The Pierrot's Love-A Play In a Play

THE PIERROT'S LOVE
Screenplay by
Ana Claudia Antunes

Based upon the homonymous novel
© 2010 Dancing As One Productions

“Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,
Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
Of being sad in their fantastic trim.

Then while they celebrate in minor strain
Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,—
And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise,

The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone .
The fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.“
Paul Verlaine.

BLACK SCREEN

SUPER: A Dance As One Production

OVER BLACK

A continuous furious sound of frantic fingers typing over a computer's keyboard.

FADE IN

Sc 1 INT KITCHEN DAY Sc 1

A long-haired blond woman on her middle forties is seated on a wooden chair in front of the kitchen table typing on her netbook. On the screen we can see she's been searching over the net, browsing on Google the words, "All is Vanity":

ANNE'S MOTHER
Shoot! That's already taken.

CUT TO

The woman is now with her hands over her head, mumbling with her voluminous hair covering half of the computer screen.

ANNE'S MOTHER
Ah! All is Love...it's all about love.
It has always been about love. Love, Love, Love!!

In the screen the words "THE PIERROT'S LOVE" appear like a magic trick, dancing over the keyboard, or rather trembling, and reaching out to the screen as if superimposed into another image, the words give place then to a black and white scene.

OVER BLACK

A continuous sound of frantic fingers typing over a computer's keyboard. Each word appearing on the scene one by one:
CHAPTER I: A PLAY INSIDE A PLAY

SUPERIMPOSE: "PARIS 1899"

Sc 2 EXT. STREETS OF PARIS - NIGHT Sc 2

Dark, slippery sidewalks, wet streets. Seen through a ghostly appearance in a window's shop a shadow of a man approaching. A gas street lamp lightens up the ambiance where we can read the names of the two streets the man had just crossed, "Magnolias" and "Camelias". The man gets out of the shop with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He heads to the Vaudeville Theatre that's just across the street from the flower shop. But before he arrives to the theatre he enters into a Cafe instead. He looks up and reads the name of the coffee shop.

ANDREW
Cafe au Fleur, bien sur!

Sc 3 INT. CAFE - NIGHT Sc 3

ANDREW enters the small room leaving behind him a wet footprint mixed with the mud that had splashed over his shoes. His hat and coat drips water inside the coffee place as well. The owner looks at him with a grumpy face. Andrew sits in a chair and asks a waitress for a coffee, Andrew continues to drink his coffee frantically from the small cup, taking small sips with less than a second on each interval. He takes out his hat and puts it over the table, brushing the top with his fingers, without paying attention to the woman on the table beside him.

WOMAN
Oh, that' so rude!

The woman takes her bag up and points it to complain to the man that he had spilled water on her purse. Andrew finishes his coffee, taking a last sip from the white cup and sets the artifact made of Chinese porcelain over the small saucer. He then pours some coins over the table. He looks at the door and observes people walking on the street. He watches the clock every five seconds, like a nervous tic, he gets carried out with an anxiety that keeps growing as a hungry animal. He leaves the coffee house. He looks the place from the outdoor. We can see the sign in the tent over the cafe written in rococo words “Cafe Au Fleur”. He takes a deep breath in and smells the flowers and takes one of the roses from the bouquet that he nervously grab with too much more intensity than it seems necessary and puts the flower inside the front pocket from his coat.

Sc 4 INT. THEATRE - NIGHT Sc 4

“Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven is playing. The man opens the heavy door made of thick wood and enters the old building. There in the dressing room lies another flower on a canape. The man looks pale when he watches a young woman changing her clothes through the mirror. He remembers their first conversation, her voice comes to his mind like a whisper dressed in small gusts of wind.

THERESE (V.O.)
My love...

The voice gets stronger as he keeps reminding of old scenes.

THERESE
(distressed)
The world of actors...
She will not be part of it!

ANDREW
What if she wants to be an actress? What if?

THERESE (V.O.)
I don't think girls should worry about this.
Besides...I HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR HER.

Sounds of a train wagon rolling through its trails over the hard friction made of steel gets mixed with her strong statement as her voice increases in size and shape.

A pale apparition of a ghostly image reveals a woman seated in the canape, searching for a cigarette and crossing her legs as she tries to light it up.

THERESE
God forbid she will have to suffer like I did.
I grieve just by thinking about it-
(looking at an empty space over the wall separating ANDREW from the young woman getting dressed on the other room)
And hopefully she will find a nice decent man to look after her.

ANDREW lost in his own reverie and frozen in icy introspection, keeps still, looking back at her with glassy eyes.

Sc 5 INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT Sc 5

A young lady with no more than her thirties, but looking much younger, shakes her hands in a frenzy motion, waving at him from behind the curtain, without showing her face.

TALITA
Alo, Andrew!

ANDREW
(Still talking to a phantom appearance of Therese)
But I guess I just have got into this bad habit of talking to myself, or rather talking at you, instead of to you. (He looks then to Talita trying to see who's behind the curtain) The same goes as if I were talking with your dead, I mean dear mother, that of course if she were still with us.

The girl opens the curtain, swooping it with a snap, curls the rope that holds part of the mantle elevated, caresses it between her fingers and takes the soft fabric around her hand leaving a knot hanging to reveal her voluptuous body. Holding the drape still she gives him a gentle smile and blinks her right eye.

TALITA
(giggling with a somewhat disturbing sound)
Mais, Andrew, elle n'est pas la, n'est-ce pas?
She's not with us anymore, or is she??
It's been such a long time...
(jumping to his arms and embracing him in a tender lace)
...since the last time I saw you!

ANDREW
(To himself)
She changes the subject as she changes her clothes...

TALITA
(dancing and turning in front of him)
I am so happy that you are here I could fly!
(stretching her arms wide, spinning around, her face against his) Merci!

ANDREW
(kissing her in the cheek and whispering into her ears)
How I hungered to taste those lips...

He kisses her into the lips, but TALITA's face changes to an older woman and he is now kissing the ghostly image of Therese.

Shak' inspired!

Ana is working on the Spanish version of her Shakes Opera composing songs and tunes for this Project to be sponsored by Culture & Arts Foundation to pay her Bill (and no pun intended).

Glad if you enjoy my Shakespearian attire.
Hope this will allow my works to transpire.
Or at least a limerick create
So that Lear won't hate... his fate.
T'was a ghost who made Hamlet enquire.

(AnA Cross Tic)

Alhambra: A pearl set in emeralds

"Stigmas, Enigmas and Stereotypes
"(A book by Ana C. Antunes)
A salmon coloured edification, a red fortress surrounded by a evergreen forest, Alhambra, in Granada, can be considered a fairy tale. The region abounds in pomegranates, from which probably derives its name, Granutus in Latin meaning 'many seeds', a red fruit which main symbol represents the heart, or love and the affection form from a human being. Or it could also mean "Karnaltah" or Karnattah-al-Yahud, and the Arabic words kurn, " a hill," and nattah, " stranger,"—the " city " or " hill of strangers."
Talking about Moor, mohr and more, I just finished another mini-opera set for children and filled with witty and animated characters. "O tell all" is part of my Shakes Opera Collection based upon Shakespeare's plays. And it's now available in the link: http://www.lulu.com/content/2317248 or you can listen it from the CD (audiobook):"Shakes Opera""O Tell All!" (from the Collection "Shakes Opera")

Carmen, a Gipsy Passion

Last night I went to see the Opera "Carmen" from Bizet in the Plaza La Paz ("Peace") which most resembles the Coliseum in Seville, with its Roman arcs and giant sculptures, on a night where many were rather trembling in fear of the "Day of the Combatant" which is supposedly followed by violent acts and manifestations of the most irrational ones, leaving this day as the Day of the Delinquents, not combatants. But the only act that we actually witnessed to be violent was the final one, when Carmen's lover inserts a knife on her back and she dies. There, I already told you the end. I didn't want to be a spoiler, but it was already written in her name. Carmen comes from "Carma" which means Fate, a destiny, or more specifically a deed from the acts one committed, i.e. cause/effect into action. Although I think we must fear more the intra-family violence then any other manifestation because it comes from a place of power. And that's when I think of the manifestations that are now in Tibet. They weren't supposed to be violent, since the Dalai Lama, himself a Nobel Prize of Peace, has to be such a noble price for peace, when he represents the non-violence manifestation and yet he's in the epicentre (doesn't matter how much he says he doesn't support the violence of his people) of that same violence he so much fought to avert. But when we arrive to a place where negotiations cannot be done verbally, it's when we must not fear but act (with no violence, of course) and that's why it hurts so much to see so many violent acts being done to people who should supposedly be living in freedom and in peace. And I mean that to all of us. When a simple act turns into violence? It's when we cannot wear the other's shoe, when we disagree with the other's position in the world, and that's when it's vital to communicate. And that is what I am afraid the people from Tibet were lacking of: Dia-log, which comes from the Latin word "dia" meaning "two" who log, talk to each other also dialogue means "words across," i.e., spoken with someone else. Enough of being silent monks. Forget about the three "no see, no hear, no talk" monkeys. Let's speak up. We have no idea of what they've been dealing with every day. It's rather ironic that in a modern world like ours, where communication is the first priority, there seems to have so little of that. It's time to open up and speak from the heart, from the Art, and I mean from the non-violence act of standing up, resolve the conflicts by facing each other's eyes, not from above or below, but as equal, not out of fear but from a place in the heart where love resides. There we may end up all the conflicts in a huge embrace. And now I just visualize the entire planet receiving that affectionate love:)(Here below brief moments captured by my old camera from last night gala open to all public)

Secret, Sacred, Socrates

Today I went to a lyrical gala, with the amazing interpretation of marvellous sopranos, tenor and baritone, accompanied by a chorus, in various arias from famous Operas, all that presented in the middle of a park, near the streets, in a bridge/stage and the sound of the river constantly flowing. No, that was not one of my favourite dreams, but indeed it did happen this Sunday at noon, here in Santiago. A man sat beside me started to cry when the tenor sang the aria "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme, although I myself felt inside the role of "Rudolph" when he said in Italian, "Who am I? I am a poet. What do I do? I write. And how do I live? I live."

Then when it started the duet of flowers, from the Opera "Lakme" by Delibes, my eyes were filled with tears, as I listened to those two angels singing, which transported me into their garden, like a Taj Mahal made of an holographic vision. They were so in sync, so delicate and perfectly in tune that I travelled beyond time and space. I was, then, one of them, breathing in that beautiful scene, living there, between swans of white wings, over the margins of the flowery rivers, softly sliding among mythic creatures, where the bird sings to collect the blue lotus and make a collar of love for our protection.

t'was "a democratic (culturally, not in politics) event, accessible to all" to quote the ambassador of Spain in Chile who had just arrived from Madrid. And I believe Santiago is perfectly "cosmo-polite" city, pleasant to both tourists and neighbours, for this type of eventful content. But then I noticed that even in a public space in an open (democratic;) area, only a selective amount of people was able to appreciate it, like a sophisticated food that only a palatal experience can improve with a trained taste. Opera like Ballet is an elitist art. But elitist not in terms of a monetary access but of a cultural assessment. Education is a matter that money can buy, but the inclination to appreciate fine arts is only available to those who have a refined soul. And to achieve to that point one must experience life, something that no school may teach, though it might show the way. And the way, like a circumference of possibilities might as well one day, as always, return to itself, or "mighty swell" turn into the centre, the source of all life: "Know thyself" as the maximum visceral and exponential search of the human soul. But for a river you don't need to mention about its freshness in the hot summer.

Even in architecture, for all its textures, rhythms and tones, one should take the journey, the enterprise as a feminine role, for it should engage in unity, in comfort, rather than dissuade, separate, concur or conquer. A city must be composed as a feminine entity for it doesn't judge its habitants, it awaits patiently and with a compassion for each citizen, just praying that whoever walks through her streets may feel it belongs in her arms, like a child, or a lover, lost in its labyrinth but finding her way in each corner. Each obstacle is nothing but a challenge that may facilitate the brave ones and digress or dissipate the weak ones in their profanity attempt. So to reach into the core of a city one must first learn how to obey and abide within her limitations, for there is not a definitive place in this world, but many daily places we may call our own.

With paintings from one of Chopin's most favourite artist, William Adolphe Bouguereau, and the Opera from one of my favourites musicians, Leo Delibes (the same who composed one of my most favourites Ballets, Coppelia) here an homage to the feminine in time and space:

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s'assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs riant au matin
Doucement glissons de son flot charmant
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l'onde frémissante
D'une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord,
Où la source dort et
L'oiseau, l'oiseau chante.

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons/ Ensemble!
Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s'assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs riant au matin
Viens, descendons ensemble

Doucement glissons de son flot charmant,
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l'onde frémissante
D'une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord
Où la source dort et
L'oiseau, l'oiseau chante.

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons/ Ensemble!" Lakme et Mallika

Under a dome of white jasmine
With the roses entwined together
On a river bank covered with flowers laughing in the morning.(Flowers Duet)