FLORA PASQUALE STRIKES BACK!
 
 

Prologue


The house lights dim, and the front curtain rises, revealing the show curtain. It is a huge map of Montillano, a country somewhere in South America, as it looked in 1951. Then the claves begin, followed by the timbales, the maracas, the castanets and eventually every conceivable percussion instrument used to produce Latin rhythms. For that’s all the overture is: one long Latin rhythm---no melody whatever. The instruments build to a roar, then stop instantly. Behind the show curtain scrim, an aggrandized marquee appears heralding in flickering lights: FLORA PASQUALE in RETURN TO MONTILLANO at the Teatro Estrella. Then the orchestra begins, the show curtain rises, and we are on the stage of the Teatro Estrella. We see a grotesque background with too many palm trees, poincianas and mission bells. From both sides of the stage, SHOW GIRLS appear in ferociously colored, absurdly adorned costumes.
SHOW GIRLS
The swaying palms are sighing,
The poincianas yearn,
The mission bells are crying,
"Return, return, return". (THEY arrange themselves to make way for FLORA PASQUALE, a voluptuous, exotic young woman in a costume designed to out sequin the others. She cannot sing, she cannot dance, she cannot act. But she does all three with astounding tenacity.)
FLORA
Return to Montillano,
Return, my love to me,
Return to Montillano
From way across the sea.

We met in Montillano,
Your kiss was like a fire---
Since then in Montillano,
I’m burning with desire.

Your magic eyes
Are what I’m dreaming of,
Your fatal lips
Have made me wild with love,
Each night I pray
To all the doves above:
"Return to me! Return to me! Return to me!"

Return to Montillano,
Oh, can’t you hear me cry!
Return to Montillano,
I must have you or die.
I must have you or die,
I must have you or die!
 

(During the last part of the song, voices can be heard off stage growing in volume. FLORA glances angrily toward the wings. Then the set revolves to the left revealing part of the backstage area as SHE begins her dance, which is every bit as devastating as the song. In the wings, RAMON DE VEGA, an aging, corpulent man stands glaring at JULIO, his tiny ferret-like factotum. RAMON clutches a magazine.)
JULIO
I tried! Señor De Vega---I tried!

RAMON

Idiot! She’ll hear you!

JULIO

I give him Scottish whiskey, Cuban rum, American cigarettes, but he still says no.

RAMON

Numbskull! Why didn’t you tell me?

JULIO

It didn’t seem important, Señor De Vega. We had the dailies---all of them. The critics on the dailies, they love Scottish whiskey, Cuban rum and American cigarettes. Who cares about that intellectual junk? La Literatura---pooey! Who reads it?

RAMON

Someone will read it! Someone will show it to her, birdbrain! We must buy up every copy in Puerto Vista! You hear me? (FLORA keeps dancing in the vicinity of the wings, trying to catch snatches of the conversation.)
JULIO
But there are too many. There is the one in the library, the one in the…

RAMON

Steal the one in the library, muttonhead!

JULIO

But every copy in Puerto Vista? Who cares about Ishmael Baldomero? Who cares what he says?

RAMON

She’ll care!

FLORA

                                                                               (sticking her head in the wings)
I’ll care about what?

                                                                                (SHE dances on.)

RAMON

She heard! You don’t know what will happen if she sees this! You don’t know how impossible she will be to live with. I’m sick of fighting duels for her honor. No one fights duels any more. How big is this Baldomero? (FLORA has finished her number and dashes into the wings. CHORUS GIRLS continue to dance.)
FLORA
How can I perform with you two blabbering out here?! I must have absolute quiet for concentration. You know that. Did you ever hear what Isadora Duncan did when she caught her producer talking in the wings? (draping a scarf about her neck in a dramatic gesture, suddenly spying Ramon trying to hide the magazine) What is that? What are you trying to hide from me?

RAMON

It’s nothing…

FLORA

Is that what I’ll care about?

RAMON

This? No, my flower, this…this is nothing…

FLORA

If that is nothing, why did you want this little rat to steal the copy in the library?

                                                                            (SHE snatches the magazine from his hands.)

RAMON

My flower, my beauty…

FLORA

                                                                           (reading)
"Return to Montillano at Your Own Risk."
                                                                           (SHE reads further in silence.)

JULIO

                                                                           (under his breath to Ramon)
What a fortune it cost. The critic of El Diario, he doesn’t drink or smoke. He races cars instead.

                                                                           (RAMON punches him in the back as FLORA now reads aloud.)

FLORA

"The star of this ghoulash is a fleshy young woman named Flora Pasquale."

RAMON

Ah, but there were those who thought the Great Isadora was fleshy---at the beginning. Can you imagine, Julio, the Great Isadora fleshy! But there was one critic in Paris who…

FLORA

"Miss Pasquale sings as though she were trying to warn us that the sky is falling."

RAMON

My angel…my light…the Great Isadora was panned at the beginning…it’s the pattern of the true artist.
                                                                           (trying to take the magazine from her)
You remember, my rose…my tulip…that palmist in Palermo…your hands…they’re almost identical…the Great Isadora and the Great Flora…it even rhymes…

FLORA

Take your hands off that magazine!

RAMON

The fortune I’ve spent on scarves alone.

FLORA

"Dance she does. And there is only one word I have ever come across to describe it. Miss Pasquale is a klutz.

RAMON

It means artist…klutz means artist…doesn’t it, Julio?

JULIO

It means great artist. Klutzka means plain old simple artist.

FLORA

Do you think I’m an idiot? There was that Jewish refugee with the diamonds. He used to use that word…about his wife.
                                                                             (clutching the magazine)
How dare he! How dare he?!

RAMON

No, my passion, my love…I can’t…I’m getting too old for duels. Please my angel, my light…
                                                                             (lifting his trousers and pointing to a scar on his limb)
Look. Look what happened the last time.

FLORA

Oh, shut up, you coward! I’m sick to death of you anyway.

RAMON

My gardenia…

FLORA

Don’t touch me!
                                                                               (moving downstage, her fingernails digging into the magazine)
So, Flora Pasquale is a klutz, is she? She sings as if she was trying to tell us the sky is falling? Oh, Ishmael Baldomero, I don’t know who you are, but I’ll get revenge. I don’t know how, I don’t know when. But I’ll get revenge if it takes me the rest of my life!

                                                                               (On stage CHORUS GIRLS are finishing the number.)

CHORUS GIRLS

I must have you or die!
I must have you or die!
I must have you or die!

 
 

CURTAIN
 
 


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