Freakshow
THE FREAKSHOW TEMPLE, IS A NIGHTMARISH PLACE, FULL OF WEIRD CREATURES, THUS: SHOWMAN Step right this way! Ladies and Gentlemen! Girls. And Boys. All conceivable amazements, from all parts of our great and conquered world are here: exotic blooms and beasts of burden, oriental geishas, Turks, hermaphrodites and other freaks, wonders terrible and marvellous, both great and small: diurnal lepidoptera (that’s butterflies to you and I) in gay profusion, fire-eaters, water-sprites, wild gypsies, giants and ventriloquists and last but not least: the Invisible Girl. BEAT. HE HAS OVERSTRETCHED HIMSELF All manner of waxwork, clockwork, woodwork, all the tents and booths a modern Merlin can contrive on limited time and budget: wild beasts, puppet shows all out of the way, far-fetched and outrageous things ladies sawn in half, all portable Promethean thoughts all jumbled up together to make up a venue for Your Pleasures THE BIER ARRIVES Boys and girls! (Never forgetting Ladies and Gentlemen!): The Story Continues! EVERYONE SURROUNDS LILY, TAUNTING LILYWait! BEAT: THEY WAIT I’ll tell you a story: BEATOnce Upon a Time there was a little girl… SHOWMANFREAK What’s her name? LILYUm - Lily….what should come next? BUMPSFREAK Where does Lily live? LILYLILY lives in a wild garden. At the bottom of a well. CORYFREAK Why would she live at the bottom of a well? LILYBecause - She is very brave. Every day she climbs out and goes chasing butterflies. MINAFREAK Why would she want to chase butterflies? LILYBecause - she is very beautiful, and so are they. One day she meets another little girl called Gertrude. Or Victoria. Or Marianne. BUMPSFREAK Which? CORYFREAK “It depends”. BUMPSFREAK “What on?” LILYOn what. Shhh. It doesn’t matter. I’m stuck. Ask me more questions. SHOWMANFREAK Are you sure? LILYOf course. GARDENERFREAK Why? LILYYou want to know what happens, don’t you? To find out what happens. In the end. ARCHITECTFREAK That’s easy. SHOWMANFREAK We know what happens. LILYOne day, Lily dies. SHOWMANOh, yes. BUMPSFREAK Take my hand, old chap. CORYFREAK Try to be brave, my little princess. LILYOf course! MINAFREAK It’s a bright sort of performance. LILY IS COCOONED IN A SHROUD. THEY STAND BACK TO ADMIRE HER MINAFREAK I see you as the Lady of Shallot. BUMPSFREAK Morning Glory. CORY FREAK Perfect living doll. LILYAt the end of the day, with a multitude of Purple Emperors hovering around me along those forest paths, in the hot, still days of early July they flutter in my ears, they settle on my hat and the sleeves of my cotton blouse, they even settle on the net itself. I am - a woman of butterflies. SHE DIES. THEY WRAP HER UP AS A COCOON, DURING: SHOWMANIn 1940, an elderly woman is discovered dying by the roadside near Mount St Benedict on the island of Trinidad. A butterfly net nearby. She has apparently suffered a heart attack but is still conscious. She is found by a member of the local house of a religious order, Brother Fredericko, who carries her in his arms to the nearby guesthouse where she had been staying. She dies soon afterwards. LILY IS LIFTED ONTO A BIER FOR THE PROCESSION. THE SHOWMAN IS ECSTATIC. SHOWMAN And now: Everyone - process this way to the Grotto of the Four Winds, for our grand finale.