that he'll fin.: :: .:.:: : wants. The :.:.:: _, -: :.·
now he'll have to live five long centuries. He's not sure he can stand it. But he's just as young and handsome as when he drank it for the first time 214 years ago. He gave me two drops to take, and I'm really unbearable. (The cloaked figure goes by again.) There's the gigolo again.
CASANOVA (dressed in his attire from the 18th century. His exquisite speech fluctuates between the affectation of feminine finesse and the most ordinary and popular street talk. His gestures and movements are in the fashion of his century. He grabs her from behind, she screams with surprise.) I've finally found the fountain of youth just by touching your curves.
MADONNA: All right, don Giacomo, you've chased me all night without paying attention to my rejections.
CASANOVA: Useless language of the deaf which a blind man may not understand.
MADONNA: I'm a material girl.
CASANOVA: Pursuing you will be a consolation.
MADONNA: Let me go by.
CASANOVA: Pass I shall be your path wherever you go.
MADONNA: You're acting just like Don Juan.
CASANOVA: That cretin, violator of nuns.
MADONNA: Bah, you're two of a kind.
CASANOVA: I seduce, Don Juan fornicates.
MADONNA: Nuns, how gross!
CASANOVA: It's the same to me.
MADONNA: Pervert.
CASANOVA: I want to pursue you to youknow-where.
.'vtADONNA: What do I get out of it?
CASANOVA: A thousand orgasms in a row.
MADONNA: Ha!
CASANOVA (he imitates a mocking tone): Ha! It's not enough for you?
MADONNA: No ...
CASANOVA: I shall give you what you ask of me. (.'vtADONNA stops.) I have everything.
MADONNA: I'm still a VJrgm. Perfectly sewn up. (She pops a bubble.)
CASANOVA: I've got the best scissors from Venice.
MADONNA: You're as phoney as our fake democracy.
CASANOVA: The one who needs it the most always denies it.
MADONNA (bothered): But you can't give it to me! Marcolina has started to drag your love through the dirt.
CASANOVA: Vile whore! I'm the one who has taught her everything she knows about pleasure.
MADONNA (she takes a wrinkled pamphlet out of her bag of groceries: It says here she learned it from a guy named Sade.
CASANOVA: That despicable lampoon has arrived here?
MADONNA: They're selling like hot cakes in the plaza. It's a best seller.
CASANOVA: And what about Sade! That dirty old man couldn't satisfy a sheep.
MADONNA: It's just that must be insatiable.
CASANOVA: She's a big slut!
MADONNA: Tell her that to enjoy herself she doesn't need a donkey and two boa constrictors. Besides, she's said some terrible things about your foreplay.
CASANOVA: All Paris has changed me into a symbol of decadence.
MADONNA: And tomorrow all San Juan will be pointing at you on the street.
CASANOVA: All my fame, wasted effort like trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
MADONNA: On this little island the smallest little slip-up is a scandal.
CASANOVA: And I, who thought that nobody here would recognize me. Oh! It's the cursed revolution. I was telling Voltaire, the masses deserve the trash which makes them happy.
MADONNA: They also say that you were running away to escape the guillotine.
CASANOVA: I would have preferred that to this contemptible shame.
MADONNA: But you wrote some pretty shameless things too.
CASANOVA: With happy endings, damn it! This is an insult ... (He rips the pamphlet into shreds and then throws it at the audience.) Take that, trash, odious masses, blacks and creoles, amuse yourselves with your lampoon . . . (He kneels dovm, disheartened.) So much shame all at once!
MADONNA: But don't lose your touch of class, Don Giacommo. You may be a failure, but at least you've got style.
CASANOVA: I'm tired, I'm sick. It's syphilis of the soul, gonorrhea of the spirit
MADONNA: AIDS of the aristocracy. (Softly.) Ha.
CASANOVA: There's no cure.
\1ADONNA: What have you got?
CASANOVA: It's something very intimate, jear.
I won't tell anyone.
CASANOVA: It's it's my head. The one up here wants to, but the one down below can't.
MADONNA: You don't say!
CASANOVA: Although it tries.
MADONNA: Marcolina was right after all.
CASANOVA: It was my worst moment. The more I tried, nothing. Everything I had achieved, all my nights of folly, all my conquests, just stories. Just bedroom gossip to get the masses hot and bothered. Just illusions of wanting to be and not being.
MADONNA: But illusion entertains, you know.
CASANOVA: Not for me. I need to see your master as soon as possible.
MADONNA: The Count of Saint Germain is not receiving visitors.
CASANOVA: I'm not a visitor!
MADONNA: He's very busy in his laboratory.
CASANOVA: I've traveled all the way from Europe.
MADONNA: He's sick.
CASANOVA: Not more than I.
MADONNA: He hasn't eaten in months.
CASANOVA: I'll protect myself.
MADONNA: And it's been more than a year since he's made love to me.
CASANOVA: You poor thing! How you must have suffered. (He approaches and caresses her.) But how is something like that possible?
MADONNA: Well, it is. I think I'm going to die without his love.
CASANOVA: There's a cure for that. Don't worry. (He caresses her cheek.)
I've read your Memoirs. That's enough for me, you know?
CASANOVA: Oh You're going to crush me with so much tenderness!
\fADONNA: And I'm getting so much enjoyment from all your lies
CASANOVA (incredulous): Lies?
MADONNA: You're not going to tell me that you did everything it says in there?
CASANOVA: I write everything I do, and I am all that I write.
MADONNA: Even though it may be a lie
CASANOVA (he clears his throat): My dear, listen to me very carefully. If a story entertains, what does it matter if it's made up?
MADONNA (a childish laugh): You're a perfect reactionary.
CASANOVA: Revolution obliges one's heart to choose sides. Come, lead me to your master.
MADONNA: But first, kiss me. (CASANOVA does it with great tenderness, then, when he's going to grab MADONNA's buns, she escapes from his grasp and agilely runs away. Upon exiting.) Follow me, Casanova!
CASANOVA: This Puerto Rico seems like one of the great beginnings, but I feel a bad ending coming on. Well, let's go. (He grabs his wrap and exits behind MADONNA. A transition of semi-darkness.)
SCENE TWO
(Mozart in agony. The COUNT OF SAINT GERMAIN, poorly illuminated, is sitting next to his potions in a Hamletian pose, staring at a skull. In front of him there is a table with the flasks. The COUNT is a very young man around 30 to 35 years old. He's dressed completely in black. He's thin, svelte, and even handsome. Personified in him, is the most polished exaltation of a very high
initiate of a majestic sorcerer of the 18th century.)
COUNT: What perfection is that of death! How magnificent the silence behind its noble cut. (He looks where they say God is.) The fact is that life is your great betrayal and you don't give me the right to question it. Now I'm the fool responsible for my own eternity. Just one drop of something, anything, that will deprive me of existing.
MADONNA (she enters slowly and casually sits down): Anything new today, master?
COUNT: I want to die.
MADONNA (after a respectful silence, broken only by her fervent chewing): They're dancing outside.
COUNT: I already heard them.
MADONNA: It's a princess' birthday.
COUNT: Those damned Puerto Ricans. They celebrate everything, even their humiliations.
MADONNA: Do you want to eat?
COUNT: No.
MADONNA: Do you want to do the wild thing?
COUNT: No.
MADONNA: I hate myself when I can't help you.
COUNT: God damn this life I can't get rid of!
MADONNA: Don't swear.
COUNT: I'll swear, damn it. How is it possible that the best alchemist on this planet, the fucking envy of Cagliostro and Nostradamus ? How can it be that I can't find an antidote, a pernicious venom which will burn my soul?
MADONNA: Wy do you keep trying? You know that after drinking Mistyblue you can't
go back. There's no antidote. Only waiting for centuries to pass and then, only then
COUNT: There has to be an antidote. I can't wait 500 years to die. I'm the greatest magician who's ever existed! And if I found the formula to be eternal, I have to also find the way to kill eternity. (A melodramatic dizzy spell.) Quit beating, oh heart!
MADONNA (looking at the potions): But did you manage to make anything new?
COUNT: Well ... I don't know. I managed to put together some serums, some secretions but I don't know. (He grasps a flask.)
MADOI\iNA: It looks like water. What is it?
COUNT: I haven't even tried it yet. But I've been working on it long enough to think that just one drop of this liquid will make the life spirits of the one who drinks it leave his body.
MADONNA: Well, what are you waiting for?
COUNT: I'm not sure that this is what will happen.
MADONNA: Try it out on me.
CO,UNT (he pulls it back): No! Not you. I respect your sacred stupidity.
MADONNA: But Count, you test the antidote on someone who's taken the poison. I'm the one who should test it.
COUNT (taking her by the cheeks): But don't you understand, dear? I'm looking for an antidote to kill the soul. (Intense.) The soul! (A pause.) The death of the soul, and the body, be it eternal or not, will also fall into the bargain. That's what the Holy Scripture of the Great Book says. Any person can be used for that.
MADONNA: I would do anything for you.
COUNT (moved): Tenderness doesn't have any place in this century, it will never have
one from now on. It's the most beautiful of the utopias.
MADONNA: I say just like you: "I have faith in God and in my country." Do I sound important?
COUNT: You're progressing.
MADONNA (a pause): Someone's come to see you.
COUNT: You know I'm not receiving visitors.
MADONNA: He's & very special one.
COUNT: I don't care, send him away. Who is he? What does he want?
MADONNA (she whispers): They say he knows about "the acacia."
COUNT: Oh, an equal, a brother, a European.
MADONNA: He's dying to see you.
COUNT: Is he famous?
MADONNA: More than anyone of his era.
COUNT: Give him a bath and something to eat.
MADONNA: Right away, master. (She leaves quickly.)
COUNT (to himself): Giacomo Casanova! (He looks at the flask of poison.) Hmmm ...
(A SLOW BLACKOUT.)
SCENE THREE
(The COUNT mumbles in front of a large book illuminated by one candle. MADONNA enters, followed by CASANOVA.)
MADONNA: Bathed and freshened up, sir, here's Don
COUNT: Giacomo Casanova What a pleasure to see you!
CASANOVA (he kneels down and kisses the COUNT's hand): This is such a great pleasure that my eyes are welling up with tears of joy.
COUNT: Please rise, brother. The acacia is known to both of us.
CASANOVA: Yes in Lyon. 1750.
COUNT: And for me in Persia in it doesn't matter. Be it known to you that I've known about our illustrious mysteries for a great while. May this new meeting serve to solidify our brotherhood. Casanova, my house is your house. (Simultaneous.)
CASANOVA: Your kindness compels me to reciprocate.
COUNT: Don't feel ...
CASANOVA: It's a great honor ...
COUNT: obligated.
CASANOVA: which I don't deserve.
COUNT: In no way ...
CASANOVA: Please (A casual interruption.)
MADONNA: Do you guys want a Coke? (Silence.)
COUNT: Casanova?
CASANOVA: With lime, please. (MADONNA exits.)
COUNT: Sit down, beloved brother. How long has it been since we haven't seen each other?
CASANOVA: Since you cured me of that terrible gonorrhea I caught from the Italian ambassador's wife.
COUNT: And always such a skeptic. You didn't want to try my magic powders.
CASANOVA: I'm allergic to unknown powders.
COUNT: Nor did you believe me when I transmuted that copper coin into gold.
CASANOVA: It's just that ...
COUNT: I did it right under your nose.
CASANOVA: It's just that I had also already tried and ...
COUNT: You had failed, naturally. You're a man without faith and without a country.
CASANOVA: But I'm still holding on to that coin. It's gold.
COUNT: I know.
CASANOVA: But I haven't come to
COUNT: To excuse yourself for that libelous chapter in your Memoirs in which you call me a "singular and shameless fraud"?
CASANOVA (excusing himself): In another pamphlet I said you were an extraordinary man.
COUNT: What other choice did you have? The whole court, from Louis XVI to Madame Pompadour, classified me as incredible, prodigious, extraordinary, unusual, nearly improbable ... Can you imagine the ridicule if you had insisted in that gratuitous insult? You're as stingy as they come with your compliments.
CASANOVA: But it's just that
COUNT: Giacomo, if you say everything you think, you'll end up not thinking about what you're saying.
CASANOVA: I never wanted .
COUNT: It's too late, too late to mend your impulsiveness.
CASANOVA: Enough, Count. We understand each other too well and we know enough about each other.
COUNT: To what do I owe the honor of your visit? As far as we know,
this is the first time you've travelled to America.
CASANOVA: And I've certainly found that this continent is rather detestable.
COUNT: Perhaps forgotten by God, but with great charm.
CASANOVA: God Does God exist?
COUNT: I suppose someone has to pay for all the sins.
CASANOVA: There are too many forgotten places. That's enough to prove to me that God does not exist. And this island from hell is one of those places.
COUNT: These are times of plague. On this island the people have had to get used to it. That's why I'm hiding here.
CASANOVA: Since I arrived here I only sense idleness.
COUNT: It's hunger. (He pauses.) They say that we Europeans inspire hope wherever we go. This island is a good laboratory for testing this theory, don't you think so? It's curious to see that while Europe is breaking out in wars and revolutions, on this island they suck on sugar cane as if
CASANOVA: As if they were sucking the big one that never went dry.
COUNT: Oh, Giacomo, you don't know how deep my disenchantment goes. Everything in America acquires a crushing everyday routine. If all America is just like this island, the new conquest will be too easy.
CASANOVA: So you still have the desire to keep on conquering.
COUNT: I do it for God.
CASANOVA: I believe you ... Come on, why don't you return to Europe?
COUNT: When one has the things which I possess, fleeing is not an act of cowardice but rather a prudent precaution. (MADONNA enters with the cola.) Oh, the best of
America. And what did you bring to these remote lands? I doubt very much that the American damsels are hiding different secrets.
CASANOVA: I have come to see you because I am ... (He clears his throat.) sick. (MADONNA gathers the glasses and leaves again.)
COUNT: It's not your fault. France is infectious.
CASANOVA: I need to live, Count.
COUNT (immediately saddened): To live.
CASANOVA: To be again what I was before. To feel each beat of my blood like a stroke of new energy. Making the plethora of my ... of my two heads burst!
COUNT (he laughs a little bit): My friend, is that the only reason you want to live?
CASANOVA: Don't you think that a word like "life" is a word that is self defining?
COUNT: How many women have you enjoyed?
CASANOVA: Those who studied my work say some two hundred.
COUNT: Don't you get tired of that?
CASANOVA: Well, no.
COUNT: And that famous day when you ejaculated blood instead of semen weren't you disgusted? Didn't you feel sickened?
CASANOVA: No.
COUNT (aggressive): What's your opinion about repulsiveness, Casanova?
CASANOVA: Well, I believe ... I believe it is.
COUNT: You don't believe in anything but yourself!
CASANOVA: My life is so glorious that I would die if I lost it.
COUNT: My God!
CASANOVA: I'm almost seventy years old, and they've only offered me a miserable position as a librarian in the Castle Dux. Do you think I can stand that? I'd spend all day masturbating over the Kamasutra. My life is the first great bedroom epic Shall I finish it with a cut like a castration? Don't you think it's castrating?
COUNT: I imagine so.
CASANOVA: I would die just thinking that I have to die.
COUNT: Passion is so foolish.
CASANOVA: Since I found out you were more than two hundred years old ... I've done nothing else but turn green with envy.
COUNT: Two hundred fourteen.
CASANOVA: By that age I would have seduced . . . almost five hundred Women Ha! Just imagine, Count, I'd be the only one with a prick that was both invincible and bicentennial.
COUNT (he has a good laugh): Giacomo, you're a sick person.
CASANOVA: Yes A penis like a great lighthouse which serves as guide for all the rest of the pricks in the world. Casanova, the phallus of steel Oh! (A pause.)
COUNT: Brother Freemason, how close you and I are in our desires.
CASANOVA: With that eloquent panegyric to my raison d'etre, don't you know why I have come here?
COUNT: Casanova, my laboratory is not a beauty salon for doddering seducers, nor in the least do I consider myself a levitator of flaccid phalluses. Let's get that straight.
CASANOVA: Just one drop, a miserable drop of incorruptible Mistyblue. (The
COUNT shakes his head.) Don't deny me. For a hundred years of life: I'm capable of giving you my soul in exchange.
COUNT: I don't want your filthy soul.
CASANOVA: My entire being.
COUNT: I greatly respect my discoveries Besides, of what use would your soul be to me?
CASANOVA: I will do what you ask.
COUNT: I have servants.
CASANOVA (searching for his elusive face): I will get you gold the best.
COUNT: The Indians and Blacks do that.
CASANOVA: I will search for your alchemical powders.
COUNT: I have more than I need.
CASANOVA: Pornographic stories . , .
COUNT: They make me sick.
CASANOVA: Political secrets.
COUNT: I know them all.
CASANOVA: Power.
COUNT: I have too much now.
CASANOVA: Sincere friendship
COUNT: Madonna's enough for me.
CASANOVA: Well, ask for something, damn it!
COUNT (brief flute music. Staring at him): What I want, you can't give to me.
CASANOVA: I'm capable of anything, I'm a moral.
COUNT: Take my advice, don't stick your neck out.
CASANOVA: Just one drop then just the fumes.
COUNT: You're asking me for something of the greatest worth for nothing in exchange!
CASANOVA: Whatever you want!
COUNT: There are those who would give their entire kingdoms just to prove that Mistyblue exists.
CASANOVA: I know it exists.
COUNT: But do you know what Mistyblue is? Do you know what it does?
CASANOVA: Old age is stopped. The security of never dying, because they say that after drinking it there's no going back. What pleasure!
COUNT: Who told you that?
CASANOVA: The masses.
COUNT: You don't know what you're up against.
CASANOVA: That doesn't bother me.
COUNT: Don't keep insisting. I can't. Good night.
CASANOVA: But listen
COUNT: Go away!
CASANOVA: But Count .
COUNT: Enough! You're behaving like a little child.
CASANOVA: Such a long voyage for nothing! You're treating me with all the respect of an idiot. Sweet revenge after all.
COUNT: You can stay until tomorrow if you wish. (He begins to exit.)
CASANOVA: You must feel fulfilled! (The COUNT stops.) But I want you to know ... I didn't have anything to do with Madame Durfe's madness. (The COUNT turns around.) I didn't love her.
COUNT: I did.
CASANOVA: And then why didn't you rejuvenate her? Why did she ask me and not you? Why didn't you do it? Why didn't you help her?
COUNT: Because I could do it.
CASANOVA: What a contradiction.
COUNT: You've got a closed mind!
CASANOVA: I understand that you've been as much a social climber as I have. I used Durfe to get a little bit of money. And you reproach me. But how much did you take poor dear little Pompadour for?
COUNT: Poor dear? She financed all the theatre and alchemy of our century with those who came and went through her Don't make me talk, Casanova!
CASANOVA: Now you're justifying yourself, you favorite of the high noble consort
COUNT: I predicted the guillotine for them. Because they didn't pay attention to me, their heads were cut off.
CASANOVA: You have no basis on which to accuse me of Durfe's death.
COUNT: You did it!
CASANOVA: Well, if love kills
COUNT: Yes. And it makes one kill.
CASANOVA: Why didn't you give her a drop of Mistyblue?
COUNT: Because Mistyblue would have prolonged my jealousy for a hundred more years.
CASANOVA: You fled from my challenge to a duel.
COUNT: A duel with you. Didn't Voltaire tell you that I am the man who never dies?
CASANOVA: I wanted to see you dead. I would have run you completely through from one side to the other.
COUNT: Mmmmm. That would have been stupendous.
CASANOVA: I hate it when you speak in that sarcastic tone.
COUNT: I reinvented cynicism.
CASANOVA: You're condemning me to the most vulgar of all deaths.
COUNT: Be happy, you're the most vulgar man I've known.
CASANOVA: The most vulgar death of all old age.
COUNT (a pause): Tell me, Giacomo, what have you brought in your luggage?
CASANOVA: What?
COUNT: Do you have something which might interest me? Something strange and different?
CASANOVA: What can attract the attention of a man who knows everything?
COUNT: Do you want me to tell you?
CASANOVA: I'm dying to know.
COUNT (he pauses): Foolishness interests me.
CASANOVA: Oh ... Well, from Constantinople I've brought some fabrics, ably made with scoria of iron pyrites and quintessence. They even excite the dead.
COUNT: I want to see them.
CASANOVA: That's all you ask?
COUNT: For the time being.
CASANOVA (he claps his hand and MADONNA enters with a small flower patterned suitcase): It would really interest you in exchange for ?
COUNT (he casually sits down): Oh, Giacomo the worst thing about living among humans is not having anything human to miss.
CASANOVA (taking out the fabrics): With all the Persian magic, upon use of this fabric, the body becomes stiff and shakes in such a way as to bring forth the most sonorous spasms and the most atrocious shrieks. Madonna! (MADONNA goes toward him, chewing gum.) Now you'll see. (He begins to wrap her up in a blue turquoise fabric.)
COUNT: If your sickness is sexual, why don't you make use of your own magic?
CASANOVA: Do you think I would sell them if they worked for me?
COUNT: Oh ...
CASANOVA: Look, if we cover this beautiful damsel with it, in a few seconds we will have a libidinous and dissolute wild animal. When the fabric covers the female object of desire the pleasure excites, you'll see. (A pause.) Here comes the pleasure ... it's coming ... it will be immense, scandalous (MADONNA blows a bubble). Maybe the subject isn't the appropriate one. Let's see (Impatient.) Come on (MADONNA lets out a tenuous sigh.) Ah ha it's coming right along (A small sexual sigh.) And now come on (Another promising sigh.) And ... and .. . it's getting closer! (The final sigh is weak and short.) It's because of the color, you know? If we used the red one, you could hear the moans all the way to the Vatican. (MADONNA explodes a bubble.)
COUNT (he gets up): Don't bother, Casanova. Anyway your foolishness turns out to be charming. It's the first time I've seen a woman get excited when she gets dressed!
CASANOVA: I'm sorry to have disappointed you.
COUNT: You aren't losing your touch as a swindler. But now, my friend. we're in America where you ha\·e to take everything seriously if you want to suni\e.
CASANOVA: Well, I'm sorry. (He picks up his fabrics.) Nothing has been handed to me on a silver platter.
COUNT: Yes, you have to take things seriously; love, sex, a pair of women's legs which are well shaved and smooth, open on a bed like a great door, behind which is offered a turbulent spring. But afterwards ... (A pause.) afterwards it's a trap, which compels and condemns. The seducer is left deceived. No. It doesn't seem noble to me, it seems treacherous.
CASANOVA: And what is it that you want?
COUNT: I want a reason to live.
CASANOVA: You're tempting me to a profane speech.
COUNT: I can be 214 times more profane than you
CASANOVA: Living is to live is like (He searches for words.) Living is like a . . . a . . . to live . . . Ha! Living Hmmm
COUNT: You're as boring as an intelligent child. I'm asking you to give me a reason to live ... Me.
CASANOVA: Oh You! Well, you should live for ... you should live for .
COUNT: For what?
CASANOVA: To screw! (MADONNA lets out a small scream of pleasure.) And be screwed!
COUNT: You defame life.
CASANOVA: I live what I think to the fullest.
COUNT: Yes, and I see the shallowness of your principles. How do you dare ask for perpetuity living like that?
CASANOVA: It's an alternative.
COUNT (bothered): Giacomo, life is not just for screwing around.
CASANOVA: I know. That's why I'm living. Only time betrays.
COUNT: And for you, flesh.
CASANOVA: True. It's the greatest irony of rationalism. Recognizing the infinite possibilities of human progress ...
COUNT; And?
CASANOVA: And to have everything screwed up because of the impotence of a prick.
COUNT: You defame, you defame to the level of madness.
CASANOVA: I defame my disability.
COUNT: Now it all depends on me.
CASANOVA: Enough, Count. I didn't cross the Atlantic to see how you control me .
COUNT: I have power over you, Casanova. I'm the little dictatorship of your hope.
CASANOVA (a long silence): And now what?
COUNT (he approaches a "window'); You and I have nothing to do with misery nor with hunger. We were born to control.
CASANOVA: One controls in order to eat.
COUNT: Do you see what I do? A small island without equal in the world, which works feverishly to mutilate itself.
CASANOVA: Everything on this island is certainly pathetic. But where is all this leading? What does this island have to do with us?
COUNT: God has brought us here. We have come to teach them. They cannot learn from themselves now. (He laughs very sadly.) I heard them sing twice.
CASANOVA: Spain does not take care of her colonies.
CASANOVA (he approaches the window with effeminate curiosity): They're playing!
COUNT: They're playing. Their motto is to die having a good time.
CASANOVA: Me too ... but I'm white.
COUNT: Now they're laughing ... Do you hear them? (The party is heard.)
CASANOVA: It's contagious. I also want to laugh.
COUNT: At their expense? But don't you see that they are masks? Masks who look for the first uncovered face to follow it without thinking? (A pause.) Do you want to be the Pied Piper who guides these rats?
CASANOVA: You're ruining my soiree.
COUNT: They will die from sheer cowardice. (A pause.) You know? Time passes us by in such a way that the new values don't manage to substitute for the original ones. And the original ones remain inevitably as the true ones.
CASANOVA (lively): But that's better than not having any.
COUNT: It might be.
CASANOVA: One has to have a clear conscience, like a baby's bum.
COUNT: And after all, today you're asking me for what I denied Madame Durfe.
CASANOVA: I have the right because I have talent.
COUNT (a magical change in the lighting): Casanova!
CASANOVA: What did I do now?
COUNT: I will give you a drop of Mistyblue. (A flash of lightning with rock music. enters.)
CASANOVA: I don't believe you.
COUNT: I will do it. I will do it without any conditions.
CASANOVA: Should I trust you?
COUNT: My word as a Freemason and gentleman.
CASANOVA: Will you really do it?
COUNT: What do I have to lose?
CASANOVA: You don't gain anything either.
COUNT: One doesn't always win. But I'll gain something from you.
CASANOVA: I'm so happy I could fly.
COUNT: Fly fly as much as you want. I'll wake you up in the early morning. Meanwhile, Madonna and I will prepare the ceremony. (MADONNA and the COUNT exit.)
CASANOVA: At last ... Mistyblue .. . Mistyblue from hell ... or from heaven .. . Hal (He cries with joy.)
(A SLOW BLACKOUT.)
SCENE FOUR
(A frightful Bach in a heavy gloomy rock music beat. A brief light over MADONNA who undresses with grace and even style. She recites something seriously and with hyper correctness.)
MADONNA: For the ceremony of eternal life, several things are needed. (A light falls on the COUNT who is invoking the spirits.)
COUNT: I ask the other world to permit me to summon the adorable and gentle spirit of Madame Durfe.
MADONNA (a light on her which stays on in her part of the ritual): First, a naked virgin. Since there aren't any on this island, I'll play the part. No one will know the difference.
COUNT: Madame, today I summon vengeance for you.
MADONNA: After undressing slowly by moonlight (The light of the moon comes on.) Thank you (A pause.) The air will fill with fertile incense . . . (She has undresed completely and spreads the smoke with a censer.) The smoke penetrates the most tempting parts of the body, preparing them for the grand finale. The aspirant to eternal life must kiss each one of those parts of the virgin so that the spirit of Paralis passes to the old tissues and stretches them with sovereign magic. Above all for the good kisses. (The light on her fades.)
COUNT (holding the elixir high up): Here is the antidote which I have prepared to challenge the powerful eternity of Mistyblue. (A pause.) But I fear, my beloved Countess, that this may not even be the correct formula, nor might it result in the desired effect. One error could leave me maimed, crippled, blind, ugly ... because of that, I bring before you, Oh Durfe the man who deceived your body and your hope. And if I were to succeed in summong death with the liquid, you will also be avenged. My antidote, if it's the correct one ... (Furious, worked up like a warrior.) my sentence to 500 years of shame, disgrace, humiliation, and dishonor will be over! (His ferocious scream brings all the lights on him. Numerous cannons in battle and a powerful flash which is followed by silence.)
CASANOVA (mellifluous): I can't see. Someone light something, please. (Gentle rock music which continues at low volume.)
COUNT'S VOICE: Casanova!
CASANOVA: Here. (A light on him.) There, that's better.
COUNT'S VOICE: The rite in front of the raging chalice is unstoppable.
CASANOVA: You bet.
MADONNA'S VOICE: Get undressed!
CASANOVA: I love that order! (CASANOVA obeys childishly and playful-
ly, beginning to take everything off. When he's going to take off his shirt )
MADONNA'S VOICE: That's fine right there. (CASANOVA pouts.)
COUNT'S VOICE (the lights begin to come up. He's standing in front of the bed, wearing a golden mask.) Such an action, preserving life above God, is the highest and most beautiful heresy
CASANOVA: Can I sit down? (MADONNA appears in back of him and lovingly sits him down.)
COUNT: Philosphers' stone, mother and master of all stones ... God's elixir! Give your life's power to this human.
CASANOVA: Enough, please. I hate rituals.
COUNT: A virgin!
MADONNA (pastoral): Like the spring dew on the flowers in the fields, I offer myself pure and clean as an untouchable and immaculate virgin for this sacred sacrifice
CASANOVA: Ha! ... Ha! ...
COUNT: I present here, Oh, Paralis, the purity of body and spirit ... (MADONNA stands up on the bed. CASANOVA watches her straighten up with great fascination. The COUNT spreads the aromas and the essences around the bed where the lovers are.) The veils of Isis and Osiris, the nubile secrets of Tristan and Isolde, the fervor of Romeo and Juliet, the intellectual moans of Beauvoir and Sartre, among so many other lovers transmuting love from flesh to flesh, from kiss to kiss. Cover, oh curtain of mystery, the secret fire of the Grand Work! Stop, oh sulphur, old age which kills the passion of this great scoundrel! (The curtain conceals very little of the lovers. The COUNT recites romantically, having as a background the tenuous little sighs of MADONNA which accompany those of CASANOVA which are heavy and tired sounding.) The man becomes feverish with gallantry, and the virgin with her niveous thighs opens the petals of her intimate fragrances. (MADONNA opens her legs like a fan. The moans become more ex-
pressive.) Mercury, Nitre, Kermes, Cinnabar ! Philosophical metals which in the melting pot of the virgin vagina, get pulverized with the steel mortar which the great Moon makes feral Moon! (Anguished.) Moon! (Sublime music. A violent change of light on the COUNT and the curtains, like a great kaleidoscope which goes mad.) Moon of sun, cast by the black dragon of the scorias, royal water of antimony potions, uranium, you take what you don't give Come! The divine moment has arrived
CASANOVA (prosaic, sticking his head out from between the curtains): If you don't get on with it, the divine moment is going to come and go and will not return. (He hides.)
COUNT: Paralis, fulfill the wish of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, Gentleman of Seingalt, son of the actress whore Zaneta, atheist, hierophant, troublemaker, vagrant, fornicator, and to top it off playwright! (A powerful flash rings out.) Give him eternal life! (All at once CASANOVA takes his head out from between the curtains, now lying face down on the bed.)
MADONNA (between the moans of pleasure): Give him eternal life!
CASANOVA (nervous): Now eternal life, come on!
COUNT: Just one drop will be enough to it will be enough to know! (The COUNT takes a dropper full from the flask which he is carrying in his hands. CASANOVA opens his mouth as wide as he can.)
CASANOVA: Let me have the divine Mistyblue (The COUNT lets a drop fall on CASANOVA's tongue.)
COUNT: Swallow!
CASANOVA: I'm swallowing!
MADONNA (she lets out a frightening cry ·which violently interrupts her moans of pleasure. And with one blast of rock music all the lights go off The rock music changes into an agonizing saxophone.)
COUNT'S VOICE (in the darkness): Madonna? (Silence. Afovement on the bed, MADONNA is escaping from some hands which are searching for her.)
MADONNA'S VOICE: Let me go!
COUNT'S VOICE: What's going on?
MADONNA'S VOICE: No ... no ....
COUNT'S VOICE: But is he alive? (A light which comes on tenuously.) But is he alive?
CASANOVA (on his back): I'm all wet!
COUNT (frightened): You're alive!
CASANOVA: Lights! I want the lights on!
COUNT: Damn it all.
MADONNA: He wants some light
COUNT: No ...
CASANOVA: Damn it, someone get a light on! (A brilliant light illuminates him from the back.) What have you done to me, Count? What is this, a curse? (At the point of maximum terror.) What's going on?
COUNT (taking off his golden mask): There's no doubt that I'll have to start over again.
CASANOVA (screaming): Count of Saint Germain, may your eternal soul be damned, damn you all to hell! (The light to the rear goes out. A diffuse light on the COUNT.)
COUNT: At least, Madame Durfe, you are avenged. (An outrageous saxophone which ends the scene.)
(A RAPID BLACKOUT.)
END OF ACT I
ACT II
SCENE ONE
(With a blast of rock music, the accusing light is turned on. Bach invades intensely. MADONNA dresses in a hurry in her black leather outfit. CASANOVA is on the bed, inflamed with rage, and is touching his face.)
CASANOVA: What did you do to me? What evil spell is this? Count! (He gets up to look for him like a crazy person. Now we see his face. It's a mass of deep dry wrinkles. His skin is peeling like a dead rotting animal's. The powerful light dies down.) Where did that devil go?
MADONNA (terrified): I don't know.
CASANOVA: Son of a goddamned whore! Come here right now! (To MADONNA who looks at him in fear.) What are you staring at?
MADONNA (she crosses herself and runs away): Holy mother of God!
CASANOVA: Count! (The COUNT appears, cynical.)
COUNT: It was just a slight error. An accident
CASANOVA: Bastard, scoundrel, evil commoner (He grabs him by the neck.)
COUNT: No, Giacomo, please!
CASANOVA: Murderer!
COUNT: Nothing can be done!
CASANOVA: I ought to rip your tonsils out with my teeth, queer I'm going to kill you! (He squeezes harder. The COUNT cannot speak now and right away plays "dead" on his feet.) I killed him! (A pause.) Did I kill him? But didn't they say you were eternal? (The COUNT inhales deeply and is okay again.)
COUNT: I am eternal, I've already told you. You can't kill me, for the time being I'm immortal. 41
CASANOVA: Shit ... shit ... Shit! (He reaches under his garb and brings out a sharp foil. He rushes him.) Scoundrel!
COUNT (begging): No please. If you cut off an arm or a leg, or even my head, when the part falls to the ground it will bounce back and return to its place.
CASANOVA: That's a lie! That's impossible ... (He raises the sword.)
COUNT: That would be the least of it. Just think about the stream of blood we would have to clean up, believe me.
CASANOVA: I hate blood How about a pistol?
COUNT: The bullet would go from one side to the other and the wound would close itself up just like new.
CASANOVA: And cyanide, bromide, a barrel of sulfuric acid?
COUNT: I would be urinating painfully for a week. I hate cystitis.
CASANOVA: But becaue of what you've done to me, I don't have any other alternative than to kill you!
COUNT: If you could kill me, Casanova, do you think I would stop you?
CASANOVA: What?
COUNT: It's difficult for me to confess my deepest desire to a stranger. (Heartfelt.) I want to die. I want to die so badly ... and I can't. Maybe it's true.
CASANOVA: What's that?
COUNT: They say that after taking Mistyblue, there's no turning back. But I have to keep trying. I have to find that antidote I can't wait five hundred years!
CASANOVA: And what do I have to do with that?
COUNT: That face of yours, so pathetic and foul smelling now ...
CASANOVA: And to top it all off I'm rotting away!
COUNT: It's my failed experiment, do you understand?
CASANOVA: An experiment? Do you mean to tell me I was your guinea pig?
COUNT: I'm afraid that's the way it was.
CASANOVA: You made me think I was drinking Mistyblue ...
COUNT: I didn't have anyone to experiment on.
CASANOVA: And if I had died you wouldn't have even had time to thank me for the small favor.
COUNT: Now excuse me, I have to keep working.
CASANOVA: What about me?
COUNT: Just think that I've given you back your gonorrhea. You don't owe me anything.
CASANOVA: But I'm like a walking corpse Am I going to die?
COUNT: Of course. What did you think? You're already beginning to stink .
CASANOVA: When?
COUNT: As far as my poor conception of time can figure out, you've got fifty minutes of life left. I mean, judging by the way you look like you're ready to die. It seems that this serum, instead of killing you, burned up all your future energy.
CASANOVA: Well, you should drink the whole flask!
COUNT: I'd have to improve the formula. I want to die on the spot, immediately, young and handsome, Casanova; and not spend the two centuries or so that I have left as an old fogy, doddering and senile, who pisses in his pants. We magicians have our vanity.
CASANOVA: So that's what it's all about, vanity.
COUNT: Time has taught me that the only thing worth worrying about is pain.
CASANOVA: Well, my pride hurts quite a bit, going out into the street like this. I look like Louis XVI's ass!
COUNT: Try to live the fifty minutes you have left with dignity and have respect for the dead king, don't be crude!
CASANOVA: Why me, Count?
COUNT: Someone has to pay for everyone's sins. Who better than you, seducer par excellence?
CASANOVA: I don't want to die.
COUNT: I need to.
CASANOVA: How can anyone want to die?
COUNT (illuminated): How can anyone want to live?
CASANOVA: No rhetorical games now, please.
COUNT: It's just that God only left us these two miserable options.
CASANOVA: Why don't you want to live?
COUNT: Life isn't important when things change too rapidly. When love is still not eternal, nor the true ideal. When what you believed today is heresy tomorrow, and the curse of any afternoon is a fervent prayer the next day.
CASANOVA: Liberate yourself. Don't bore us wih your damned melancholy.
COUNT: No, my friend no one can free himself from horror. (He pauses.) Why live, Giacomo, when there's nothing left to aspire to now?
CASANOVA: There's always a goodlooking woman waiting.
COUNT: Why live when we have to waste maturity paying for the errors of our youth?
CASANOVA: I'm familiar with that Enriette.
COUNT: Who?
CASANOVA: Enriette . a beautiful female soldier to whom I gave the only honest part of my love.
COUNT: And paying for those mistakes makes you forget the enjoyment, the subtleties are erased, the pretentious love ... and the poems become as rancid as fruit cut and left out in the sun.
CASANOVA: Cut fruit.
COUNT: The crime remains fixed in us, like a mortal sin.
CASANOVA: It's not a crime to be young.
COUNT: No ... but it's a crime to remain that way forever. One loses respect for pain.
CASANOVA: Are you saying that for my benefit?
COUNT: I'm saying it for all those who believe themselves to be free and who are not.
CASANOVA: You're saying it for me.
COUNT: In a world like this in which a man rips apart a mere child with his member. And then after his crime he beats the child's head against the wall without being affected in the least, as if it were a party.
CASANOVA: Shut up!
COUNT: A world which has left us only contempt, scorn and stupor.
CASANOVA: But something remains.
COUNT: Maybe horror is the only justifiable end. Perhaps, after all nothingness might make some sense.
CASANOVA (softly): How?
COUNT: Because of this (He kisses him with tenderness on his horrendous forehead. CASANOVA, moved, cries in silence.)
(A SLOW BLACKOUT.)
SCENE TWO
(CASANOVA, in front of a piano, very drunk, spits out his words slowly.)
CASANOVA (he drinks): Return to the potions, mix what you want. The poor guy is so pessimistic that from two evils he chooses both of them. Will I end up like him? It's fitting that it's happening to us for fleeing to this shitty country Why didn't I go to New York? (He drinks. MADONNA approaches.) You left me alone
MADONNA: And you left me wanting it, macho man. You got yours and you don't even say thanks. That's the way Europeans are, right?
CASANOVA: We learned from the North Americans.
MADONNA: You've deceived me.
CASANOVA: It hasn't been my fault.
MADONNA: Now there's nothing left of you.
CASANOVA: Literature ... and obsolete at that.
MADONNA: Not even the slightest mention of your name, what a shame.
CASANOVA: And since only the wretched literature remains, I've decided to give the miraculous and final touch to my Memoirs.
MADONNA: What's that?
CASANOVA: Put a match to all editions.
MADONNA: But that would be
CASANOVA: My works are the ::-.:s.e:-::: : remembrance of my era. They':-e :::.:-: anything.
And don't you suppose that's what literature is for?
CASANOVA: You're real close to saying something intelligent. I'll always be below Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Victor Hugo, Garcia Marquez that magnificent son of a whore, Voltaire. Why continue?
MADONNA: Your characters are living beings, burning, passionate.
CASANOVA: That's the problem.
MADONNA: What's that?
CASANOVA: That they're characters.
MADONNA: But didn't you say: "If the story entertains, what does it matter if it's made up?"
CASANOVA: But if that were true, dear (A pause.) it would be much more entertaining.
MADONNA: Oh.
CASANOVA: My Memoirs will guide us toward the future! If someone follows them, we're left without a future. (He cries.)
MADONNA: But don't cry.
CASANOVA: I'm not crying. I'm searching for alternatives.
MADONNA: Are there any? You're probably wasting time.
CASANOVA: My whole century was the search for the perfect erection Poor America has had to suffer the last erection, flaccid and bitter, from the great Enlightenment.
MADONNA: Your hands are shaking.
CASANOVA: The memories are wearing me out.
MADONNA: I think you've pissed your pants on top of that.
CASANOVA: Damned Durfe, I know you're laughing in the other world.
You reek of garlic.
CASANOVA (possessive): And then the brothers abandoned the temple. They broke down the pillars of tradition.
You're old and ugly.
CASANOVA: And now they're in the trenches! They're conspiring. America is pulsating. She's thrown off her vassalage all at once. And this Puerto Rico, colony of colonies, devil's dunghill of the Caribbean, it's the perfect target for new ideas. For young ideas for the ideas of war (He runs around the stage and climbs on the chair.) What can I give you? (A pause.) They aren't Blacks, nor Indians, nor Creoles, they are living faces which at the top of their lungs are launching the new call (Hundreds of voices which cry out are heard, like a million redeeming voices on the move. He says very quietly.) Let's go, it's time to begin to do things that work! It's time to conquer terror! I know I'm here, that they've called me for something that will be great! I want to be the Pied Piper! I don't have a flute or a mask but I want to be who I was before! (The noise increases.) Here I am! What can I give you? What can I give you? (The cry is cut short, like waking up from a dream.)
MADONNA: What can you give me?
CASANOVA: They left
MADONNA: What can you give me?
CASANOVA (coming back): Oh?
MADONNA: What can you give me?
CASANOVA: What do you want?
MADONNA: Sex. I want a lot of sex.
CASANOVA: Don't you think there are more important things?
MADONNA: But I want sex. With<:' < -.c;, all the openings of nature "J;:' And it takes work to ope:'. :- ·
CASANOVA: The openings of human nature ...
MADONNA: The soul is included.
CASANOVA (he smiles): Now you've said something really nice. It's not intelligent, but it's really nice.
MADONNA (now she encourages him, violently): I want sex!
CASANOVA: And go on with the moraL
MADONNA: All your sex.
CASANOVA: Ha!
MADONNA: From end to end.
CASANOVA: You don't say.
MADONNA: Through all the openings of the body. Even the ones in the souL
CASANOVA: I don't think I've ever gone that deep.
MADONNA: I want you to penetrate everything. Even my mind. Can you?
CASANOVA: I don't try any more. This is who I am. Besides I'm ugly, repulsive.
MADONNA: I want you to be handsome tonight.
CASANOVA: I've pissed on myself out of anguish.
MADONNA: I want to believe in you like you were God.
CASANOVA: I smell I'm tremblng all over. My teeth are falling out.
MADONNA: I want to be your whore. Your one and only whore.
CASANOVA: I don't have any money.
MADONNA: I want my whole body to sing.
CASANOVA (he operates anxiously, fu/1 of tribulation): I don't have anything to give
you Horrendous like this What else do I have left except to try?
MADONNA: Attempt it.
CASANOVA: Look for someone else.
MADONNA: It's not safe nowadays. You're clean.
CASANOVA (complaining): No no
MADONNA: Just one Okay? One little time Come on
CASANOVA: God!
MADONNA: Diavolo
CASANOVA: Yes yes. Diavolo, diavolo queste amore vai uchidime.
MADONNA: Come on ... come on ... I'll do anything for you.
CASANOVA: Okay! (A pause.) Fine. (MADONNA applauds and laughs joyfu//y.) But I won't do anything for nothing. (MADONNA gets quiet.) Ha!
MADONNA: What do you want?
CASANOVA: Can't you guess?
MADONNA: You're asking a lot.
CASANOVA: I've crossed the ocean to America, they've made me drink Satan's semen, you're asking me to make love to you, and on top of that you're telling me that I'm asking for a lot?
MADONNA: I don't know where it is
CASANOVA: You said you had taken two drops.
MADONNA: Yes, but ...
CASANOVA: But nothing. Either you bl'i::f me the Mistyblue or I'll cast an alchem:s:·; spell on you so you'll be celibate til the ::::: of time.
MADONNA: No!
CASANOVA: Oh you don't know me.
MADONNA: I'll masturbate until I die, like Durfe.
CASANOVA: You don't have enough class for such a glorious death.
MADONNA: I'll die enjoying it!
CASANOVA: Your life would be screwed up! Not anyone or anything can enter into the openings of your soul. (MADONNA pouts, she gets angry and is about to cry.)
MADONNA: I want sex.
CASANOVA: Impossible. (sulky): Sex
CASANOVA: If you could see yourself. Your whole face is the aesthetics of Romanticism.
MADONNA (infantile and capricious): want sex!
CASANOVA: Give me the Misty blue.
MADONNA: Will you give me sex?
CASANOVA: It depends.
MADONNA: Okay. (She looks all around.) But you'll have to treat me like a queen. The queen of Mistyblue.
CASANOVA: You'll have the honor and privilege of being Giacomo Casanova's last lover. Get undressed!
MADONNA: Will you treat me like a queen?
CASANOVA: Like a queen bee. Because I have to be the only drone who tries this at my age. Let's go! (MADONNA undresses and throws herself on the bed, smiling playfully and mischievously.)
MADONNA: Ready?
CASANOVA: One moment. Okay
MADONNA (disillusioned): You smell like piss.
CASANOVA: And you smell like fish, shut up!
MADONNA: I don't feel anything.
CASANOVA: It's coming up. Relax.
MADONNA: Is it really coming up?
CASANOVA: Yes.
MADONNA: For sure?
CASANOVA: You're screwing with my mind. Look at it rising up. (MADONNA applauds.)
MADONNA: Hey, aren't you going to recite a poem to me? Something to seduce me?
CASANOVA: I'm a man of my century, dear. Given the present position of your legs, all seduction is academic.
MADONNA: You're so baroque.
CASANOVA: That goes double for your mother, honey. (A pause.) Here I go!
MADONNA (pleasant): Oh!
CASANOVA: Oh!
MADONNA (sighs. A pause): Ooh! I felt something. Something that's growing.
CASANOVA: Be careful, I don't know how far it might go.
MADONNA: It's growing It's growing!
CASANOVA: Shh! You'll frighten it. Here it comes!
MADONNA: It's growing more and more and more (Her panting cuts off.) Now it's not growing any more.
CASANOVA: Wait. here it comes again.
MADONNA (she screams scandalously): Yes it's growing, it's growing, it's growing and it's there it's there
CASANOVA: Yes! Yes! . . . I still can! Someone play the national anthem, please.
MADONNA (tired and exhausted): You could, and how you could! This man is still a beast!
CASANOVA: Ha!
(A RAPID TOTAL BLACKOUT WITH FAST JAZZ.)
SCE:'IJE THREE
(The COUNT, alone, lights a candle which serves as a burner for a potion he's boiling. Heavy Bach.)
COUNT: Violence is redundant. Horror is a vice. Arrogance, the pleasure of fools. (He drops something in the potion, a lot of smoke.) A second attempt to abandon this whole miserable condition. (He looks upward.) Why do you give me so much power if the only thing I do is scorn it? Why didn't you make me miserable, without talent, without ambition? Why can't I love routine like a bricklayer or a gardener? Why do I have to keep going until the end and not even stop life by chance? (He puts the potion into a small flask.) Deceive me, tell me that life is indeed worth the pain even though it may be just to suffer through it. I have so many good arguments to convince you of the contrary. The only thing that saves you is that I'm a man of faith. Of a faith, like a precious object which one buys without knowing what it's for. Of a faith, in short in you, and in the fact that this time I'm not going to make another mistake. Amen. (The light goes out. A light goes on over CASANOVA and MADONNA embracing on the bed. They're smoking and tickling each other.)
CASANOVA: Do you feel like a queen?
MADONNA: Now I want to have something to reign over .
CASANOVA: You will reign over desire. I will take you to Sade's sanatorium, he will
give you the freedom that you need.
MADONNA: They say he's a handsome man.
CASANOVA: As much as Diderot, are you familiar with him?
MADONNA: Who's he?
CASANOVA: A man of the theatre.
MADONNA: I don't trust those people.
CASANOVA: Me either. Well, now do your part.
:viADONNA: If he finds out he'll kill me.
CASANOVA: You're immortal. Nothing bad can happen to you. Go on. (A slap on the buns and MADONNA exits.) I was born under a lucky star. That's what my mother used to say. With tricks or without them you will get everything that exists. What doesn't exist, you won't get. Such a profound thought! Ha! (He smokes. A saxophone playing a sensual blues tune. MADONNA enters.)
MADONNA: Here's the Mistyblue.
CASANOVA (ecstatic): So that's what it's like.
MADONNA: Sacred elixir. Elixir of eternal life.
CASANOVA: What a marvelous transparency!
MADONNA: The dew of the first day of spring ... the essence of all that exists in just one drop. With this your erection will last a century
CASANOVA: Magnificent!
MADONNA: Do you want it?
CASANOVA: I need it urgently.
MADONNA: Well, kneel down.
CASANOVA: Don't tell me that
do that damned rite with the virgin and the incense and all that buffoonery again.
MADONNA: That was just theatre. The Count gets together with a lot of those people and he picks up their bad habits. On your knees, I'm telling you. Now, open your mouth.
CASANOVA: My jaws are yours.
MADONNA: Just one drop and you'll live one hundred years. Open that ungrateful beak some more, beloved master. Like you were a bird eating for the first time. (Puffed up with pride.) Drop of Mistyblue which will fall fantastically on that smelly tongue, give him one hundred more years (She lets the drop fall. CASANOVA smiles. A blast of rock, thousands of colored lights cut through the stage. Sensationalist climax which once again ends in silence. CASANOVA is about to die asphyxiated when he inhales scandalously. Blues.)
CASANOVA (delightful): I can feel it in my bones.
MADONNA: You will live one hundred years. Do you want another drop?
CASANOVA: You seem like the devil when you tempt. Let me see how it goes with the first hundred years. Then I'll tell you if the second parts are as good as the first
MADONNA (she begins to exit): Then I'll put the rest back in its place.
CASANOVA: Wait. Leave it near me. I'll guard it. He won't miss it.
MADONNA: But
CASANOVA: I'm your master now, dear. (MADONNA obeys. They hide the flask under the bed.) And now mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the (Upon touching himself, he screams in fright.) God damn it! God damn it! God damn it all to hell!
MADONNA: What?
CASANOVA: I'm ugly. I'm still ugly.
MADONNA: Oh, there aren't any potions for that.
CASANOVA: Idiot! You've given me eternal life with this face! With this plague! Damn you, son of a bitch ... I'd like to kill you, scoundrel! Look at this face.
MADONNA: Oh, no, but you had to choose, master. Either you'd die handsome or you'd be eternally ugly. I don't have any potions to smooth wrinkles or to take away years. Eternal life begins at the age you take the drop of Mistyblue.
CASANOVA: But that's not fair.
MADONNA: That's your problem. Well, but what did you want? Retroactive youth?
CASANOVA: Stupid! Moron a hundred times over.
MADONNA: My master should know that magic stops somewhere. That there's always a point in history when nature's bad luck has to surprise us. That nothing is free, that luck can be made, that the only consolation left to the swindlers is the possibility of cheating someone else.
CASANOVA: That's enough. Now you've got an irritating intelligence.
MADONNA: Once the mystery is revealed, you have to be bored until a better one comes along, and so between one mystery and another, ec., etc.
CASANOVA: That's enough!
MADONNA: But I still don't know what you're complaining about.
CASANOVA: I'm complaining that there's never complete happiness, damn it!
MADONNA: You've said that.
CASANOVA: I'm complaining that they're using me. I'm complaining that you haven't given me time to think.
MADONNA: Now you've got a hundred years to do that.
CASANOVA: I have to avenge this shitty destiny. Vengeance is a gentleman's right, it's the nectar of the seducer.
MADONNA: I like that perverted smile.
CASANOVA: I feel ... I feel a new energy.
MADONNA: As if you always had ..
CASANOVA: A lot of desire to do everything. (A pause.) I've just had an erection. (He looks between his legs.) The devil be damned, it's out of control!
MADONNA: Well, let's do it again.
CASANOVA: No. (A pause.) There's no mystery in you now. Well, there is some left, but now I want to think a little bit. (He pauses.) That is to say, now I won't die.
MADONNA: No one knows. The Count is still looking.
CASANOVA (immediately happy. He throws himself on the bed): But I do want to see you dance.
MADONNA: I love to dance.
CASANOVA: Do it. I think better when I don't have to touch.
MADONNA: You have what you wanted. Now you don't have anything to think about.
CASANOVA: As far as our friend is concerned, I've only got thirty minutes left. If the future will be decided by great bombs which destroy everything in a few seconds Just think how much Casanova can't do in the half hour that's left. (He smiles.) Dance ... Dance for me. (He sits down to watch her with burning attention while he thinks energetically. The rock music from the saxophone makes a violet colored light fall over MADONNA. CASANOVA laughs slowly, premeditated, like someone savoring a triumphant future. Meanwhile, she undulates naked and lustful/ike a serpent and the music becomes louder until the brief ecstasy is cut off by the savage and rough screams of the COUNT.)
COUNT'S VOICE: Madonna! (MADONNA stops her dance, frightened, and seeks refuge in CASANOVA.)
CASANOVA: And why is that cretin screaming?
MADONNA: Protect me.
COUNT (he enters rapidly): Madonna . (He sees CASANOVA.) And you, what are you doing here?
CASANOVA: You've already predicted fifty minutes for me, of which some twenty are left, so I hope you won't do me the discourtesy of throwing me out on the street to die.
COUNT: You'll leave me the cost of the burial.
CASANOVA: It's the least that one mason can do for another.
COUNT: Do what you want
CASANOVA: I'll die on any corner, like a scorned dog, like an exploited worker, like a good whore who's abandoned.
COUNT: Madonna! (She appears fearful.) Why don't you come when I call you?
CASANOVA: You should know, brother, that she obeys me now. I've made love to her. I almost died attempting it, but I managed to do it.
COUNT: A woman to the end. Never fails to take advantage of anything. (Brusque, to her.) Go out to the street. Find me a subject to experiment with. The new potion is ready
CASANOVA: But you're so cruel. You're sending her to look for another guinea pig for your potions.
COUNT: It was your idea after all.
CASANOVA: You were the one who
MADONNA: No. He's saying that beca:.:se he hates me.
COUNT: Before, you were a tame lamb sleeping on a Lutheran bible. Now you're a vile foul smelling whore who only wants to eat and fornicate.
MADONNA: That's not true!
COUNT: And on top of that you dance and sing that damned music. How much of my money is wasted on your drugs? How much money and jewels do you take me for every day? Do you see what I'm saying? You don't know how to do anything else but take. You ask a lot for the little you have to offer.
CASANOVA: Shut up you don't have any reason to humiliate her.
COUNT: Don't you butt in. (To MADONNA.) Go on, go look for someone, now! (MADONNA looks for security in CASANOVA.)
CASANOVA: She won't go anywhere.
COUNT: You incite me to violence, friend.
CASANOVA: I don't know how ... since everyone says you're a model of virtue. This way, with all that anger, it doesn't seem like that to me.
COUNT: People generalize, they sanctify everything.
CASANOVA: I believe it. They've called you an initiate. The reincarnation of Krishna and Buddha. They publish books for you which you haven't written. They compare you to Christ!
COUNT: So what are you getting at?
CASANOVA: Who are you? What do you represent? What is your metaphor, your myth? Answer!
COUNT: What good would it do you to know?
CASANOVA: Isn't this whole farce the true reason why you want to die?
COUNT (beside himself): What do you want from me?
CASANOVA: To put my strategy in order, not to shame my motives.
COUNT: Strategy, motives ... (He smiles.) Are you trying to kill me? I would thank you for that.
CASANOVA: You've been an ideologist of absolutism. The repentant conscience of regicide. A vulgar spy for the monarch.
COUNT: I never killed!
CASANOVA: You used your power to avoid revolutions and massacres. You manipulated armies to avoid wars that were necessary.
COUNT: But, what are you accusing me of?
CASANOVA: Of being an imposter, a charlatan, an inquisitor, a monarchist. And of wanting to repeat all of this in America starting right here.
COUNT: Revolution is taking over the world, what good is that now? Things have changed too rapidly, walls have fallen, the execution sites are bloody again. The people are returning to the streets. Peace and war are screwing us out of common sense. (Whispering.) There's nothing left to do but change with the times and survive the best you can without losing your dignity.
CASANOVA: Come on, Count, I'm only trying to kill your good memory. If you want to die, it's the first thing you have to murder.
COUNT: I've been vital to the balance of the planet. You can't condemn me for my errors.
CASANOVA: I'm condemning you because whores may be those who are crowning your holiness.
COUNT: I'm a saint! Damn it all, I don't know why I'm talking to you.
CASANOVA: Because you don't have anyone else to do it with.
COUNT: Giacomo, leave me alone!
CASANOVA: You want to die and •:ou
can't. How repulsive! what despicable impotence!
COUNT: And you want to live and don't have anyone to live for.
CASANOVA: Everyone wants to live!
COUNT: Not me!
CASANOVA: You don't count.
COUNT (over him): You should love death in order to know what it's worth.
CASANOVA: Yes, certainly . . . and children should try sex, and the poor riches.
COUNT: My guilt is God's moral!
CASANOVA: Oh! (Disgusted.) You're vulgarizing history.
COUNT (like an irrational stabbing): And you're vulgarizing love! (CASANOVA is left stupefied by the accusation. The COUNT himself remains seated through the heated argument. He says embarrassed.) Common ... like a cucumber salesman. Like a greengrocer who yells out the prices of his vegetables. What shame!
CASANOVA (after a long silence): We let it all out. We've told the truth.
COUNT: Do you think so?
CASANOVA: I know it.
COUNT: Well, it has to be.
CASANOVA: Yes.
COUNT: Yes. (A long silence. MADONNA looks at them sadly.)
CASANOVA: I want to die.
COUNT: You have fifteen minutes left.
CASANOVA: I don't want to wait.
COUNT: There's no other choice, my friend, but to wait for the inevitable.
CASANOVA: I'll drink your new potion.
COUNT (an intense pause): You would do it?
CASANOVA: We're not sympathetic characters. We hate the world and it, in its own way, hates us for what we represent. What better palliative for this hate than to persist in the idea of death.
COUNT: He who persists, obtains.
CASANOVA: No greater virtue is left for us than the greatness of our greed, and all the grandeur contradicts the humility of a virtue. Doesn't it seem that way to you?
COUNT (he caresses MADONNA's nipple with a sympathetic smile which she tenderly returns): Why is it, Giacomo, that we're also greedy with the things we don't want? Why is it like that?
CASANOVA: It's the useless egotism of death, that black loneliness is already in your blood ... it's our silence or our excess of words. (A long silence.)
COUNT (looking at him, staring. Beaten): You are a good devil. The Pied Piper has stopped playing. Finally his rats have gotten together.
CASANOVA (decided): Give me the potion.
COUNT: This time don't return me any favor. (He grasps a flask.) This is the one. This time I'm sure it will work. Just one drop and your spirit will separate itself from your body without moans, without pain.
CASANOVA (he takes the flask and looks at it. He has a hidden smile, a confused wink): I'll do it. I'm not resentful. In this wa: I will pay your immense love for me. But (A blast of rock.) Because of modesty that all men have found faced .... the sacred and the obscene I derr.2:: ·: drink it in solitude
COUNT: Alone?
CASANOVA: Madonna. na...'.::-.: ·-close my eyes, and with a···:: , _
spirit which goes far away will say goodbye. (As a joke.) This pretentious romanticism is infecting us now.
COUNT: If you want it that way, how can I deny you?
CASANOVA: A man is also master of his death.
COUNT: Yes, yes, but hurry up. Come here, my last embrace. (He gives him a fraternal hug.) With my kiss goes all the love of Europe ... (He kisses him.) and all the gratitude of America. (He kisses him.)
CASANOVA: Are you watching? I'm going to die with this potion and I'm not crying. I'm not shaking, I don't feel any pain in the least for myself. I feel an immense happiness that with my death, you will die also. We will see each other in the great beyond.
COUNT: Brother
CASANOVA: Brother (CASANOVA separates himself from the COUNT with the flask in his hand. He doesn't lose his posture of solemn reverence. The COUNT disappears in the darkness. CASANOVA goes up to the bed and climbs on it, raising up the deadly liquid. MADONNA is kneeling down on the floor and observing.) I invoke death and her relations. (A blast of rock.) I want all the flesh near me. All that flesh, yesterday pleasure and trembling today stench and rottenness. Death Crush me! Take away the anguish of living which is created in me these fifteen minutes which remain and hand me over without delay to this burning potion. (A pause. He looks to where the COUNT has gone. He screams dramatically.) I'm repentant! And faced with the sharp blade which separates me from the paths of pleasure and horror I confess as a Christian! I ask for forgiveness for all my sins of action and omission and I give my other cheek to all the women who I deceived during my short but fruitful life.
MADONNA: If you turn the other cheek, I'm sure they'll kiss it for you.
CASANOVA (grandiloquent, so they hear it through the walls): I renounce love and its
Such is the shame of what I've been. Just one drop. Just one drop and this semen of total death will impregnate me with (CASANOVA takes out the small dropper to let a drop fall into his mouth. He throws his head back, slowly opening his jaw and firmly closing his eyes. extends her hand toward him shouting "}\lo!" Blasts of fast rock music.)
( VIOL£.""<7 BLACKOUT WITH .'v!OZART'S REQC:IE'vf.)
FOUR
(Heavy lighting. in front of the bed, her hair uncombed, suffering and sad, dressed in a transparent mourning veil. CASANOVA's body, stretched out and dark, lies inert, sprawled out like a rag doll.)
MADONNA (screaming and crying her eyes out): Casanova! The great adventurer of the eleven thousand skirts has died! (The requiem becomes louder. MADONNA lights a procession candle.) The most potent prick of the entire Enlightenment has fallen forever. Oh, love, how ephemeral, but how delightful! Pray for him. We're praying for you to hear us. (The COUNT appears from out of the semi-darkness.)
COUNT: Really? He has died?
MADONNA: His body is an empty coffin.
COUNT: Nothing?
MADONNA: His eyes, which were enormous lights of passionate fire, are now two mummy's testicles in the middle of his face.
COUNT: Marvellous!
MADONNA: His colossal and enormous penis, immense like the Emptire State Building, and which before was fantasized about by thousands and bathed in tears of pleasure by hundreds ... is today a boil, a sore in a horrendous chancre of purulent sores. God! how sad I am.
COUNT: I did it, my God, I managed it My faith is coming back! God Thank you Thank you
MADONNA (continuing): Formerly the standard bearer of lust, today a greasy hide
COUNT: Oh, seeing him is enough
MADONNA (she takes the flask wih the dropper out from under the sheets): And this is the cause. Here's what was left of the evil potion. The brilliant Casanova only took one drop and barely put the liquid up to his quivering lips, and he was already exhaling the last vapor of his putrid breath.
COUNT (ridiculously, and resolved): Give me that flask.
I don't want to stay alone
COUNT: Give me that! (He wrenches it from her hands.) Let me look at you as one looks at God (He kneels.) This is the most tremendous glory of my whole miserable existence . . . I conquered Mistyblue At last I can At last God, your goodness gives me the silence of my conscience. (The COUNT raises the flask to drink it.) The whole flask in one gulp! God! I hand over my spirit to your hands! (He chugs down the entire flask. Successive blasts of violent rock. Lights and effects. Silence all of a sudden. The COUNT is still, on his knees, frowning, like someone who expects great pain. Nothing nothing nothing, only the laugh of CASANOVA, furious, shrieking, penetrating, mocking, enjoying the greatest joke of his life. MADONNAfollows him in the inflamed belly laugh.)
CASANOVA (triumphant and mocking): Mistyblue ... Mistyblue infernal, with just one drop you make me eternal. What will happen if all at once, I ask, I drank the contents of the flask? (He laughs the COUNT drops the flask, opening his eyes in terrible and ghastly surprise.) Congratulate yourself, Mister Buffoon, your experiment failed.
COUNT: What?
CASANOVA: And I have presented you with the best of all deaths!
COUNT: My God ...
CASANOVA: What better death than to be desiring it for all eternity. You will live a hundred thousand years, Count!
COUNT: But the poison ... the antidote that I invented?
CASANOVA: Oh, that dirty water? Here it is (He takes the other flask out from under the sheets.) Drink it down, it's all yours (The COUNT tears it out of his hands and chugs it frenetically. He remains still, waiting for something ) Nothing! You know what? It's true. This time, perhaps for the first time, the people were right (Touche.) After you drink Mistyblue, there's no turning back. Nothing can undo it nothing (He hugs and kisses MADONNA who is smiling next to him.)
COUNT: It's not possible, it's not possible!
CASANOVA: I forgive you. I feel avenged.
COUNT (he goes to the table, like a madman, to mix potions): It can't be it can't be (In desperation he throws them all to the floor. Furious, he growls . .. useless, he gives in, he cries. Beaten, he looks toward heaven.)
CASANOVA: Who are you looking for?
COUNT: For God
CASANOVA: Do you want to send him a message? If I remember right, you told me I would see him in thirty seconds.
COUNT: Oh, how I envy your death.
CASANOVA: It will be a delirious show stopper. They'll be on their feet applauding me.
COUNT: Tell God, that I still have faith
CASANOVA: Don't get nervous, Count. God forgot these places so we could reigr. over them.
Casanova ... eight, seven ... Envy me, Count. Look how I'm dying, look how hapPY I'm dying ... Oh, and with what pleasure I'm rotting! Four, three ... goodbye, foul and beautiful world two and I'm dying! (A long silence. A blast of rock music. Nothing happens. CASANOVA once again releases his boiling belly laugh. He celebrates, infecting MADONNA with his happiness, who kisses him like an amused child.)
COUNT: You too?
CASANOVA: Yes, beloved. How could I leave you alone in this immense and filthy eternity?
COUNT (beside himself): Power of God ! No! (A light falls over the COUNT, spotlighting his contorted face. Another on CASANOVA, alive, spirited.)
CASANOVA: Brother, don't be so discourteous, join us, it's time for a party, enjoy, let's celebrate! receive me in your new kingdom with a warm welcome home. (He laughs while the light goes off slowly over both of them, leaving us, with ghostly lights, two contradictory images that are sealed by a blast of Bach, finale in allegretto, which quickly cuts off all light. In the darkness one hears the sonorous and magnificent . .. ) Ha!
