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"I have been watching you; you were there, unconcerned perhaps, but with the strange distraught air of someone forever expecting a great misfortune, in sunlight, in a beautiful garden."
Count Maeterlinck, "Pelléas et Mélisande" (1892)
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ACT ONE, SCENE ONE
Three crones high atop a neo-renaissance palazzo, in the bleak last days of March, stirring a a huge black cauldron.
Crones:
Ere’s a pinch of turnip fuzz, and ere’s a dram of black toad gall,
ere’s the fizz that makes the biz our very privileged wherewithall.
ACT ONE, SCENE TWO
The winter palace of Lady Fresh Kills, aging noble woman and chatelaine of the province of Stately Island, host to the world's largest landfill.
Lady Fresh Kills, pacing the faux-Italian marble gallery off the great hall of the winter palace, turns to her retainer Fitzhugh von Formaldehyde, chief of security.
Lady Fresh Kills:This labor draws the breath of me, I think that what is done is done.
But what’s that great and noisesome flutter, amid the rubble and the clutter?
Image (right): Stately Island
Fitzhugh von Formaldehyde scratches his stubbled face and straightens his moulting raccoon hat.
Fitzhugh von Formaldehyde:
My Lady, this is why it’s best to round the slopes and cap the beast.
Should be a chilly day in Hell 'fore any things out there get free.
Enter Baron Hillstrupp, local potentate, with hounds.
Baron Hillstrupp:
Hark! The horn has called us hither, now to play the fearsome game,
to sow with dragons teeth the mounds high above our Stately’s sound.
My hounds have sniffed the greatly stench and found the hare enfeebled there.
The hart has croaked, the weeds do tower above the City’s steely bower.
What came before (and was tossed hither) is now come round, in silence with'ring.
A ghostly shade, it does behoove us drive it back to where it languished.
“Cap”, say the fearsome dignitaries, afore the scary, irksome fairies
unleash the winds and foul the airs of Manahatta's golden storeys.
Amid the glass, the brick and chrome, I sense the tarnished brow and dome
of gentle Empress Juliana. Our damsel’s locks, with frangipani,
curl and circle this greatly polis with sweetness limpid, and grace insipid;
Tis quite a mess that's come to haunt us.
Lady Fresh Kills:
My baron speaks the horrid truth, it’s truly time to cede that hope
has fallen into hardened times and earthmounds cannot ever find
the greening boughs of noble oak, or capture wildflowers in this choked
and mangled height of rubbish reeking, for havoc has descended leaking.
Fitzhugh departs with downturned stubbled face, flies swirling. The sound of gulls engulfs the hall as the door opens to reveal the vast sweep of the smouldering landscape. Baron von Hillstrupp paces the room hitching up his britches as his hounds cower at the arrival of Duke Eversorp, a landscape architect, eighteenth in line to the throne and scepter.
The Duke:
I’m the one, I dare to swear it, that’ll inherit this monstrous heap.
And if the Lady will not plant it with gardens green and arbors cherished,
the source of your own sorrow lies in every serfling’s bloodshot eyes.
My heart it dives along with sparrows, to seek a twig or scrap of tinsel
to wrap its nest and meek abode as winter rides its ancient road
to far away and distant shores. Good spring does plead the circling sun
to sow its seed amongst its rounds within these adventitious weeds
and warm the murky depths, indeed.
Lady Fresh Kills:
Keep your irksome notions still, while learned brows do here confer
to find the proper way to fill the empty coffers Time has brought.
Extra costs, and burdens mighty, suggest a tax to put all tidy.
Fair Juliana seeks contritely to spare the kingdom a lawsuit nightly.
We’ve shipped the worst to distant friends, but still the carts do overween,
froth and foam has killed the salmon, while lurksome mutants flit in waters
black and foul and gross unsightly. Turgid, crimson eels do slither,
the elk has split, and hawks do croak like lowly frogs in stagnant moats.
The Duke, not pleased by this rebuke, leaves the gallery and gestures to several female cousins, lurking in the foyer, to join him at the ale-house opposite the palace gates.
ACT ONE, SCENE THREE
The Very Small Ale-House across from Lady Fresh Kills' winter palace. Duke Eversorp and the three female cousins, all landscape architects, are huddled over a pitcher of Slipperee, their favorite nutbrown ale. The Playwright arrives with a sheaf of papers and a harried look on his face. He sits at a nearby table looking down and writing.Image (above) - Three landscape architects
The Duke: (slurping and wiping his mouth on his embroidered silken sleeve)
Ah! I'd a scheme most surely hatch from out this pretty serpent's egg,
were I not but a pint or more quite toast and all but on the floor.
You, sweet cousin, Malvidia, can have the whole pathetic thing.
You're younger, better looking too, and lithesome, dare we venture there.
The Lady thinks me dimly lit, and I too think she's gross designs
to make the slopes of our fair kingdom into something wholly loathsome.
To wit, it's obvious to any, that not's beholden to the Lady,
that Fitzhugh and our chatelaine are huddling to concoct a plan.
To bring an able architect, in sable wrap and velvet cloak
from god knows where to primp and doll the forlorn mounds with tracks and walls.
The greater glory all but tarnished, the conniving Baron sucks the marrow,
this coup disgrace in fake iambic is proving now a horrid gambit.
The Playwright: (looking up from his sheaf of papers)
What's your problem Eversorp? You'd much prefer we end this caper?
And never see if you and your's may ever rise to seize this prize?
The Duke:
I'd quite prefer that you might write into this play sweet love's respite.
For landscape architects, as such, require love's warmth in recompense.
The Playwright:
Alright, then, but let's wait a bit. Till Act Two, Scene Two, if you will.
But it can't be your lithesome cousin, nor can it be a maid's undoing.
Your love int'rest should have a lair, a femme fatale will spring this snare.
ACT TWO, SCENE ONE
A parlour at the winter palace. The table is strewn with papers and the Holy Commission to Resolve the Matter of the Monumental Mounds has assembled in the anteroom. Lady Fresh Kills is searching for the last stragglers in the corridors and ushering them into the ornate parlour. There is a last minute scramble for the Biedermeier chairs arrayed around the long, finely polished table. Delicate crystal glasses and tumblers are brought by the Lady's servants as the nine commissioners are seated. The High Commissioner enters last and sits at the head of the table.
Commissioner One:
The film rights are the number one consideration here today.
I think Polanski, if he's free ... Perhaps De Niro could play me?
Lady Fresh Kills:
Enough, already Number One, we haven't yet a noble game.
To give the cinematic rights away, we need a cast and, more's to say,
the meeting has not yet begun till everyone has settled down.
Our method, in these labored hours, cannot be seen to feign discretion.
Nor can we deign to honor midgets, even if they are among us.
Commissioner Two:
What's that, my Lady? Dwarfs are here? Below the pale, out of sight?
Let's sweep the room of all's awry and stay till we have colloquy.
Tis mighty architects we seek to solve this awful disarray,
to squelch ignoble mountebanks and niggling, numberless no accounts.
"Beyond, beyond, BEYOND the pale", mutters a stagehand, out of sight but audibly.
Commissioner Three:
The landscape architects will grumble, I fear the Duke has sordid plans,
here and there, as case may be, to sow discord as wanton seed.
He's seen to side with notaries of questioned faith and anomie,
round parts he's known to favor gardens and wispy things that no man fathoms.
Lady Fresh Kills: (sotto voce to the High Commissioner)
I'll see the Duke does no such mischief, the misfit is still high besotten
of ladies' anklets, perfum'ries, and some say "cousins" - this last has wings.
The Playwright:
My lady, if I may impose, it's rather more than that you see.
The lad and lassies fancy trees and bushy things round flowery meads.
High Commissioner: (clearing his throat)
Ah hem! Friends and colleagues, you all know, to friend and foe I'm known as ...
Playwright: (interrupting the High Commissioner)
One rhyme per quatrain, please my liege, internal rhyme's the sweetest kind.
High Commissioner: (looking at the Playwright, hesitantly)
By any other name a ... My ... is known to make knaves ...
Playwright: (leaning forward to address the High Commisioner)
That's both internal, and 'the end'. Your liege must feign to goose this game.
But that's for nought, since all have ears, for here've arrived our honored peers.
Enter five architects all wearing large flowery bow ties
Lady Fresh Kills:
Your liege, I note the time is now, that stellar human beings come,
such architects as these are known to blind the heel and heal the blind.
They've deigned to come with folded wings, and weigh our need in golden scales,
and with portfolios they sing, their praises amongst other things.
The monographs, the slides, the haloes ... All five have worked for popes and pharoahs.
All a sudden, with great force, the table bursts from its midpoint and Duke Eversorp and his three cousins rise with swords raised in the neo-classical pose of the HoratiiImage (right): "Oath of the Horatii" - Jacques-Louis David (1784)
The Duke:
Now! Cousins, slay these creatures, here, inbred mob that's done deceit
with clear conniving, against nature, imposing hideous architecture!
With speed we end this paltry session and goad the parliament apportion
our fair share of Fresh Kills' future, may green and sunny vales and hills
bring forth the end of this corruption, accepting there these freshest kills!
The Duke and his cousins liquidate the nine commissioners, the five architects, Lady Fresh Kills, and the High Commissioner but spare the Playwright
The Duke:
Playwright! Find your errant pen, and pleasure ink to history's din,
the outcome's come and we'll be praised for what we've wrought upon this day.
The land will now yield fragrant posies, the hawk will lose its hideous croak,
the evil shadow play is ceased, eighteenth in line, myself does speak!
These were all inlaws, outlaws say us, my rival heirs all dead and lifeless.
Now Eversorp, the rightful lord, decrees a mausoleum poured.
On Fresh Kills, there the seventeen will now be planted midst the green.
The putrid slopes will twitt'ring ring, and toxic ooze turn crystal springs.
Necropolis or mausoleum, matters not if ne'er we see them.
The Playwright:
A mausoleum? Not so bad! Your Highness and these smart-dressed vixen
half surprise me, half impress me. Your plans do have a certain 'fragrance',
poetic justice, now engulfs us? Rapacious in your smartest hour,
all landscape architects now powered, to rise and wreak gross savage virtue
round fiefdom, world and finitude. May architects in low dress cower,
since Eversorp has turned the tables, bloody red we might remember.
Toward the parliament you nod, and all's good news that's levied there.
Go now, prepare the legislation, to build the tombs of poor relations.
Exit Duke Eversorp and his cousins. The Duke sweeps Malvidia off her feet and carries her from the room kissing her neck and caressing her hair. The Playwright lingers to savor the moment, sucking on his pen.
Playwright:
And what of this, our Duke's desire? Rising, sinking to him's indifferent.
A femme fatale must test his mettle, to rise or fall on scores unsettled.
These scores are dirty little secrets, that hide in dunny, deep recesses.
Malvidia, his favorite 'cousin', is daughter of his sister's husband.
Exeunt Playwright, after snatching all five bow ties from the dead architects.
[...]
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NOTE: The playwright is still sucking on his pen and will submit for your approval the final acts and scenes as inspiration permits.
Gavin Keeney (2001)
