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Ïîäïèñêà íà ðàññûëêóThe Fugitive King
From the circus ring the Ringmaster reminds us that change, still relentlessly underway, has already weakened the power of the crown. In fact, one by one all the political presumptions of the ancient regime have been attacked and destroyed. As the Ringmaster retreats into the shadows, we are taken back to the Tuileries Palace where both the King and Queen bewail their plight: the good times at Versailles are gone; their children play outside in a garden which is hardly more than a prison, and they have even been prevented by the mob from a visit to St. Cloud, where they hoped "to breathe freely" for a moment. With their safety no longer guaranteed, Louis and his family attempt to flee Paris for the Provinces. The Ringmaster reveals the details of their failed escape, their capture, and their return to Paris. As he does so various incidents are acted out for the audience by circus performers. Assuming the title of Baroness Korrf, the Queen, with the King disguised as her valet, sets out to join the Marquis of Bouille, a loyal royalist, in the Alsace Lorraine. On the way, a keen-eyed postmaster recognizes Marie Antoinette and raises the alarm. The party is intercepted at Varennes. Distrust of both King and Queen, already general, is greatly exacerbated by their attempted flight. Despite threats of foreign intervention (the Brunswick Manifesto proclaimed Prussia’s intention to invade France) to protect the King and his interests, he and the Queen are escorted back to Paris and its openly hostile crowds. The atmosphere grows more and more charged. The National Assembly, having temporarily suspended the King’s remaining powers, but still keen to retain a constitutional monarchy, now exonerates the King of any potentially treasonable intentions in his failed escape. The people, however, represented here by the Chorus, express increasingly vehement Republican sentiments. A crowd of 6000 march to the Champs du Mars to sign a Republican petition. The National Guard opens fire, and fifty unarmed citizens are mown down. Even now the National Assembly advocates preserving the monarchy, and in the Constitution of 1791 does precisely this. The King, still dressed as a valet from his flight to Varennes, is escorted from the royal box to the center of the ring. There, he is re-invested with all the trappings of the monarchy. Bowed down by the weight of his vestments, which include the crown, orb and scepter, and by the responsibilities that accompany them, he drags himself, now an unwilling and pathetic figure, back to the box.
RINGMASTER
And high above
Homing in the restless sky
Rooks,
melancholy, proclaim a schism between
God, sacred, and the Crown,
profane
Between the heavens and the King
The dark horizon cracks a crooked
grin
Admitting one small grain of change
Then two, then four, then bit by
bit
Then tock by tick
All the old presumptions hove in range
KING
The King is afraid that his kingdom is slipping away
QUEEN
The Queen pines for the good times at Versailles
KING
He works on his locks to the sound of the ticking of clocks
QUEEN
The children play in a garden that’s ringed with steel
KING
They wanted to visit St. Cloud to be able to
KING & QUEEN
Breathe in the air
OFFICER
The National Guard forbade them to leave
KING & QUEEN
But the Marquis of Boulli had a trump card up his
sleeve
RINGMASTER
The Marquis of Boulli a good General
And fiercely loyal to
the crown
With his army in the East
Hatched a plan to see the King
released
QUEEN
The Queen assuming the title Baroness Korrf
Her papers signed by
the King of course
Set forth before the break of day
To join up with
Boulli in Alsace Lorraine
OFFICER
From the shadows King Louis disguised as a humble valet
Sneaks
out to make his getaway
With a small entourage of course
OFFICER & CHORUS
Just a few hundred light horse
TROUBLEMAKER
Well let him go, let him run, with his Austrian whore
TROUBLEMAKER & MALE CHORUS
Let him go to Prussia
OFFICER & MALE CHORUS
Let him go to Austria
Let him go and die
there
TROUBLEMAKER & MALE CHORUS
Let him go
OFFICER & MALE CHORUS
Let him die
TROUBLEMAKER, OFFICER & MALE CHORUS
Let him rot with his Austrian
Queen...
CHORUS
That the Republic at last can come into being
But wait, fate
would intervene
OFFICER
A keen-eyed postmaster by chance
OFFICER & CHORUS
Recognized the King and Queen and
CHORUS
Rode ahead to raise the alarm
RINGMASTER
In Parliament the moderates have their say
CONDORCET
The King has not fled
He was kidnapped instead
And
spirited away
OFFICER
To suggest that the King would run is a damnable lie
CONDORCET
It sticks in our throats and conflicts with our national
pride
OFFICER
But the Austrian court
And Brunswick of course
Say they’ll
declare war
If the King’s not restored
TROUBLEMAKER (mimicking Brunswick)
You must leave the King alone
Or all
Paris will be torn down
Down to the very last stone
TROUBLEMAKER & OFFICER
Paris will be pulverized
Down to the very
last bone
QUEEN
When the carriage returned
The acrid smoke of bridges
burned
Hung heavy, like stifled sigh
And they say the Queen had a tear in
her eye
OFFICER CHORUS
When through the carriage windows A few
drops
Louis turned to face his peers in her eye
A loyal friend, the
Comte de Dampierre A nice touch, a good try
Doffed his cap with
elegance Too little
In deference to the King too late
A brave
and foolish thing to do For a last roll
In light of the prevailing
mood of the die
QUEEN
Witness the act of an honest man
To stand with cap in hand before
the baying throng
Was a brave gesture but a foolish one
RINGMASTER & CHORUS
The crowd in a gesture less than elegant
RINGMASTER
Brutally remove his head
CHORUS
Brutally remove his head
CHILDRENS CHORUS
To take your hat off
Is the gesture of a toff
But
even his lordship needs a head
To take his hat off of
So Dampierre lost
his life
By being somewhat too polite
In face of all the pain and fear
that festered
For more than a thousand years
SERGEANT (off stage)
By the left, Quick March!
CHILDRENS CHORUS
Dampierre has lost his head
The King has lost his
crown
The carriage rolls through the streets
The crowd jeers, the wheels
squeak
Hey, hey, what goes around
Always comes around
MALE CHORUS
In Germany and England
They celebrate our liberty
Over
there by and by
They’ll have their 14th of July
In Germany and England
they fete our
MALE CHORUS & CHILDREN
Liberty
OFFICER
The National Assembly try to whitewash the King
MALE CHORUS
His brothers in law
Are camped on every border
They fear
to depose him
Would mean war
MARIE MARIANNE, RINGMASTER, OFFICER & CHORUS
But feelings run
deep
And the man in the street
Hungry, weak but unbowed
Scents the
taste so sweet of peacock meat
As it wafts over the crowd
So they march to
the Champs du Mars
To demand Republic now
CHILDRENS CHORUS
We sing in the Champs du Mars
We sing of what we want
Republic with no delay
SERGEANT
Company Halt!
CHILDRENS CHORUS
Republic here, now, today
The National Assembly
Has
got it wrong
SERGEANT
Present...
CHILDRENS CHORUS
We sing in the Champs du Mars
SERGEANT
Take Aim...
CHILDRENS CHORUS
We sing of what we want
SERGEANT
Fire!...
CHILDRENS CHORUS
Repub...
RINGMASTER
The echoes never fade from that fusillade
Lafayette fired
upon
An unarmed crowd, six thousand strong
The fragile ship of State
Sinks beneath the waves
The crashing sea of
blood
Drowns out the sound of the parade
They tidied up the Champs du
Mars
They piled up the dead
The dead whose only crime had been
To dream
of freedom
The dead who’d never get to see
The King would be restored
instead
The Commune de Paris
With the monarchy restored despite the growing tide of opposition, Louis’ future, as well as that of the Crown’s, seems even more in doubt. In Parliament, from where the Ringmaster addresses us, the various factions argue over the fate of the Capet dynasty. The moderates (the Girondins) cognizant of the threats from Austria and Germany to support the King with military action, are loath to bring him down. Republican fervor, however, now concentrated in the people’s insurrectionary Commune de Paris, seems irresistible. The National Guard, including the Marseille contingent, arrive in Paris to protect the city should the Austrian army endanger it, and, lending its support to the Commune, demands that Louis be deposed on the spot. Only Swiss guards defend the royal family at the Tuileries Palace. The Priest and the Chorus (the people of the Commune) condemn the moderates in Parliament who eventually fall in line. The battle for the Tuileries Palace commences. Hundreds of people are killed before the palace is taken. The Priest appears to be the only man left standing. The National Assembly, he informs us, now takes the stand of the dead and the dying: the monarchy is finished.
RINGMASTER
The Monarchy restored
The Crown sits tilted and uneasy
now
The Girondins, one eye cocked nervous in the East
Are loath to bring
it down
TROUBLEMAKER
But at the gates
Beyond the palsied grip of limp and timid
politics
The Marseillais are girded for the fray
With pike and pick and
bloodied stick
They’ll plant the laurel tree
And their song will be a
fanfare for the Commune de Paris...
MALE CHORUS
Vive la Commune de Paris
For the love of God
In the name of freedom
For the crippled and the poor
RINGMASTER
The bells ring out the tambourines beat
The rise and fall of
voices
The sound of marching feet
Signals the demise of the Capet
dynasty
TROUBLEMAKER
It’s not whether now but when
The King and Queen have only
men
From Switzerland to defend the Tuileries
Remorseless as a rising
tide
The san colottes prepare to die
Vive la Commune de Paris
CHORUS
Vive la Commune de Paris
Vive la Commune de Paris
Vive la Commune de Paris
Vive la Commune de Paris
Vive la Commune de
Paris
Vive la Commune de Paris
Vive la Commune de Paris
Vive la Commune
de Paris
Vive la Commune de Paris
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Vive la Commune de Paris in God’s name
CHORUS
In God’s name
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Vive la Commune de Paris
For the
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHORUS
Halt and the maimed
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Who have no Pope and no hope of paradise
CHORUS
No hope of paradise
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
And nothing to lose but their miserable earthly
lives...
CHORUS
Nothing to lose but their lives
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Everyone under the sun has the power
To change the
way the world is arranged
MALE CHORUS
If you don’t use it
The powers that be will abuse
it
Give up but half of your power
And you’ll get shafted
CHORUS
Vi......ve la Commune de Paris
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHORUS
Vive la, vive la, vive la Commune
Vive la, vive la, vive la Commune de Pairs
RINGMASTER
The National Assembly is confused
The Girondins blow back
and forth
Like flags and ashes scattered by the truth
BOY
Oi, Mister...What is a Girondin?
RINGMASTER
A Girondin is careful of the company he keeps
He looks to
find a sign before he leaps
TROUBLEMAKER
Like ranks of Marseillaise, six hundred deep
Arranged
before the Tuileries
CHORUS
It’s the end of the monarchy
Vive la Commune de Paris!
RINGMASTER
The presence of the Prussians on the border
Is a worrisome
thing
The Brunswick manifesto
Serves only to stiffen the sinews
And
weaken the King
To depose him now
Fills the Girondin hearts with
fear
But the Prussians cross the border
And the order of the day becomes
clear
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHILDRENS CHORUS
The monarchy is over
No
more days in clover
CHORUS
The monarchy, c’est fini
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHILDRENS CHORUS
Brunswick is a liar
Just listen to our cannon fire!
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
The National Assembly comes in line
With the halt
and the maimed
And the dead and the dying
The monarchy, c’est fini
The Execution of Louis Capet
The war against Austria and Prussia, breaking out in the Spring of 1792, provides grounds to accuse Louis of treachery. The Ringmaster tells us that the people have been to see the King, demanding that he drink the health of the nation and again wear the red cap of liberty rather than look for comfort to his emigre brothers and their foreign allies in Austria. Apparently, the King no longer really cared. Donning the red cap too late to satisfy his visitors, they unceremoniously ripped it from his head. Now he is resigned to his fate. As a guillotine is rolled into the ring, the revolutionary dead appear to rise as ghosts. The Ringmaster gives a running commentary whilst the King, "a simple soul not bad, not mad", approaches the scaffold. As he mounts the steps to the blade, Marie Marianne asserts that too many people have died for the cause of freedom at the battle of the Tuileries for him to escape death now. Besides, the Priest adds, the King has betrayed the crown’s sacred trust. It is necessary to take his life to wipe the slate clean, to begin again. The Troublemaker reiterates this notion. The ghosts raise their arms, pointing to the guillotine. As the blade falls, they lower them. Everyone stands motionless as the guillotine is trundled from the ring. The Queen, and her son, the Dauphin, who have been watching from their places in the royal box, descend to the ring, and move amongst the stationary ghosts. The Queen turns to her son. Terror, blood, and the blade are ever the constants, she sadly tells him.
RINGMASTER
In the spring of ninety-two
The Austrians and the Prussians
too
Crossed the line
The war had come
The people went to see the
King
Reluctantly he let them in
RINGMASTER & CHORUS
And over tea they said that
He must choose one
hat
RINGMASTER
A crown in Koblenz with his friends
Or if he choose to make
amends
He might adopt
CHORUS
He might adopt
RINGMASTER & CHORUS
Their scarlet bonnet
RINGMASTER
Surprise, surprise, when left to choose
Too late he choose "The Bonnet Rouge"
MARIE MARIANNE
Adieu Louis for you it’s over
Too many carpenters and
bookkeepers and gardeners
Gave their ordinary lives to be free
On the
battlefields of the Tuileries
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
To be King is a sacred trust
But you betrayed
us
Poor King Louis
We must take your life
Clean the slate, start
anew
Poor Louis, it’s over for you
TROUBLEMAKER
The time for grief is not yet here
It’s to build a world
without tears
That we toll the funeral bell
And shed our precious blood
Poor Louis
and your precious blood as well
CHILDRENS CHORUS
Poor King Louis, you’ll soon be dead
Poor King Louis,
far from your bed
TROUBLEMAKER
Far from your bed
CHILDRENS CHORUS
Life must always end to start anew
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Poor King Louis
It’s over for you!
QUEEN
It’s always the terror you can rely on
To eat its way into your
heart
Like rust and there to spy on
The blood, the blade, the speeches made
That mingle in your very
entrails
Marie Antoinette – The Last Night on Earth
The Ringmaster returns. The ghostly figures remain. The Ringmaster tells us of the Queen’s subsequent plight. Bereft and hated, she is imprisoned with her son. We see her in the company of the boy, treating him with courtly deference, as if he were King. This, so the Ringmaster informs us, naturally reminds her enemies of the threat of succession. The boy is therefore taken away. The Queen now appears to be utterly lost, shorn of everything. In a trance, she ‘dances’ with the ghostly specters. The light changes, the dance ends. A jailer brings her writing materials. In the freshly changed scene, the window, and the oak tree from the garden in Act 1, Scene 1 become apparent. Reading aloud as she writes a final letter to her sister-in-law, the Queen now movingly expresses the pain she feels at having to abandon her children. It is her consuming regret. God, how she misses them! she is unaware of the Priest who has been attentively listening. This is the same Priest who was in the garden with her when they were both children, the same Priest who tried to remind her of that occasion in Act 2, Scene 1. Now he tries to remind her again. when she hears his voice, the Queen freezes as if startled. Yet she still doesn’t turn to face him. In an echo from the past her mother seems to be calling her in. With her back to the Priest, the Queen protests that she knows him not. The Priest gently persists, urging her to remember the oak and the peach tree, and her mother calling. Quite suddenly the Queen begins to remember. In shock, she clutches at her throat. Taking his cue, the Priest continues a silent appeal. Finally, the Queen turns to him, and, in a moment of fleeting recognition, clasps his outstretched hands. He pulls her to his breast in a desperate embrace. Having recognized in him her childhood friend, she welcomes him, but as a man rather than a Priest. The Priest kneels, closing his eyes in supplication. Unknown to him whilst he prays clowns lead her to a waiting tumbrel, and she is drawn away. When he eventually opens his eyes and sees her leaving, he tries to follow, but is prevented from doing so by one of the clowns. The Priest and Marie Antoinette then raise their arms to one another, but the Queen slowly and relentlessly departs on her final journey.
RINGMASTER
The window now bereft, abhorred
Counts numbered days the
summer long
In Temple Prison with her spawn
On pretext of ‘unnatural
acts’
With jests and jibes and guile and facts
The ‘sans culottes’ prune
the tree
Now a sister to the dispossessed
The halt, the maimed and all the
rest
Like a leaf on a pitiless sea
Shorn of family and rank
Humbled in
the dank air
She mingles with the dancers macabre
And the ghostly dancers
twirl
In the dread minuet
And beggar the illusions of that little Austrian
Girl
QUEEN
Adieu my good and tender sister
I am condemned to die
My only
regret is to abandon my children
My children, my God, how it tears me to
leave them
My love for them was always first and last
My God, I miss my
children so
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Madame Antoine, if we could only turn back the
clock
To that garden in Vienna
MARIE THERESE & FEMALE CHORUS
Madame Antoine, Madame Antoine
Mother is calling, darkness is falling
QUEEN
Monsieur, I know thee not
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
The oak tree without and the peach tree
within
Your mother was calling
The darkness was falling
QUEEN
My little cock robin pray kneel here beside me
The dance is about
to begin
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Courage Madame, in this great rebirth
Like
wind-fallen fruit we return to the earth
QUEEN
I saw but a priest
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
I am but a man
Madame, please take my hand
QUEEN
Monsieur, please take my hand
Liberty
The Queen is dead. All who have witnessed her execution reflect on the contradictions and ambiguities inherent in the use of the guillotine. Can the use of violence and terror, even be justified to achieve liberty? A question that haunts us to this day. Marie Marianne, the Ringmaster and the Priest separately and finally together express the hope that lasting peace and a full realization of the dreams of improvement that animated the revolution will come. This hope, this dream, they say, needs to be fully understood and appreciated, as do the reasons that promote unhappiness and civil unrest. Relative security, sufficiency, and serenity are the right of all. No one should thrive at the expense of another. This Republic, this great possibility, is within us all. Ca Ira.
TROUBLEMAKER
We want to get rid of the Guillotine
And abolish pain
somehow
But to make a world free of tears
We build these scaffolds now
OFFICER
Come dry your tears and pray explain
How can we abolish
pain?
If we don’t build these scaffolds now
These instruments of
injustice
These tools of execution
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
We’ve given to the Guillotine
More blood than you
have ever seen
What end could justify these means?
OFFICER
We’ve given more of our blood
MALE CHORUS
We’ve given
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
We’ve given more of our blood
MALE CHORUS
We’ve given
OFFICER
We’ve given more of our blood
MALE CHORUS
More of our blood
CHORUS
We’ve given, we’ve given
More blood, than we could turn to
love
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & OFFICER
Than we could ever hope could turn
to
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Love
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & OFFICER
More blood, than we could
Ever hope
could turn to love
CHORUS
We’ve given, we’ve given
More blood, than we could turn to
love
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Come angels of mercy
Come doves of peace
Shine
a light on all these warring clubs and cliques
OFFICER
The jackal and hyena who prowl these city streets
Would turn in
their own mother for a little extra meat
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
From the piles of dead the Republic comes to
life
Her mutilated body reeling like a drunken fishwife
Gives birth to the
future
OFFICER
Gives birth on the street
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, OFFICER & CHORUS
Impure and exultant she gives
birth to the dream
RINGMASTER & MARIE MARIANNE
When the dream
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
When the dream
RINGMASTER & MARIE MARIANNE
Is understood
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Is understood
RINGMASTER, REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & MARIE MARIANNE
That no man should
live in chains
That the great and the small are equal after all
RINGMASTER
And in the bushes where they survive
The winter hail and the slaughter
The birds were attacked by the dogs and
the rats
Hiding round every corner
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
When you’re a rat caught in a trap with not even
cheese you get mean
CHILDRENS CHORUS
But we are not rats
OFFICER
When you’re a rabid dog you need to spread your disease
CHILDRENS CHORUS
But we are not dogs
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & OFFICER
When you’re a man and they say you
should be an angel
CHILDRENS CHORUS
We're not even human
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
When you’re less than nothing
OFFICER & MALE CHORUS
Less than nothing
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, OFFICER & CHILDRENS CHORUS
Less than nothing as
sure the sparrows sing
MARIE MARIANNE
If wishes give us power to make it all come right
If we
could walk through mirrors
If we could touch the light
We’d shrug off our
illusions and what was left would be
The strength and bravery
To feel what
we feel
And be what we’d be...
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Of all the women none can hold a light to liberty
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHORUS
With wings to fly and eyes to see
TROUBLEMAKER & CHORUS
She’s the one who loves us
The one that we
adore
When you’re laughing with the sun out
Or lying wounded in a dug
out
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
With wings to fly and eyes to see
Freedom is her
name
OFFICER
She makes a fearsome ally
If you stand up with no shame
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
But liberty is nothing if you love her on your knees
OFFICER & MALE CHORUS
And liberty can’t hear you!
When you’re
hanging from an olive tree!
RINGMASTER
If we don’t founder in pursuit of luxury
In forgetfulness of
others needs
And in the depths of our own beliefs
MARIE MARIANNE
If we don’t hide in that solitary dream
Safe in our
shells
In respect for the powers that be
And in fear of ourselves
CHILDRENS CHORUS
If wishes could come true
If mirrors could be seen through
No more mystery
Only the strength and
bravery
To help one another
To see what it’s like to be...
Happy!
No
bird needs to be afraid
To leave his nest and to parade
Up and down the
boulevard all day
All day
All day!
No bird must be greedy
And eat up
all the seed
‘Til every bird has had enough
Every bird
Be he rich or be
he poor
Be he great or be he small
every bird, every bird, every bird,
every bird
Will go to the ball
RINGMASTER
If this life’s a journey we take
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
If the secret the sharing of cake
MARIE MARIANNE
Holds the key, holds the key to joy
RINGMASTER
And unlocks these doors inside
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST
Where Republic must surely hide
MARIE MARIANNE
If wishes really could come true
RINGMASTER
If we see through the illusions
REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST & CHORUS
And abide by the constitution
MARIE MARIANNE
There’ll be human rights for everyone
CHORUS
Unique and universal
COMPANY
For everyone
Under the sun!
RINGMASTER, REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST, MARIE MARIANNE, TROUBLEMAKER &
OFFICER
If we are not lost in these towers of ivory
In respect for the
strong
And in fear of our need to belong
The promise of Republic lies
within
Ca Ira
COMPANY
Ca Ira
Curtain
