Frank
Garvey
and
Innova 538
Tracks:
1. Goodbye – 0:37
2. Tweedledee-dee – 2:25
3. Nightsounds – 4:21
4. Deaf on Hollow Winds – 7:08
5. Hunky Dory – 3:28
6. Three Fates – 3:58
7. Deafman 1 – 3:03
8. Bonedance – 2:58
9. Nada – 4:15
10. Fat Chance – 2:02
11. More-a-the-Same – 3:52
12. Deafman 2 – 6:25
13. Compulsin – 3:23
14. Strawman – 5:08
15. Red Cloud Rise – 2:01
16. Guernica/ Goodbye – 6:17
is
a musical-dramatic dance-ritual about the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. The action takes place in a magical, endless night
during which Goya gets drunk and contemplates suicide. His nightmarish Black
Paintings come to life in the play in the form of our robots and virpets, and
the painter is visited by the ghost of his great love, the Duchess of Alba.
WRITTEN BY FRANK GARVEY
MUSIC BY FRANK GARVEY WITH DIANA TRIMBLE
AND DEUSMACHINA
FEATURING SHAFQAT ALI KHAN
DEUSMACHINA ON THIS
RECORDING ARE:
RIFFAT SALAMAT ALI KHAN –
VOX
SHAFQAT ALI KHAN – VOX
DANIEL BERKMAN –
KORA, TABLA
DWAYNE CALIZO –
VOX
DAVID EARL –
KEYBOARD
AARON EDSINGER –
SOUNDSCAPE
FRANK GARVEY –
DRUMS, KEYBOARD, SOUNDSCAPE
WARREN LEMING –
BANJO
RICHARD MICHOS –
GUITAR
SALAR NADIR –
TABLA
DIANA TRIMBLE –
VOX
JEFF WEBER – SOUNDSCAPE
ROBOTS BY:
FRANK GARVEY
CARL PISATURO
JEFF WEBER
AARON EDSINGER
ERIC KENYON
TODD CAMILL
The OmniCircus is an interactive installation and performance space, at 550 Natoma St. in San Francisco. It is home to the OmniCircus Ensemble led by composer-artist-writer Frank Garvey. This innovative group incorporates live acting, music and dance with state-of-the-art robots and real-time computer-animated, virtual puppets (virpets), forming a unique industrial-surrealist theatrical experience.
The resident music group at the OmniCircus is DeusMachina, whose ranks include some of the most powerful performers in the Bay Area and beyond. This recording includes three amazing singers - vox artists Diana Trimble and Shafqat Ali Khan, and Dwayne Calizo - and the multi-instrumental genius of Daniel Berkman, here featured on the beautiful West African harp, the Kora..
The ROBOTIC ENSEMBLE of the OMNICIRCUS is an ever-growing mechanical Red-light District, a group of sophisticated robotic performers who appear in OmniCircus productions and on their own in the streets of San Francisco and elsewhere. This ensemble is the creation of a powerful team of robot artists and engineers, with Garvey as sculptor and artistic director, including Carl Pisaturo, Jeff Weber, Aaron Edsinger, Todd Camill and Eric Kenyon, as well as (more recently) the formidable machinists at the Carnegie Mellon University Mech–E machine shop.
OmniCircus WEBSITE – http://www.omnicircus.com
Contact: (415) 701-0686
In 1999 Frank Garvey established the Center for Robotic and Synthetic Performance, co-sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in Pittsburgh, Pa. The CRSP is a vehicle for the creation of new technologies, performance languages and engineering visions which interface science and
Tool-making with the primal effort to understand (and change) the human conditiOn through the arts.
CRSP WEBSITE– http://www.ri.cmu.edu/centers/crp/index.html
Contact: (412) 268-4741
House of the
Deafman
cast
of human characters:
Goya
Duchess
of Alba
Leocadia
Weiss
Dr.
Arrieta
King
Ferdinand VII
Soldier
Captain
Priest
Lackey
Ferdinands’
other lackeys
Sackpeople,
Masqueraders, etc.
robots:
Saturn
Judith
Godfella
Slave
0
Slave
1
The
Dog
Duel
with Cudgels
Assorted
other robots
musicians:
(at
least) 2 percussionists
Catalan
instruments:
3-string
bass fiddle, flaviola (1 handed recorder)
waist
drum, cornet, corno, double reeds
other
acoustic instruments (pan pipes, kora, drums, etc., etc.)
synth-kybds
micro-tonal
percussion and other homemade instruments
guitar,
bass
midi
tech, sound tech
chorus
cello
violin
scenario:
The
musico-drama takes place in Goya's house, the Quinta del Sordo, or House of the Deaf
Man. Goya is seventy-three years
old, tired and bitter from many defeats in love and politics (he is a noted Liberale, the radical democratic
movement of the day). He has painted a series of profound and disturbing
masterpieces on the walls of his house, the now-famous BLACK PAINTINGS, which are soon to
revolutionize art and give birth to the expressionism of the 20th century.
However, Goya's friends are being persecuted and killed by his patron,
the malicious and self-serving King Ferdinand VII, and there are rumors
that Goya
himself is in danger of being arrested.
The drama
takes place on the night of the triumph of the counter-revolution against the
liberal
constitutional government which Goya and his friends had
worked for. There are massacres on a nearby hill, and many progressives, and
those who resist the Kings' coup, are either arrested or disappeared, shot on
the spot, or tortured and executed by the King’s soldiers and the
invading French Garrisons, who are helping King Ferdinand VII restore his repressive
regime in the interests of European stability. The remainder are leaving for
exile or going underground to join the guerrillas in a war of resistance
against the repression.
A
Soldier
is stationed to “guard and protect” the aging and sick master
painter, but his real purpose is to place Goya under house arrest.
The
director of the production should make every effort to study the real history
of Goya's’ time and have absorbed and internalized the above and should
then make every effort to forget it, for the play now exists simultaneously on
quite another level, a dream-scape where all the realistic rules are suspended
and the only logic is the burning charade of hallucination. Time, place,
situation and personality will continually shift as they do in the imagination
of a man dehydrated in the desert after his camel crashed, whose main comfort
is playing back scenes in his head of his previous life, which he gets confused
with the life he’d imagined for himself as a child, and the lives
he’d read about as a student…
Hints
of this other reality should continually pop through the fabric of 19th
century realism until they eventually tear it to shreds.
It’s
very important that the character of Goya be played like a burned out hipster,
a Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits, and the others should also be played as if
they were modern-day blues street musicians acting out a foolish costume drama.
No attempt at continuous realism is needed, although flashes of same will
deposit tremendous capital in the credibility bank of the impoverished
audience, hungry as they are for genuine RE-production of RE-ality.
Periodically it should be stressed to the audience that this is a play, an artifice which deliberately deceives in a kindly manner not unlike the games grandfathers play with hyperkinetic children to get them back to the dinner table.
(Songs
and musical 'interludes' will be integrated into the action throughout, more
like a Harry Partch musico-dramatic dance ritual work than the traditional
Broadway song-action-song structural framework. Future productions must include
genuine robotic performers when called for, not human actors dressed as
robots.)
Scene
1.
It
is dark, 9pm on the first night of the bloody restoration. In the dim outlines
of an old house, disembodied children’s voices are heard singing “Ring
Around the Rosey”. The overall lighting is dark and
hallucinatory. The only prop lit is an old wooden chair and table
in the center of the room. Occasional cannonfire and gunshots are heard
in the distance. The house is a huge mess…piles of stuff everywhere, in
the shadows. The “Ring Around the Rosey” song ends. Then strange
voices, disembodied like the children, sing “Breech Baby”.
He
an old burned tree.
He
an old burned tree.
A
tweedle-dee-dee
A
tweedle-dee-dee
an
old burned tree
an
old burned tree!
A
tweedle-dee-dee
A
tweedle-dee-dee
an old burned tree
an
old burned tree!
A
tweedle-dee-dee!
A
tweedle-dee-dee I an old burned tree
An
old burned tree
A
tweedle-dee-dee
A
tweedle-dee-dee
Breech
Baby go on home
Go on home Breech Baby
go on home
Breech
Baby go on home
Go
on home Breech Baby go on home
Breech
Baby go on home
Go on home Breech Baby
go on home
Breech Baby go on home.
Goya lurches forth from the
shadows. He wears a sack-like costume, a heavy cloth draping him from neck to
floor, white but very dirty, with an old megaphone strapped to his chest, out
of which come murmurs in a strange tongue with a woman’s voice. He
lumbers to center stage facing the audience. In a stentorian trance:
Partmain
partman of fragmental semmefry and solemness telemetry. Sitstain the takeback
talk-back sure shell stinkfear nowonsmere importaneous else fropenscene…
filmjuice flows fropenscene. Light like a listnew dirgadream, the patchy
partword and moresome halfaman…knock! New, and woke up back at work, and
the whole thing starts all over again, just like it never happened, and always,
anyways… kerblam blam blam of the so fry fecus terminous, stretched my
arm to touch it, then burned black…
Huge knocking on the door,
shouts of “Open up!”, Goya
does not hear, a shadowy figure (Leocadia)
lets them in. It is a small squad of soldiers. She is dressed in black with a
black veil-like shawl as in the Black Painting portrait of her, beautiful, about 35. The Captain, upon entering,
unfolds a scroll. He’s drunk.
(Angry
and frightened) What is this?
The
head of household, Senorita?
(More
sharply.) Everyone in Spain knows this house!
CAPTAIN
(Sees Goya, begins haltingly reading his scroll.) ‘By the
ordure of His Royal Majesty, Ferdinand the Desired, King of Spain, Castille and
Leon, you, Don Francisco Goya y Lucientes, because of your
intestinal…inestible…inestimable contributions to the Royal Family
and the Monarchy, and our wish and expitation…expectation that this
contradiction… contribution will continue uninterpreted…
uninterrupted, and because of your genes and worldwide fame as an artist
At this point he looks at
the Black Paintings and winks to his Lieutenant.
is,
along with the mumbles… members of his household, to be placed under house
detraction infinitely for your own projection and for the statistician of the
Crown, owing to the chaos and uncertain… of conditions now pertailing,
which will be brought under control forthwind and with asbestos resolution, and
owing also to Don Francisco’s well known and unfornicate prediction for
getting himself entang… entagled in affairs quiet beyond his knowledge
and understating and while…which are not the providence of the
artist.’
Senor
Goya. Captain Enrique Guzman. I’m yours, sir, and it appears you’re
mine as well.
His soldiers snicker at Goya’s attire, which appears to be a
self-inflicted straight-jacket. The voices are still periodically coming out of
the megaphone on his chest.
Not
well.
Evidently.
I thought
… the doctor is coming ... he should be here soon.
I’m
a doctor too, y’know. My specialty is a only the small difference in
polarity as to exactly what we do to the human body, which suits me fine, only
I don’t get paid as damn much money. Then again it’s a lot easier
to send someone to hell than it is to bring him back. The number in your
household, Senorita?
Us and
a dog, out digging-
(Displeasure.)
Again the number in your household, Senorita? (He looks at papers.)
(Fear.)
Captain, just we two.
Your
son Guillermo, Senorita? Where is he?
(Great
fear, but hidden.) In France, Chartres, for a month, studying…
( Looks
at her, not without sympathy, and decides.) Sargeant! Stay behind! Protect
Senor Goya and his… daughter? I hear guns tonight.
We need
no protection.
You’re
fear stinks but not like child-fear. If he were here, I‘d smell it in a
second. It’d burn my throat. Ain’t no smell like a mother when her
child is… hunted… contained... caught… (He smells Leocadia, then to Soldier.) Behave yourself, she’s a beauty. (He strokes her
face, she recoils.) The King! will be here soon. He’s personal business
with the …artist here. Adios! We have more – operations – to
perform!
They exit as suddenly as
they came in, leaving only Soldier behind.
He stands there, as young and empty stonefaced as a Swiss Guard. They’re
all still, Goya in his shroud, as
the light goes-
DARK
Scene
2.
It
is 10pm that same night. The lighting becomes realistic and the interior of
Goya’s house is revealed. Soldier is looking at the
paintings. Goya is still standing mute and unmoving in his straight-jacket,
facing a blank white wall with no painting on it yet.
Hey Artist?
How can I get paid to do this?
(Ignores
Soldier, tries
to engage Goya who doesn’t notice her.) Francho please sit.
(Holds
up Goya’s
paint brush, pretends to swipe it on painting.) I’d like to
gettin’paid for sloppin’ paint round’. Beats soldierin’,
I bet. Cept in times like these.
(Takes
brush.) Pardon Corporal.
There
is a knock on the door, which Goya doesn’t hear. Soldier opens the door for Dr.
Arrieta.
Your
business?
(Ignores
soldier) Dr. Arrieta thank god. Please.
Yours?
(He tries to push past Soldier)
Your
bag. (He presents his pistol, then looks inside the Doctor’s bag.)
Our
protection. Maybe it’s good. Have you heard?
I
am being searched in Goya’s home?
Forgive.
Come in.
Ain’t!
Look at that! You do that, painter? (Points at Saturn painting.) Guys eatin’ a
man!
All
pause.
Hush!
He’s not well.
Like a popsicle!
(Examines
Goya’s
ear and speaks to himself, but loud enough to hear.) The tremons…
He
hasn’t slept.
This guy a big deal?
Delerium…
(Looks
carefully at the painting.) De-leer-ee-um.
Hush!
He’s famous, right?
The
raptures…
My sister got angry once and did like this on our wall. (Points at the painting.)
Please
step away so I may see my patient.
Got a good whippin’.
You’re
a fool. He’s a sick man. Can’t you see that, Eduardo Munoz?
You
know?
I thought you…
Still
have that mole on your left ball, little shit?
Mole…
I’m
your father’s doctor, Eduardo. I pulled you out of your mother, do I need
to go on? And now you can be interred, this dark night by the doctor who
birthed you.
He
goes to Soldier and knocks his cap off. Soldier strikes the old man,
knocking him down, and then he pulls his pistol, drops it, then looks down and
picks it up and walks off to the other side of the room and sulks. The doctor
picks himself up with the help of Leocadia.
You’re my father’s friend, or a dead man.
My
son… (she looks nervously at Soldier) in the militia…
What news?
I
don’t know anything. Where is he?
I’m
sorry. Over there.
(Picks
his way through piles of stuff.) Of course. Old Man how are you?
No
answer.
Let’s
take a look.
He and Leocadia have been unwrapping Goya from his sack and megaphone, which has been
intermittently spewing forth garbled utterences. They put him into the chair.
She brings a blanket to him. They now assume the position of the famous
painting, with the Doctor behind Goya,
offering him a drink. (This dialog, and all applicable dialog, should overlap realisically.)
Here
you go Francho…that’s good. (To Leocadia) Fever… The paintings are hot as his head!
Don’t worry, ‘Cadia, when he gets well he’ll be able to paint
again.
Paint?
Just as well now. Better madness than seeing Madrid on this night. Any news of Riego?
Painter, this night’s been a long day coming. Too long. Hey tonight it looks like your paintings out there! Hah!
In
a sudden transformation Dr.
Arrieta
whispers coarsely at Soldier, but with an entirely and explosively new
persona, dark and empty as if in a trance.
New
sounds in the night…steam shrapnel, whispers of underground orgies, iron
seeds growing from the blades of a juggernaut reaper. The more we’re
clubbed, the happier are we, his grateful children. There are people…
friends of mine, and your fathers… being shot on the Pio, on that hill
right outside, right now! Families are disappearing! We’re on our
knees…
He
returns to his former persona.
(Grins)
Hey! Takes longer to go up t’ the hill that way.
I’m
sorry, ‘Cadia. He’s fought the battle. It’s time for this one
to get his sleep. Eduardo, tell your father… you’re not a soldier,
but a nanny now, putting an old child to bed.
(Whispers, while getting medicine
out.)
If
he survives, you should think very seriously about getting him to safety. The
medicine is bitter, do you have marmelade?
(Roars)
The masquerade is tonight!
My
friend, I am here.
The
doctor’s here, Cisco. Take the medicine.
Must
decide what to wear!
Drink
it down now.
Doctor
says be good now, Little Francho. Take the medicine.
He drools, some on the
doctor.
(To Leocadia) You’ve got to clean up this mess a bit. No-one could live like this.
What
costume, Cadia?
He
won’t let me, I clean the kitchen, that is all. I’ve tried, believe
me.
I’ll
be the Hunky Dorey, Cadia! The Hunky Dorey! And you be the Lady in Black!
Remember
that? The gingham dress with feathers, silk veil, parasol, satin shawl, side
shows before our first bullfight, the twins glued together with the two faces
in one head, pig fatter than an elephant, the first and only skeleton dude,
giant genuine texas oilmen, the majo that tried to away with you, the fight we
had on the plaza, a bull was dedicated to you, horse was killed right in front
of us, red fountain busting from his side, matador thrown to the ground, the
clown that ran to distract the bull, the clown that saved him and was gored,
his liver pulled from his trunk, hanging from the horn, crowd cheering and
applauding… all for you, the Lady in Black…
DARK
Scene
3.
11pm.
As the lights come up it is clear that most of the mess is gone. A huge pile of
boxes, mail and papers that was on his desk is now reduced to two small orderly
stacks. Soldier is sleeping on a couch. Goya enters from his
bedroom.
What
is this?
He rifles through his
desktop, looking for something. Then he knocks the orderly stacks onto the
floor, picks up the desk and tries to stuff it into their bedroom, but it gets
stuck in the doorway. Leocadia
hears the commotion and comes out to stop him.
I told
you not to do this!
I
straightened up a bit!
Goya gets on the desk, suddenly he is spotlit and all else
is dark.
I
can’t find anything now… the sash, medal, pipe, the pens we got
from Guernica, my teeth… where’s my good set? My pistol, the Uroca?
My sash… and medals… the sash… ‘Cadia! Wake! Where the
hell is the sash?
Leocadia is spotlit and all else is dark.
From
the Great Legion of the Knights Uncircumscribed, Order of Pallidins?
I hate
whean yo tak lick thaot! You stop using tha hair yeth ahou. You’re deaf,
but I now you spea hefmen hafhart. Poisins great and thall mae farl noith pare
…fogel…goeur…
As she speaks she gets
quieter and quieter until she is completely silent. Her spot dims to black.
Goya has given up on the desk and Leocadia moves it back to center stage. Goya is now looking frantically for his pistol, in the
spotlight.
My
cloth and pistol? My Uroca? Where’s my Uroca!
Spotlight Leocadia. The Duchess of Alba appears behind her and says her words for her, loud
and clear.
Yes! In
your hand where it belongs!
The Uroca pistol magically
appears in Goya’s hand. He
sits down to cleaning his pistol, his rage subsides as if it never happened.
Cadia…
The two women do a
Bali-style dance together during this next rap, with the goal of creating a
single figure with 4 arms.
You hit the spot
Right on target
Straight shooter
Smooth as glass
Dead center
Flash, spark
Dry powder
Pass the ammo
Pistol whipped!
Leocadia now embraces Goya from behind. The Duchess is still talking for her.
Alone
now.
Alone,
forever… clean your pistol, Pancho, it needs you so much…Why
couldn’t you’ve been more discreet, my little Strawman, and did the
portraits like they wanted. We could have lived in the dark, our secret place,
inside the leviathan, the great empty mood of the thing, like Jonah we could
have hid in the beast, and been taken like some huge tapeworm-diety all over
the world, nobody would have known, you would have been rich and I’d have
my songs, my birds and my menagerie... you were such a…boy…
They leave. The stage goes
dark except for a light on Goya.
Scene 4.
How
forsow tic toc time restains, givenly dada? Hoo long stew it addup, fire it up
and stoke, brew bones and tork…How moor time insand? How
longer stake inflame? My do dud
daddly-dee always tol' me send uppin lishadoff huge bonoy. Hecupp see handwritten walls no matterhorn froff
in the sights they war. Hed stay upal nit witnissin' halfheard halfloaf halfman
halfbeast halfful halfempty halfwit halfhit halfbaked halfadam halfcue facin'
backwards on toppa methamphetamine bible and hed come antell me 'son... the
whisperoff butterfly wings can
kill aman tweenty miles away, if t catches him night. So don go messin' with
other men's wives. But you will anyway, and you'll die for it, an' you wouldn't
want it n’ other way. And remember son - the fuckin' bull ever wants to
eat you, you don' ave kill him. No matter hoo strong he is you don killin him.
Ju’take a barrel and sit in it. He stuck him horns-self in the barrel, in
a week hee be pile a blackshell and bone, and you have his wife. Get off the
horse first, my daddy said. No matter how scared get off horse first, and get
in barrel, and you have his wife, and his fodder, and when your belly's full
you forget your regrets and your sorrows and your summons and your backtrakkin'
in the sand dunes... you forget yern animal, and there's bigger one's out there
tryin' ta taka piece a you. But hunger make snake of all. If you starvin' you
steal your neighbor food, when next you starve you eat your neighbor dog, when
next you starve you eat your neighbor, when next you starve you eat your own.
You eat the seed fore it grow into food. You eat the seed of yown shank, you
drink yown piss, you cut off yown arm to feed yourself if you hungrynuff
because you an animal, my daddy told me.
(pause)
How
much time do I have now? Good. If I cut my arm off for you will there be enough
for you all to eat? Who'll chow down first, brethren? Are ye not hungry then?
Is there a better meal, then my leather snake of an arm? You're not hungry, so
you pretend not know what I'm talkin' about. But you animals, livin in you
animal minds, just like me. If I cut it at the elbow, friends, only 2 or 3
could eat...if I cut off my hand for you, you'd be fightin' over it before you
could say hail-mary halfatime halfatime mary mary. If you was hungry... yer not
hungry...but if yer hungry, you'll eat my arm. You'll eat my arm! Who is
hungry, here? Who is hungry? That's the law of scarcity, the only law I ever
obeyed. Remember, frends, that suffering is pain times resistance. If you in a
cage, and they beating you, and you pain is a hundred, and you resistance is a
hundred, you suffering is ten-thousand. But child you resist not, and you pain
is a hundred, you suffering is nothing, for zero times any number is zero. I
was at court, and the big theater director was there, and the big theater stars
were there, and the big producers were there, but the King was late, and no-one
could eat, by the time the food was put out everyone was hungry as dog and they
were not used to the pain of hunger because they were the caviar, and they knew
not the law of scarcity. They rushed for the table when the announcement came,
all animals shoving pushing snapping jaw big 'ol bulls, and if looked close you
seen the horns, and if listen close heard the voice of the behemoth!
(Pause, he begins getting
in the make-up and dress of a clown.)
What’s
a century, or two, a love or two, in the midst of this? A moldy sandwich discarded in the alley
behind an old saloon where longshoremen go to hear beat poetry and wring the
last drop of night from empty bottles. Can a painting stand up to this
emptiness? What’re a few wars in the echo of strange canyons? War, now,
war all the time…mechanical, perfect, like the trigger on my
Uroca…a million wars pass like a whisper at the fourth drinking fountain
in the third intermission of the second act of some intermidable opera, sung by
over-fed leviathan-throated wall-fixtures, eating the young talent before it
becomes a threat, eating the audience every night before it can pass judgement,
eating the city after it falls to sleep. Let’s make a few more happy
portraits… smears of colored dirt, masking all emptiness, for a few
ounces of gold and an invite to the grand party… on squares of linen, no
bigger than a shroud… What does your death mean to me now, Duchess? Why
does it laugh loud bloody gums, orange nose, marmalade hair? Where are your
friends now, Duchess? Where do they dine? Who dine with? Who dine on?
He gestures towards a
blank white section of wall.
Someday
the vacuum, the willful courageous void, that open empty perfect space,
unsullied by corporeal actualization, unexamined by the inquiring, unbeheld by
the living, that unstudied Turin Shroud, that unbeheld miracle, like the
uncorrupted flesh of the saint whose coffin remains sealed, that bitter blank
canvas will be worth more than all my work, when the glacial night reveals the
dead white emptiness of our little bargain. I’m tired … tired.
He picks up the pistol and
looks at it thoughtfully, completely drained.
Duchess,
…you have me… to the Masquerade!
He points the pistol at
his head. The ghost of the Duchess of Alba appears, mostly in the shadows. She is beautiful, erotic, diaphanous
and without expression. Dressed in a transparent Black Widow, she seems at ease
but aloof. Goya stops his suicide to watch her, and listen. She sings Deaf
on Hollow Winds.
Deaf on Hollow Winds
The
days do fall into the sea.
Like
a road that to itself rescinds,
It
disappears to the back of me.
The
stones fall deaf on hollow winds.
I
will never see your dreams take flight,
Or
hold your trembling wings.
I
whisper your name into the night.
The
stones fall deaf on hollow winds
-deaf
on hollow winds.
Time
kills itself to give us the way.
No
turning back to make amends,
The
path will soon my steps betray.
And
stones fall deaf on hollow winds
And
stones fall deaf on hollow winds.
DARK
Scene 5.
11:30pm,
the scene is basically the same, but Goya is in full clown regalia, again
facing the wall as in Scene 2. Outside, the sound of a horse and carriage
approaching. The bell rings…repeatedly. Goya doesn’t hear
it. Finally a furious knock and shouts. Soldier awakes and answers.
It’s King Ferdinand VII and two lackeys, plus three military
escorts. Ferdinand VII is a classic fop, huge wig, scarf, bulldog,
very bad lisp and huge ego. They burst in singing like a bad high school
production of Pirates of Penzance.
He’s here!
He’s here!
The Most Desired is
here!
The King the people want to touch
` The
King the priests do love so much,
The King who smokes
cigars so Dutch,
He’s here to
save us in the clutch!
The King will help us
from the ditch!
He’ll feed and
clothe us every stitch!
Thye King will give
his stirdy crutch!
He’s here to
ream us oh so butch!
The King will reveal
who’s a witch!
He’s here to
show us to the bitch!
Savior of his country in it’s hour of
need
He’s the Man
voted Most Likely to Succede!
He’s here!
He’s here!
Our Manly Sire is
here!
Thop!
They
stop.
What
the hell is this crap? Pirates of Penzance? Where’s my staff?
Where’s the musical accompaniment? This doesn’t work with the rest
of the play! It’s fucking kitsch for god’s sake. And why
didn’t you fucking answer the door? Start over and forget the song!
(Offstage
voice) Get back in character!
Never
mind just take it from there. Announce me!
LACKEY
Ah,
Goya, your King, your confessor and your father have all arrived. Where may
they be seated?
Leocadia
goes
to reclaim a chair from the maelstrom which she offers His Highness.
(Looking
at Saturn, speaks
to Lackey 1)
Dese must be de paintings I have been heawing about. Dweadful! The gweat
Fwanthisco Goya, Fiwst Paintew to the King, totawy mad. Oh fiddlethtickth, life
is hawd for uth all theth dayth. Well Fwanthisco, what have you been up to, my
fwiend?
GOYA
What
have I interrupted? Are we at the Masquerade now, Cadia? ( He fingers the
King’s costume.)
LEOCADIA
Maestro,
it’s the King! Pardon your majesty, he’s not well.
No,
no, been UP TO? I can thee he’s unwell, what are theth…paintingth?
GOYA
(Pause)
Bean up-stew?
I
thay WHAT IN THE DEVIL’th NAME HAVE YOU BEEN UP THO?
GOYA
Ah,
since nine o’clock this morning, Your Highness!
WHY
AWE YOU APWEERING as a CWOWN???
GOYA
Wire
peeing on his crown?
Dioth
Mio thith is twying. (To Soldier) Can you bwing a slate, and a peach of
shalk?
SOLDIER
(To
Leocadia)
Please get the King a pair of skates and some peaches! (Embarrassed) And
some…shawk.
LEOCADIA
Bring
a skate? Of course your Highness. We have several pair… what size are
you?
Neva
mind! Goodneth, you’re all deaf, I didn’t know it wath catching.
I’ll thay what I came fow and be gone - I thent my man hewe to keep you
company. You’ve been thick. This country is thick, thick like you.
It’s deaf and mad, and making a mathquerade from the viwal charade of
fweedom called democwathy. Tonight the pawty’s ovew. The Awmy wiw thweep
up the empty cupth and ditheth, the Powice wiw thend the band packing wifout
their instwuments and the Inquithithion will ekthamine the Hall for thignth of
thtructural damage.
He
picks up Goya’s
pistol and examines it closely.
Exthellent
weapon Goya. A Uroca, I thee. Ith it new? I too have a new weapon. I thought of
it mythelf. Starth with a knock in the dawk night. A fwightened woman
anthwerth. A child scweamth. A man ith theen getting dwethed. Vewy fasp. If he
were innothent, why would he get dwethed? I never get dwethed when I hear a
knock, do you? Then he ith athked to go with the ethcorths. He goeth. She ith
left behind. They don’t tout her. She ith left behind. To tell the tale
to the overth…of how she if still waiting for hith retuwn. You thee? Ith
bwilliant. You are not the only geniuth in Ethpania, Goya. She waith for the
one she woves, and the waiting and the mythtery dwives her inthane, and then
she tellth the tale to the other twaitows on hew stweet as she wanderth about,
weeping, a wiving squarecwow…
Adioth!
Keep warm, Goya! I have a new portwait commithion for you, after thith job is
done. (To Leocadia) Can he thtill paint? (To Soldier) Stay inthide. This
night wiw nevew end, if I have my thay. Everything Hunky Dowey?
SOLDIER
Yeth, yow
maje…sty.
They
leave. Soldier
and Leocadia
sing Hunky Dorey.
Hunky Dorey
Have
you heard the story of the Hunky Dorey?
(Who?)
Hunky
Dorey who!
The more and more I hear of Dorey
the more I want to hear the story!
(Huh?)
Hunky Dorey sleepy snorey
Who? Who?
Muncha mordy howdy bordy
Who? Who?
Splitsville, I’m gone.
Fortunado
Sanpan
Swing-a-dig
thigpen
Fat
days pay for a decoy replay
Horsemeat
gluebag
Sweetheart
Cain-and-Abel
Anyway
yesterday
Swing-a-dig
thigpen
Fortunado
Sanpan
howdy
bordy muncha mordy
Sleepy
snorey, hunky dorey
Come
around again
Come
arounda
Go to sleep again.
DARK
Scene
6.
Midnight.
Goya
is drinking wine and painting the Duel with Cudgels onto the large scrim
which has been at center stage. Soldier is watching while
leaning nearby on a table cleaning his pistol. He periodically aims at the
painting, then cleans, checks the gunsights, then points it at Goya, then the painting
again, etc..
Painter,
why do you slop paint like that? And why’s your house so fucked up?
Thought you was rich.
Pause.
Can’t
you hear? Why do you?
Pause.
They
pay you? I’ve seen better… at the plaza… you can’t hear
me anyhow, you fat old fuck….Hey! Fat CLOWN!
Pause.
He knocks some papers over.
Look
at this filth! A shit-face dog’d wouldn’t eat here.
He
affects the connoisseur.
Your
painting… it needs something… a small touch of black…
Pause.
He shoots
the pistol, aiming between Goya’s
head and the Duel
painting. He hits a crucifix on the wall, exploding it and knocking it down.
(Laughs.) PAINTER can’t you see?
Why do you slop your paint, like shit in a madhouse?
DOG, why do
you slop your gun like that?
Goya suddenly throws a small turpentine
dish at Soldier,
who drops his pistol while dodging. Goya grabs Soldier in a nelson and takes him down, where
he grabs the pistol.
Old man, let
up!
Why? Why
shouldn’t I kill you? Are you loved?
I am a
Corporal!
Why should
you live? Do you love?
Painter, let
me up!
Why?
Why, dog! Are you hungry?
You’re
insane!
Not
good enough!
Let
me think-
Above
you –
He
grabs the nearest wine bottle, sits on Soldier and opens the cork
with his mouth.
It
hurts! Let me think!
(Still
with the cork in his mouth.) Don’t think, fool! Hurt!
He
spits the cork at Soldier, and drinks.
A
far superior teacher than thought, which whirls in a vacuum, unable to escape
it’s own fartwind… hurt for me, dog, and learn from it, or
you’re a dead man, deader than the ones you’ve killed tonight, without
giving them a chance to talk you out of it…
Painter,
let me up! I ain’t killed nobody-
Your
mistake! Nature is cruel, small things eatin’ smaller ones, crawlin round
in the mud shiny tooth lookin for dinner…yer just dinner now, soldier,
dumb shit, dinner… tell the Duchess why a creature that crawls like
beasts should live…
Goya pulls him across the
floor, Soldier
panics, they fight briefly. Goya easily overpowers Soldier. Leocadia comes in from the
bedroom.
Francho
what is it?
They
pause.
He’s
trying to eat me.
We’re
philosophizing!
Yes…go
to bed, both of you. What was that about a duchess?
They
disengage and slowly stand, Goya helps Soldier up, they are flush
with male bonding.
Nice
gun. It’s a Uroca, from Repaul. Incredible machine. When you fight a duel
with it, over a woman no doubt, keep in mind that this gun is itself a woman, a
woman that wants you more than life, thus she will kill for you, if you hold
her with a steady hand, and squeeze her without trembling. Look inside! Dark as
a woman’s barrel… and rifled, for added…pleasure…
Y’know
Urocas! The best. Shoot fast and straight. Shoots itself, so damn easy to load.
Y’can fire three times f’every one from th’ other guy…
What
have you done to know that? Boys! Off!
Soldier escapes to the back
room couch, grateful for his rescue from the madman. Leocadia gestures to Goya to remain, which he
does. There are more sounds of gunfire in the distance.
I’m afraid.
(Picks up his own gun,
checks the site.) Nice gun. It’s a Uroca, from Repaul. Nothing to fear.
Guillermo is in the
militia… with Riego… risking his life, his only…
(Appears out of it.)
Uroca’s were used by both sides on the Second.
Francisco!
Goya takes another drink.
The Duchess used them for
her hunting team. She loved the idea of mechanical killing. At her house she
had one of the famous automatons of the great watch-maker Jaquet-Droz.
It’s a full-sized mechanical man that sits at a table and writes out
whatever you tell it to scribe. It can draw portraits, she told me, and she
laughed that I was soon obsolete… if smiths can get this good with guns
and engineers with mechanical men, why not put the two together and have
mechanical war. Build an army of these soldiers and you can take over the
world. She wanted to hunt with automatons…
(Angry, storming around
collecting her shawl and etc.) Francisco!
(Points the gun at the
painting.) If she were alive she would get him out of the line of fire…
she knows people, you know… on both sides…that was her genius.
(Furious) I told you
Guillermo is in danger! You talk of her now? Bastard! That puta lived on her
back for money, and fame! You! Her slave! She’s your real lover, perfect as
memory, dead flesh eternally white, uncorrupted as the saints!
She leaves, slamming
the front door. Goya is
drinking heavily, shrugs and doesn’t seem to care, knowing she’ll
be back. He sees the Duchess of Alba approach through a back entrance. Deafman 1 is heard. She slowly removes her outer clothes
during his monolog.
(Points the gun at her.)
People, my weakness, her genius. Many people rich and poor, though mostly rich,
and she invited them all to her parties, rich and poor, the rich ones especially,
and she fucked them all without prejudice, the rich ones anyways, eh Duchess?
You always had a laugh and a smart word, and noone told you about art. Noone
but me, right Duchess? “More portraits!”, you commanded… You
only liked the heads, remember? You thought the bodies were stiff and
mechanical, like a machine painted them…I took the heads of all the court
and put them on canvas so the world would always know how happy and rich they
were. I took more heads off than the guillotine, and I was paid for it, and it
was work, like the mason, I’d go to work and lay my bricks of paint in
the house of heavenly happiness, and every time I’d smooth a wrinkle or
remove a mole or fill a pore I’d get richer. Did we talk art, Duchess?
There are only two subjects in art – Lust and Hunger, ruling the Kingdom
of Nature in her deepest catacombs just as love and fear rule the beast-man in
the Cathedral of Emotion. Are there these two, Duchess? Are there two, or just
one, one wheel within which two rabid snakes bite each others tails, waiting to
strike while the other sleeps?
The Duchess sings 3 Fates.
The battle ends and
birds of prey take wing
when the exulting shot
of the victor
kills me.
The old ones spin then cut
the thread of all our
lives.
As the squall exhales and sun caresses unfurled sail
a line from the canon
tether
trips me
into the sea.
And the old ones spin
then cut
the thread of all our
lives.
(break)
One man breaks his tooth
eating oyster
Another finds the pearl-
but gap-tooth
finds a wife
at the surgeon's house.
One man drills only
water for his trouble
Another strikes oil-
but comes the drought
and the man
with water lives.
And the old ones spin
then cut
the thread of all our
lives.
Goya sits down with drink
and pistol but falls asleep, assuming the tableau of the
Sleep
of Reason
etching. A robot slits and then issues forth from the Judith scrim, and another
from the Saturn…they sit expectantly onstage looking at the sleeping form
of Goya...making
strange machine noises.
DARK.
INTERMISSION
Scene
1.
The
Dragon & Spider instrumental is played as an overture for Act 2.
Godfella
robot does a 2-minute solo, with unintelligable vocal sounds and his usual
movement-logos.
There are many robots on
stage now, and other (human) figures such as Sackpeople and people from his folly etchings such as the Masqueraders,
who lounge about playing
cards, doing magic tricks and generally partying. These dream characters speak
in improvised tongues and humorous interchanges. They all engage in a word-jam
(and music-jam) session, allowing the actors, musicians and sound people to
improvise within the constraints of this hallucinatory dream-scape, using
made-up language and a conceivably infinite variety of ritual movement and
experimental technique.
The only rule for this
2-minute jam session is that there be no familiar language, either spoken or
musical. The actors must speak in tongues and the musicians must attempt to
make music they have never heard the like of before.
Goya then awakes with empty painting frames where the
Black Paintings were.
Scene
2.
The Duchess of Alba now appears at the party for the first time. She
has become more psychedelic, with Gothic hooker-style make-up and attitude.
Since she is seen in the light more it should now be clear that she has
numerous tatoos and piercing, she looks more like a high-end stripper in a San
Francisco club than a 19thcentury duchess.
She sings Dark Oasis.
Your
eyes are the mist of summer’s dusk,
With
laughing phantoms abound,
Too
playful for this dark oasis.
Your
lament is a foghorn on lonely nights,
Reflecting
off sea-cliffs high,
Too
much sorrow for these wave to bear.
Your
soul is a long buried chamber,
With
a door weighed down by a golden lock,
Too
deep for exploring in these times.
Your song is the breath of a child’s rhyme,
Across the park one lonely day,
A cry too soft to remember.
A
cry too soft to remember.
(All the following dialog
should overlap appropriately.)
The Duchess has a childish
but effective seductiveness. She is strong, sexy, intelligent, narcissistic and
speaks with an extremely deliberate, unidentifiable
Euro-style accent. Care
should of course be taken so that this deliberateness is not mistaken for bad
acting.
(Seductive
but false) I am ve-ry lone-ly now.
JUDITH
Shoot
me a bonely one, lone sky.
SATURN
Out
the byway by the highway sleigh, feed ma a roach and I’ll glide you to
confide.
GOYA
No.
I
am… very, very lonely.
JUDITH
Mo
fat for the fly-pack. I’m commin in for a belly landin.
GOYA
You’re
never lonely.
SATURN
Oh
miser high hello, I’ll kyte still the catskills batstiff.
So
lonely. I’m dead you know.
JUDITH
Dead
as a three-pound pack a two-penny nails. She hit the snail onna headman’s
doubt.
GOYA
You don’t care about me.
GOYA
My
teeth hurt. How bout removein the upper cupid and puttin in a millin’
head, I’d like to make some new parts while I talk from now on stead a
chewin’ air like a tabacca.
JUDITH
Shoot
me a bonely one, father.
Nobody cares about me.
GOYA
But
they want to fuck you.
SATURN
Gfah!
Poor is the toothspace that lacks a crown.
Yes, that’s as good. Even better, no?
JUDITH
Blush me feathers fry half-sinned.
GOYA
You’re
right.
SATURN
Poor
is the toothspace that lacks a clown.
(Pretends to cry, leans over Goya seductively.) How can you joke with me like
that?
JUDITH
Breath my
further fly have shins.
GOYA
You want to make everyone love you, and they do, until the next moon. Why do you cry.
I want you to love me, more than your art, more
than yourself.
GOYA
Not today.
You lie! You love me always…
JUDITH
I
had bad dad. Sad.
I didn’t betray, you betray, you betray
yourself which is worse.
GOYA
Bullshit.
(She
becomes a jazz singer from the 40s) Your bogus “liberty” scat while
you scammin’ bread from the cats thats holdin’ the whips and
chains. You the liar, big briar! You the fake Jake! You holdin’ the fag
hag toke bag jersey city boy, and get down, get down, no sense in wearin’
a clown frown, you got dry heaves, no way yer gonna leave.
The band inprovs on her riff for a minute, and
JUDITH and SATURN dance.
GOYA
Who
are you, friend? You look familiar.
SATURN
Hey,
pop. Do the dance!
I have a new toy.
JUDITH
Bless my father free-hand skin.
GOYA
I’ve
heard your voice.
SATURN
Walk
around the church on yer kneecaps, low to the wind, low to the wings, low to
the shindig, then twirl your partner and low-see-low.
Saturn
sings
a song.
siren
calls sleeping dogs to lie
inside
the dog sleeps great white maggots
with
men in sacks and dogs who bag it
and
priests set loose the dogs of war
and
war dogs eat the hungry poor
niggers slave for
dogs in heaven
while
rich men bone the dogs to leaven-
men
mount bitches from the rear
guardians
kill dogs for the price of beer
dogs
steal babies from the cradle
while
girl sucks dog long as she is able
oh
harry’s dog is playing poker
while
dog of sam sends souls to broker
and
barker says his dog is cruel
but
buyer wants to kennel fools…
and
round and round the wheel it goes
where
it stops, the whale she blows.
Venus
does her carrion gorge while
Vulcan
suffers at the forge…
the
groom will wear the horns of bulls
the
bride will to the priest annul
the
general gambles spoils of war
while
some have less and others more
and
beggars wear the crown of feathers
and
monks address their yawning betters
and
cannibals join the night brigade
while
kings do bless the masquerade…
and round and round
the wheel it goes
where
it stops, the angel rows-
the
savage wheel will take a turn
and
most deny what they come to learn
and
hands will numb
and
jaws will slack
and
eyes will pop
and
guts will crack
and
chins will grin
and
wine tastes fine
when
you come to learn
what
the wheel will earn
when
you come to learn
what
the wheel will earn
when
you come to learn
what
the wheel will burn.
All
power is leveled when Delusion sings her comedies:
everyman
is born into a shroud-cloth
delivered
and embalmed in the same doctor’s breath
staring
into the sun.
DARK
Scene 3.
Deafman
2
on the soundtrack.
(Back to cocqette, she picks up and examines a
large paintbrush.) You do miss me, you know you do. This feels good. Is it
sable?
GOYA
Yes.
But there’s straw in you instead of bone. (To the brush) Nice. So big and straight.
Slave0
and Slave1 dance during this dialog as a duet. Goya picks up his Uroca.
GOYA
Sable. From the young one..
You can’t even hold a sword or shoot a
pistol, much less a woman. Isn’t it poetic that an animal must die for
you to make your beauty?
GOYA
All animals die.
I
am dead, you know.
GOYA
(Disturbed) Don’t talk that way.
(Gives
him his gun) How do you think they killed it?
GOYA
With promises.
Straw
hands can’t shoot straight, or hold a paintbrush…
GOYA
Your
paintings were like magic mirrors... true enough to be recognized, but at the
same time flattering, fat became thin, old were young again, the hideous became
marvels of symmetry and accord, twisted grinning privilage became wry benevolence
in your parlor. You were getting rich, but you were a Strawman, and you had to
have your opinions, and they figured you out Cisco, didn’t they?
GOYA
No doubt.
Scene
4.
More
gunshots, very near. There is a loud knock on the door. Soldier finally awakes,
enters in his long johns and opens the door. It’s Priest. As he stands in the
doorway the hallucinatory sounds from outside, of marching men, distant cannon
fire and cries of fear, increase in volume, and lights are seen, like strobes,
as of lanterns and the flashes of gun pans.
Senor Goya pardon my intrusion upon your august household at a time like this but I am in great need of your assistance. I have been summoned to give the last rites to certain condemned criminals and I must find the Principe Pio. I thought I knew it but everything is different tonight. Munoz! (He sees Soldier, who he apparently knows) Come with me, Munoz. Come! Bring your shovel, man. Your duty awaits. We’ll dig our way to the new world if we need to, tonight.
(Getting dressed) Are we mining, Father? Or digging for treasure?
Oh
without a doubt. Not the same that you dug of tonight, but treasure the same.
By
tomorrow morning it’ll be safe to be a priest again!
Soldier pulls his pants on
and they leave, much to the delight of the robots who explode in exaltation
when the door closes.
Bad
man, goodbye! Now we are alone!
JUDITH
Slim
jim in the aside pocket.
SATURN
Eight
ball tall from the snails tail, jailbait.
GOYA
Not now…(he picks up his pistol)
Show
me what you do, when you are alone, Goya. Show me how you paint these…
artworks of yours. (She dances around him seductively as he points the gun at
her)
JUDITH
Ole!
Jose.
SATURN
Show
her yer mahlstick, quick.
GOYA
You show how you paint yer face, how you make it seem so white and smooth.
How
do you get such dark color out of these tubes? They can’t contain such
color!
JUDITH
Whatch
out for a sideshow stickho.
SATURN
Make
it smooth and real like the big deal, and she’ll steal yer last meal.
GOYA
Show how you fill in all the holes in your bones to make such a pretty mask.
I’ll
show you what you want to see. (she exposes her breast)
JUDITH
Whoa!
Pullin out the big guns onna half-time cere-money!
SATURN
Study
the move, its the way its done for maximum stun fun.
They kiss, then make love,
first passionately, then violently. Goya stands her up, and leans her over on
the Sleep of Reason desk
while the Slave 0 and Slave
1 robots careen nearby. The Kora
Solo is the first music for
the lovemaking, and for once the gunshots outside are not heard at all. She resists him at
last, while showing him the gun. Judith
then
sings
Nada,
while Alba
holds the gun for Goya and shows him the fine points in pantomime.
I am an ordinary man.
I die by lantern glow on
a cold hill.
Look at me as you aim
eyes dumb as stone.
And just a day ago I lay
with my love.
Now I am nothing.
I join the millions in
eternity.
Is that the sound of
dogs?
I am an ordinary man
On a cold hill
On a cold hill
The
lighting goes dark and there follows a soundscape which must be immensely
realistic. First are heard the sounds of many marching feet, then firing squad
orders in Spanish, screams of the doomed and relatives of the doomed, are
heard. Godfella comes out again, this time revealing his protuberance as he speaks
and squawks over the infernal racket.
Goya looks outside while
again preparing his pistol, but before he finishes Soldier reappears bloody,
haggard and frightened. He has left the killing fields, dazed and stone-empty.
He stands mutely in the doorway, until all notice him. Silence appears
majestically.
Goya grabs his pistol and
his sketchbook, then Soldier’s hand.
To the hill,
puppy! There’s soldiering for us tonight! (He holds up some charcoal)
Pistol! (holds up a brush) Musket! (Holds up his real gun) Louder pistol!
Scene 5.
On the video screens
representing the Black Paintings,
scenes of the aftermath of a bloody massacre with nightmarish carnage unfold. More
a the Same is heard on the
soundtrack. Priest is
talking in tongues over a pile of bodies, jerking spasmodically.
Overlow
ting tou fin ap hosao lamo lah jubah do. How hus new forg ayas Has nablo renaea
re como seeya. Lanona kiny aer ho pecoo kew lonch au fevona gor. Baerth yout
now kinum havitas forth nous combinatas chin dom. Ihy o como sias gothua
goonidutum.
Priest wanders off into the night. Goya addresses a dead sackperson, lying in the corner
of the stage as if one of the massacred.
Goya,
that was Guillermo, was he?
(Drawing) What
was Guillermo, soldier? What was it to be Guillermo?
(Drawing) What was Guillermo?
A result, a doodad, an inevitable
casualty, an accident, a mechanical… an end product, a compulsion.
Goya
sings Compulsion.
The
compulsion of the oxen by the yoke
The
compulsion of the yoke by the harness
The compulsion of the harness by the
peasant
The
compulsion of the peasant by the landlord
The
compulsion of the landlord by his wife
The
compulsion of his wife by her beauty
The
compulsion of her beauty by mud and dust
The
compulsion of mud and dust by the oxen
The
compulsion of the oxen by the yoke.
The compulsion of the
yoke by the harness
The compulsion of the
harness by the peasant
The compulsion of the peasant by the landlord
Scene
6.
The
lights return as before this last scene. Goya, back at his home,
puts down his sketchbook and pistol. He dons a huge red clown wig to complete
his costume with an absurd flourish. The Duchess of Alba langorously
approaches. She is holding his brush. Soldier melds into the
background, but doesn’t leave. The
Duchess sings Strawman.
I
gave you my love
On
a hot summers night
You
burnt my soul
with eyes that see in the dark.
I
gave you my touch on a big oak swing;
You
spoke of truths that melt my soul with shame.
I
whispered my lies to your deaf ear.
while
you believed I thought of nothing but you.
I
gave you my kiss beneath a meadowlark kite;
you
threw your life away, fencing with Strawmen.
On
the bank of Blue River I lay with you;
Now
you are a Strawman
A toy to toss laughing
into
the sky.
You
are wrapped in all your ideas,
Like
a suit of armor -
Alone.
Alone.
But
I will give my love to a richman,
I
have my beauty and you are straw.
You
burned my soul with eyes that see in the dark.
In
the dark.
She
leaves.
Scene
7.
Goya goes after her, but
there is a flash of light and a small explosion. Everyone freezes as if
paralyzed, except Saturn. An old-style photo of Goya appears on the video
screen.
You’re obsolete, painter, old, mean, busted down and obsolete. There’s machines comin’ that’ll do what you do, and better. Someday chamber-pots will flush themselves, and grass’ll be cut by metal dogs, and men’ll send bombs across valleys and over mountains, and you, painter, will see a flash of light, and hear a blast, but instead of a pistol laying a man down its a picture, a perfect portrait, automatic, mechanical, cheap… and it’ll be you, painter, that’s laid down, into the dust…
Ain’t nobody gonna pay what you charge for a head! Not now, not no more!
Your
day’s done, Fat G.
Eaten all up by a machine!
Goya picks up his pistol and points it at his head.
SATURN
Shoulda laid up alms whilst you coulda, painter!
(To Saturn) Yeah and you’ve got such a stash, all the debutantes want a piece a you…
Soldier
stops him by taking the gun from his hand.
Maestro, the trigger mechanism, how the hell do you think he got those tolerances?
This is sweet. The sights,
what a work! Reminds me of some a yer painting, y’know? Shoots real
straight, no bullshit, right to the core of it all… takes a man to do
that… ain’t but a few that can appreciate this kinda work,
tha’s for real…
Goya is astounded and stunned at Soldiers’ remarks. He slowly stands and gratefully takes the
gun from Soldier as
offered, putting it away in the desk. There is a soft knock. Soldier answers, then exits. Leocadia thas returns. She is shaken and fearfull.
Where’ve you been? We have to talk. (He holds her, whispers to her of Guillermo’s death, she cries in agony, he holds her) I’ll walk with you, my beloved, under stain-glass skies… the night canopy will be our chapel, and the storms our God… he’ll live in us as long as we breathe, I’ll remind you of this all through the long nights, my sweet one, my love.
She slowly disengages from him,
and does a disembodied dance. She has been emptied of emotion, yet her speech
is frenzied and chattered like an oscillating carnival ride.
LEOCADIA
Slee?
The rock already crow ho little kids the sunrise crowready sex on the beach it
hurts too! It hurts! And they put her in carry me around on the bus and
won’t let abbey even come see her face. Parta me here, parta me there,
mark her in pen, right? I wish I had my mark on me now. So you all can’t
come see me now. Instead of right now I’m in find outthe ront fright
garter, and I’m - Get offa
me alright! Back up! I tryin’ to be in front. I’m in the front and
dirty’s told me in the back. I’m in front! I sit out here and ask
for them, and they clown… and they puttin’ them big claws on me
I’m in jail right now, see? Did I eat him, daddy?
She sings the Red Cloud Rise song, with the robots.
Red
Cloud Rise
Cross
warped and singing sky
Can
you see the Red Cloud Rise,
Across
the warped and singing skies
‘cross
warped and singing skies.
warped and singing skies.
She exits to her bedroom. The
eerie mood of the beginning of the play is restored.
Soundscapes with hellish surreal
voices sweel up and begin to overpower his last
words.
Listen
here son! It’s a game, a three shell game, a game you can’t win,
and on this side’s time, on this side’s money, and in the middle
says – L-O-V-E. And there’s this moment, a fraction of a moment
where it all sinks in and it’s clear that it’s the same as
it’s been for years and the same as it’s gonna be. And then
it’s back to work. It always seems to happen on a Friday night. One long
night like a mythic Friday that just keeps goin’ like a huge wheel with
lots of little wheels inside. It’s Friday because it’s payday, and
that’s when the truth hits. It’s the old shell game, only
it’s freedom you’re lookin’ for, and one shell says time, one
says money and one says love, but you need ‘em all to have a life, and in
this life you buy one with the other and end up with nothing, then you
disappear. On Friday night you get the check, and you can see it’s not
enough to buy your own life back, and why buy somebody else’s troubles
when you can’t even afford your own? So you go out and howl if you can
see where the start leaves off and the end begins, and then you disappear.
Being hot means walking away with nothing the first time, so you can take the
whole thing the next time. The trick is not to remember where you’ve
been. You’re walking down the same street you’ve lived on for a
thousand years, and you’ve never seen it before. You look up – you
know you’re number, and you open the door and you check in to the
déjà vu. I mean what is this place? Who are you? And then back to
work…hard not to remember but you can do it. Like being too tired to go
to sleep. Like being more tired when you wake. Like being a cheap top spun once
with no hand to spin again, no mirror, no marrow, no morrow…let’s
dress like clowns and spin around…till we’re high and mighty on top
the mound… and now for a rude awakening…
Partmain
partman of fragmental semmefry and solemness telemetry. Sitstain the takeback
talk-back sure shell stinkfear nowonsmere importaneous else fropenscene…
filmjuice flows fropenscene. Light like a listnew dirgadream, the patchy
partword and moresome halfaman…knock! New, and woke up back at work, and
the whole thing starts all over again, just like it never happened, and always,
anyways… kerblam blam blam of the so fry fecus terminous, stretched my
arm to touch it, then burned black…
Goya, exhausted, goes to sleep again. The Duel
with Cudgels robot comes to life and
is revealed for the first time. It begins battling with itself as soundscapes
swell into a cacophany of violence. Goya's nightmare becomes the 20th century dilemma of
Spain and the world, as the Black Paintings are transformed, by computer animation, into
Picasso’s Guernica,
then merged with video scenes of the Spanish Civil War, WWII, concentration
camps, and genocide..
Guernica music, ending with Ring Around
the Rosey, again sung by the chorus
of dispossessed children, as at the beginning...
END