"Inheritance"
ENSEMBLE: WE ARE THE PEASANTS
AND FACTORY WORKERS.
WE SEEK PROMISED LANDS,
WE SEEK PROMISED HARVESTS.
WE ARE CHILDREN OF WAR
AND CHILDREN OF CARNAGE.
WE ARE YOUR SONS
AND WE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS.
WE ARE THE NOBODIES,
STATISTICS OF SLAUGHTER.
(A dancer dies. Another, be it friend or enemy, lifts the body over his shoulder and exits into the audience. There is no honour in this death. A section of the ENSEMBLE splits off and follows. Singing in monosyllabic mourning, this funeral march exits into the audience and out the back doors of the theatre. The others continue their frenetic dance.)
ENSEMBLE: IT'S A MATTER OF POVERTY,
A MATTER OF LITERACY,
A MATTER OF POLICY,
A MATTER OF HIGHER BEINGS.
IT'S A MATTER OF DIGNITY,
A MATTER OF SOVEREIGNTY,
A MATTER OF HERESY,
A MATTER OF ANYTHING.
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?
IT'S A MATTER OF WAR.
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?
WE ARE WHAT WE ARE.
WHAT DOES IT MATTER
WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING FOR?
(The ENSEMBLE splits yet again, into second and third groups. The first funeral march is still winding its way through the audience towards the exit, singing its wordless mourning song. The two lovers still dance alone, ignorant to all that is about them.)
ENSEMBLE #2: // ENSEMBLE #3:
WE WERE NOT BORN // WHAT DOES IT MATTER?
IN INNOCENCE. // WE'RE ALREADY SCARRED.
HOW DO YOU CEASE // WHAT DOES IT MATTER?
WHAT'S INHERITANCE? // IT'S A MATTER OF WAR.
WHOEVER TOLD YOU // WHAT DOES IT MATTER
LIFE MAKES SENSE? // WHO SLAMS THE DOOR?
WHOEVER TOLD YOU // WHAT DOES IT MATTER
LIFE MAKES SENSE? // WE ARE WHAT WE ARE.
(A dancer in ENSEMBLE #2 dies and a new funeral march into the audience begins. They weave their voices into the monosyllabic mourning of ENSEMBLE #1, echoing it. ENSEMBLE #3 continues to sing and the lovers continue to dance on an increasingly empty stage.)
ENSEMBLE #3: WE WERE NOT BORN
IN INNOCENCE.
HOW DO YOU CEASE
WHAT'S INHERITANCE?
WHOEVER TOLD YOU
LIFE MAKES SENSE?
WHOEVER TOLD YOU
LIFE MAKES SENSE?
(ENSEMBLE #1 finally exits through the back of the theatre. A dancer from ENSEMBLE #3 dies and, like all the rest, they exit into the audience, mourning the death of the one they killed and now carry. DIEGO and IMACULATA continue to dance their slow dance of disillusion, her on stilts, him in a wheelchair, both of them separate and blind. At last they are truly alone. They are islands unto themselves. ENSEMBLE #2 exits as does ENSEMBLE #3 soon after. The music continues, then begins to decay. It falters and falls until all that is left is a harsh rhythm against which the lovers continue to dance in a repetitive cycle of motions beneath the arc of Dictator JOMORRA's long‑dead form. SALAMÓN's charred corpse remains as a grisly, silent warning atop its pyre of masks. The house lights come up but the dance goes on. The audience is given no voice, no means of expression. Whatever expressions they do make are futile and change nothing. Stagehands emerge from the wings to sweep the stage and ready the set for the next day's performance. DIEGO and IMACULATA dance their endless cycles until everyone has left the theatre and gone home.)
~montepío: estas que eres~
EL FIN / THE END
♩♫ ♬ MUSIC ♬ ♫♩
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montepío - the musical
General FictionThe libretto for a 2-act Broadway-style musical about a revolution that plays out on a fictional Latin American coffee plantation. And Diego, the revolutionary leader, is in love with the Dictator's daughter... Love, politics, violence, and conseque...
