TRIAL!
The Treacherous and Unnatural Crimes Of the Vampires
Louis and Claudia (And Their Fledgling Madeleine!)
by
the Vampire Santiago
and
the Vampire Samuel Barclay
and with additions made by
the Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt
CAST
| JUDGE OF RECORD | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | Celeste |
| AVOCAT | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | Santiago |
| BAILIFF | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | Gustave |
| STAR WITNESS | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | Lestat |
| THE HERETICS | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | Louis, Claudia, Madeleine |
| VAMPIRE JUDGES | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | All Remaining Coven Members |
Our red curtain. Our spotlight. Santiago acting as the master of ceremonies. But this is the only part of the play that will mimic our normal fare. That and our finale.
------
SANTIAGO: Ladies and Gentlement! Madames et Messieurs! Offal and Offalesses! And all those who flourish outside the divide, welcome. For one hundred and fifty years, we at the Theatre des Vampires have shown you: YOU!
SANTIAGO TAKES A MOMENT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE WAVE OF LOVE AND AFFECTION FROM THE AUDIENCE (SAM'S WORDS). SANTIAGO TO PICK UP CLAUDIA'S DIARIES ON THE DISPLAY TABLE FOR EMPHASIS.
SANTIAGO: Your obscene predilections, your savage desires. But today, we're shunting human affaits aside. If you want to kill your lover, or fuck your mother, it'll have to wait. Because today we turn our lurid spotlight on ourselves. We stand before you in broad daylight, at this first ever matinee at the Theatre des Vampires, to perform, for your salacious gratification: us! Are you ready, you filthy animals?
ANTICIPATE AUDIENCE LOVE AND AUDIENCE LASCIVIOUSNESS AS SANTIAGO'S NAME IS SPOKEN. THE AUDIENCE WILL BE ROWDY. SANTIAGO AD LIB.
SANTIAGO: The jury may be seated.
As the audience sits, the curtain rises. Our projected set as designed by Trinh. Coven members wearing robes and wigs. Celeste as our judge of record with her gavel. Reveal our trio of accused vampires, with sacks over their heads. Gustave behind them as Bailiff. The audience will likely catcall. If they do some possible responses.
CELESTE: Disorder in the court! Disorder in the court!
CELESTE CAN RETURN TO THIS STATEMENT WHENEVER SHE REQUIRES, WHENEVER THE AUDIENCE IS TOO RAUCOUS, AS SHE SEES FIT (BUT CELESTE DON'T MILK IT, OTHER COVEN MEMBERS SHOULD ALSO BE FEATURED.)
CELESTE: Bailiff, reveal the treacherous, unnatural vampires.
GUSTAVE WILL REMOVE THE SACKS COVERING THE HEADS OF THE GUILTY TRIO. AUDIENCE/JURY WILL RESPOND. PAUSE FOR THEIR RESPONSE.
CELESTE: Avocat, come forth and read the crimes for which this iniquitous trio stand accused.
SANTIAGO TO TURN TOWARD THE AUDIENCE AND READ.
SANTIAGO: The Heretical Desecration of Law One of the Great Laws. The making of the Vampire Madeleine without consent of the Coven Leader.
PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
SANTIAGO: The Heretical Desecration of Law Two of the Great Laws. The making of a Vampire from a mortal child.
PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
SANTIAGO: The Heretical Desecration of Law Three of the Great Laws. The writing of vampire history in the form of diaries in evidence in front of you now.
PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
SANTIAGO: The Heretical Desecration of Law Four of the Great Laws. The revealing of the Vampires to the mortal Madeleine Eparvier.
PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
SANTIAGO: And finally and most heinously, the Heretical Desecration of Law Five of the Great Laws. The pre-meditated murders of the Vampire Antoinette Brown and the Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt! These are the treacherous and unnatural crimes before the court...
PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
SANTIAGO: If the prosecution's evidence convinces you to condemn these HERETICS for their heinous trampling of vampire laws, we will carry out your sentence before your very eyes as only we at the Theatre des Vampires know how: slowly, inventively, gruesomely!
AUDIENCE/JURY CONTINGENCY: IF AND WHEN CLAUDIA OR LOUIS SPEAK, THE COVEN WILL SILENCE THEM TOGETHER, CLOSE THEIR THROATS, CHOKE THEM, AND SANTIAGO WILL ADDRESS IT WITH THE AUDIENCE, AS PER THE BELOW:
SANTIAGO: We don't need to hear from you. We have your words right here. In all their chilling pre-meditation...
SANTIAGO WILL POINT TO THE TABLE OF DIARIES. HE WILL OPEN THE MURDER DIARY. IT WILL SEEM AT RANDOM. IT WILL BE PAGED OPEN TO THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE:
SANTIAGO: December 3, 1939. I shall be your angel of death, Lestat. You go on planning "our future together". I've already planned yours. Not much time left, Lestat. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. He soaks up the light from everyone around him, making it all about him. Well, this is about you, Lestat. This is most definitely about you and your death.
IF THE FANS OF LULU REBEL, SANTIAGO WILL IMPROVISE A SOOTHING SPEECH, SOMETHING IN THE MANNER OF THE FOLLOWING:
SANTIAGO: I know she was your favorite. I know she's your baby Lu. But she had us all fooled. She's the best actor of all of us. She lies so sweetly, doesn't she? But look closer. When the mask falls away, she's a monster.
SANTIAGO GESTURES TO THE CHAIR, THE BERGERE EN CABRIOLET WHICH HAS BEEN BROUGHT FROM BACKSTAGE AND SET ONSTAGE IN THE BEST POSITION.
SANTIAGO: Members of the jury, bring your attention to the witness chair brought before me now. Admire the curvilinear design, the overlapping medallions on the arm supports. A bergere en cabriolet handcrafted for the comfort of an 18th century gentleman. Under cloth and care, for one hundred and fifty years now, waiting for the gentlemen's triumphant return. Begotten of Magnus, Co-Founder, Chief Patron, one of the finest actors ever to walk the boards of the Theatre des Vampires and the prosecution's first and only witness. Members of the jury... the victim. Lestat de Lioncourt.
LESTAT MAKES HIS ENTRANCE. PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT.
SANTIAGO: Welcome.
LESTAT LOOKS AT THE THEATRE ITSELF, CONSIDERS IT. THE SCRIPTED LINES BELOW WILL SOUND AD LIBBED.
LESTAT: I prefer the old place. But it's a grubby little century, isn't it?
SANTIAGO PICKS UP THE SMALL BLACK DIARY WITH THE EMBOSSED WHITE FRONT (THE MURDER DIARY). HOLDS IT OUT TO LESTAT.
SANTIAGO: A very special book to swear upon, Monsieur Lioncourt. Written by the Vampire Claudia, in which your last words are recorded in your own blood.
PROJECTION OF LESTAT'S LAST BLOODY WORDS. LESTAT PUTS A HAND ON THE DIARY.
LESTAT: I swear. On my own blood.
SANTIAGO: Monsieur Lioncourt, you've returned to Paris because...?
LESTAT: Justice for the attempted murder of my being.
LESTAT TAKES HIS SEAT IN THE BERGERE EN CABRIOLET.
LESTAT: It's their turn to hurt.
EMPHASIS ON THE ABOVE LINE. PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT! LESTAT AS VICTIM.
SANTIAGO: Take us back now, to the beginning of this story of butchery, your journey to...
LESTAT: It's a story of love, not butchery.
SANTIAGO: A story of love wronged.
PROJECTION OF OUR ANIMATED LESTAT.
LESTAT: Love has always been difficult for me.
PROJECTION OF HANDS PLAYING THE VIOLIN (MUSIC NOTES EMANATING FROM IT) JOIN THE PROJECTION, A HEART MANIFESTING FROM THE ANIMATED LESTAT.
LESTAT: My first paramour, Nicolas de Lefent, a violinist...
SANTIAGO: Belonged to this theatre troup.
LESTAT: Briefly, yes. A fragile mind, prone to corruption. A heartbreakingly beautiful boy of immense talent.
SANTIAGO: Nicki went insane. And died, by his own hand.
PROJECTION OF THE MUSIC NOTES FALLING SADLY INTO A MUSIC BOX.
LESTAT: An unfathomable sadness seeped into me with Nicki's death.
PROJECTION OF LESTAT BURYING HIMSELF WITH THE MUSIC BOX.
LESTAT: I buried myself in the dirt, Port Neuilly, on the outskirts of Paris and lay there for a hundred years. Napoleon marched his drinks cabinet across Europe...
PROJECTION OF 19TH CENTURY FRENCH HISTORY MARCHING OVER LESTAT - FIELDS INTO THE FACTORIES, INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, ETC.
LESTAT: ...while I mourned. The only sounds were the weed roots gathering around me. My only sustenance, burrowing insects and the blood of ancients already inside me.
SANTIAGO: You awoke in 1908, but even a century underground couldn't obliterate the pain of Nicolas's death.
LESTAT: I did what many have done when too many ghosts haunt an old world...
SANTIAGO: You left for the new one. Bobbed the Atlantic for America's star-spangled shores.
PROJECTION OF LESTAT ON THE PROW OF A SHIP CLUTCHING THE MUSIC BOX.
LESTAT: I disembarked in New Orleans, the humidified daughter of Paris.
SANTIAGO: And who did you meet there, Monsieur Lioncourt?
PROJECTION OF AN ANIMATED LOUIS DU LAC.
LESTAT: Louis de Pointe du Lac.
LESTAT WILL POINT TO LOUIS. A PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT.
SANTIAGO: Let the court record show that the victim pointed to the accused.
PROJECTION OF A WALKING CANE AND A KNIFE PULLED FROM IT.
LESTAT: I first saw Louis in a street brawl. A knife from his walking cane at the throat of his brother.
SANTIAGO: The accused was a troubled man. A failing sugar farmer. A brothel keeper.
LESTAT: Forced into corners by his race, alienated from his own desires. American puritanism mangling his very soul.
SANTIAGO: Disreputable, cold, violent.
PROJECTION OF ANIMATED LESTAT AND ANIMATED LOUIS ON A PARK BENCH IN JACKSON SQUARE. LOUIS SLOWLY SLIDING UP TO LESTAT, PUTTING HIS ARM AROUND HIM, HYPNOTIZING HIM WITH HIS MORTAL CHARMS.
LESTAT: Louis first accosted me at a pleasure house: the Fair Play saloon. And then, everywhere I went in New Orleans, as if by happy accident, there was Louis, offering himself up as my chaperone, his eyes sliding down me. I, a vampire, was being hunted. With every breath, every heartbeat, every sidelong glance, Louis was saying "come to me".
SANTIAGO: A man unreconciled to his own appetites. A charnel house of stifled desire.
LESTAT: Louis longed to be close to a man. And after the heartbreak of Nicki, to feel such hunger again...
SANTIAGO: The accused called to you from a church while confessing his sins to a priest.
LESTAT: I destroyed that priest and another right in front of him.
SANTIAGO: You put your fist through his skull, showed him the extraordinary power you possessed.
LESTAT: I offered Louis myself instead. My companionship, an immortal life... I offered it to him in that church, on the altar.
SANTIAGO: And with the corpses of two dead priests in his purview, the accused raised HIS HANDS and TOOK YOUR FACE in them with a kiss of acceptance.
LESTAT: Yes.
SANTIAGO: The accused didn't take to vampirism. He was crippled by qualms. Drank only from animals.
PROJECTION OF LOUIS AND DEAD ANIMALS...RATS, CATS, SQUIRRELS.
LESTAT: Louis was fixated on his lost humanity, his estranged family, the internecine politics of his food...
SANTIAGO: He rejected vampirism, but he also rejected you...
LESTAT: Louis was deceptively agile with words. A trenchant form of verbal amusement. There was a night. When one of his infrequent kills... an awful night...
A PROJECTION OF NEW ORLEANS ON FIRE. LESTAT WILL FEEL A SWELL OF EMOTION, HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH HIS SENTENCE AND HE'LL TRAIL OFF. SANTIAGO MUST DELICATELY PICK UP FOR HIM. WE WILL LEAN ON SANTIAGO TO MAKE ACCUSATIONS, AND ALLOW LESTAT TO STAY IN THE ROLE OF VICTIM!
SANTIAGO: Some context for our jury. The single worst thing a vampire can feel is loneliness. Human loneliness magnified by millennia, by the never-ending road we walk...
LESTAT: Do they not know this?
SANTIAGO: How could they?
LESTAT REACHES OUT HIS HAND TO A HUMAN OF HIS CHOICE IN THE FRONT ROW. MUCH OF THIS WILL BE AD LIBBED BUT HERE IS A BLUEPRINT:
LESTAT: Take hold of my hand.
THE HUMAN WILL TAKE HIS HAND OR BE ASSISTED IN TAKING HIS HAND.
LESTAT: This is loneliness.
LESTAT (WITH THE COVEN) WILL INDUCE FEELINGS OF LONELINESS IN THEM UNTIL THE HUMAN SUFFERS, CRIES.
SANTIAGO: This is vampire loneliness.
LESTAT: (to the HUMAN) You want to curl up and die, don't you?
ONCE THEY ARE IN AN EMOTIONAL MESS, LESTAT WIL LET GO OF THEIR HAND.
LESTAT: I know. On a night, when one of Louis' infrequent kills upturned the city, he taunted me with this loneliness.
PROJECTION OF A FORLORN LESTAT IN A WINDOW WHILE FIRE RAGES AROUND HIM.
LESTAT: He abandoned me in our townhouse. I didn't know if he'd ever come back. I was engulfed by the loneliness.
SANTIAGO PICKS UP ONE OF CLAUDIA'S DIARIES, AND MIMICS CLAUDIA'S VOICE, IN PARTICULAR HER NEW ORLEANS SOUND.
SANTIAGO: I closed my eyes and waited for the fire to take me. I just prayed it wouldn't hurt too bad. That's when the black angel came!
SANTIAGO TURNS TO LESTAT.
SANTIAGO: But he came back.
LESTAT: He did. With her.
LESTAT WILL POINT AT OR INDICATE THE VAMPIRE CLAUDIA.
SANTIAGO: Let the court record show that the victim acknowledged the child vampire Claudia.
PROJECTION OF THE SECOND GREAT LAW. THE DARK GIFTS MUST NEVER BE GIVEN TO THE CRIPPLED, THE MAIMED OR TO CHILDREN OR TO THOSE WHO CANNOT, EVEN WITH THE DARK POWERS, SURVIVE ON THEIR OWN.
LESTAT: I told Louis: fourteen forever. She'd be a cripple. I told him: she is of an age, where her emotions will soar and plummet, mountains and valleys every day of her life. I told him it was a violation of the Great Laws, her creation was heresy. But Louis was immovable. Desperate. He begged me. Threatened me. He was in a terrible panic. Guilt had seized reason. AND Claudia...was on the ledge of death. Louis told me if I turned her he would be appy. He promised me this long period of melancholy would be over and he wouldn't leave me. He said she was, or would be, our daughter. And there was a light in his eyes. A light I had not seen for years. But I resisted. Because I knew the wisdom of the Great Laws. I knew pain and anxiety would be her only birthright. But in the end, I gave in. I was weak. And I was frightened of being abandoned by Louis. There, I said it. I made her for Louis. She is my blood. I broke the Second Law. When you sentence them for their crimes, sentence me too.
SANTIAGO: But you were manipulated into it.
SANTIAGO WILL AD LIB WITH THE AUDIENCE, TO REMIND THEM OF WHO'S ON TRIAL. PERHAPS SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF THE FOLLOWING.
SANTIAGO: He's not the one on trial, jury.
LESTAT: Claudia was an unforseen joy. A formidable fledgling, a consummate killer, a congenial companion. We were a happy trio. Louis coddled her and I gifted her a predator's upbringing. But...
SANTIAGO: Claudia's defect caught up with her?
PROJECTION OF ANIMATED CLAUDIA AS TEEN GONE WILD...BODIES PILING UP.
LESTAT: Claudia's moods worsened. She harmed herself with the sun for attention. And followed that with a killing-spree, corpses clogging the Bayou, a penchant for human souvenirs.
SANTIAGO: She put you and Louis's anonymity at risk and then ran away.
VARIOUS PROJECTIONS OF LESTAT AND LOUIS IN THE DARK YEARS.
LESTAT: The vampiress tot in the wind for seven years. And Louis blamed himself, folded inward... If your companion no longer wishes to share his body with you, if every word out of his mouth is vitriol or disinterest... Seven years.
LESTAT'S EMOTIONS WILL OVERCOME HIM. HE WILL CHOOSE A HUMAN WOMAN FROM THE AUDIENCE WHO REMINDS HIM OF THE VAMPIRE ANTOINETTE. HE WILL MESMERIZE HER AS HE CONTINUES ON WITH HIS SCRIPTED LINES.
LESTAT: You don't want to. You still hope he'll emerge from his melancholy. Love you as you love him. What do you do? Find affection elsewhere?
PAUSE FOR AUDIENCE RESPONSE. THE WOMAN CHOSEN BY LESTAT WILL STAND UP, MESMERIZED, AND START TO SING AS THE VOICE OF ANTOINETTE BROWN, ANTOINETTE'S REDITION OF THE "DARKTOWN STRUTTERS' BALL" AS DESCRIBED BY THE VAMPIRE LESTAT IN REHEARSAL. PROJECTION OF THE ANIMATED VAMPIRE ANTOINETTE.
LESTAT: You don't necessarily love them, but it puts a pause on the gloom.
SANTIAGO: Antoinette Brown. Later the Vampire Antoinette.
LESTAT WILL CHOOSE WHEN TO SIT THE ANTOINETTE IMPERSONATOR DOWN AGAIN, STOP THE PERFORMANCE.
SANTIAGO: Seven long years. And then Claudia returned.
LESTAT: Claudia returned. And before her bag hit the floor, she had asessed the fragility of our union. She's an artful predator. I can say that now. I see the best parts of my vampiric self in her. She looked at me, then turned to Louis and said: abandon Lestat, come with me to Europe... and he was hers again.
SANTIAGO: And you and Louis fought?
LESTAT: At first we just slammed each other about our townhome. But seven years of compromise, denial, selflessness... it all gave way. I was trying to restrain myself but... our physical fight worsened. I told Louis I didn't want to fight anymore, I was frightened of how violent we were becoming, and I was the stronger vampire you understand, I was scared that it would result in his death. But Louis taunted me. He told me he'd strangle me. Cut my head off. Feed me to the lions in the zoo...
LESTAT WILL BE ASHAMED HERE. IT WILL LIE WITH SANTIAGO TO DEFEND HIM TO THE HUMAN JURY.
LESTAT: I'm burdened with my maker's temper.
SANTIAGO: No, you were teased until you toppled.
PROJECTION OF ANIMATED LESTAT PULLING AN ANIMATED LOUIS BY THE WRIST UP INTO A STARRY MOONLIT SKY.
SANTIAGO: You used your cloud gift. You flew the accused high up into the air. You let him fall.
PROJECTION OF ANIMATED LOUIS FALLING FROM THE SKY BY ANIMATED LESTAT.
Two kilometers approximately. A lethal distance for a mortal, yes. But for a vampire? A hard fall, nothing more. If you'd wanted to kill him, could you have?
LESTAT: Easily.
SANTIAGO: Easily! Easily! Easily! Lestat has within his veins a most ancient blood. Godlike strength. Remember, he put his fist through a priest's head! Did you do that to the accused?
LESTAT: No.
SANTIAGO: Members of the jury, I ask you to set aside your mortal biases and remember... we are monsters. And to us monsters, what's a bite between paramours? The line between fondling and mauling blurs nightly.
SANTIAGO TURNS BACK TO LESTAT AND ADDRESSES HIM DIRECTLY.
SANTIAGO: You knew Louis would be fine?
LESTAT: And he was fine.
A PROJECTION OF SAD LESTAT SITTING AT THE CENTRE OF A LONG TABLE WITH LOUIS AND CLAUDIA SITTING ON THE ENDS. TELEPATHICALLY MAKING FUN OF LESTAT AS THEY PLOT HIS MURDER.
LESTAT: They could not forgive me. She could not forgive me. For years I apologized, I sent Louis gifts that were carefully chosen to emphasize my reomrse and our love. I was finally allowed to rejoin my family, but I was not, not truly, forgiven. I was lurned back into our house only to become... their victim.
PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT.
LESTAT: They carried on two conversations at once: one out loud to fool me, the other in their heads to plot my murder. Like a stuck gramophone, Louis asked me four times in one night if I liked the season's searpoint collars.
SANTIAGO: They conspired against you inches from your face. Antoinette tailed them around the city. Reported back to you on when and how they were going to kill you?
PROJECTION OF ANIMATED ANTOINETTE PEAKING OUT FROM ONE OF THE WINDOWS, LISTENING IN.
LESTAT: I shared a house with Louis, I shared a coffin with him... I played along, for months.
SANTIAGO: Why the charade?
LESTAT: I didn't think he'd...
LESTAT TRAILS OFF HERE, EMOTIONALLY.
LESTAT: I thought he loved me too much to... I waited and waited for Louis to come to me, cry in my arms, say I was his, he was mine, he was sorry, he was ashamed of himself for being swayed by Claudia's poisoned whispers... Over and over I thought: he won't go through with it, he can't go through with it.
PROJECTION OF ANTOINETTE CRADLING A WEEPING LESTAT.
SANTIAGO: Until...
LESTAT: Until our Mardi Gras ball.
SANTIAGO: The poisons were bought. The black boutonnieres pinned on the poisoned chalices, and Claudia was using your eavesdropper against you...
LESTAT: I danced with Louis, I looked into his eyes, I saw him waver. I thought: he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me...? I saw his jaw set. And for the first time... it wasn't a prank, or a brief fit of rage... He was going to go through with it. I have no words. Only pain.
PROJECTION OF THE KNIFE BEING PULLED OUT OF THE WALKING CANE AGAIN AND THE KNIFE CUTTING THROUGH LESTAT'S NECK.
LESTAT: Louis slit my throat with the walking cane knife I'd seen at the throat of his brother. A bitter circle. Claudia dipped her pen into my wound.
PROJECTION OF CLAUDIA DIPPING HER PEN IN LESTAT'S NECK.
LESTAT: Her malicious joke: to record my last words in my own blood. She laughed as I lay there in the widening pool. She mimicked my dying gasps. My death rattle. The depths of coldness in her. She wanted her mocking face to be the last thing I saw.
SANTIAGO: And then...?
LESTAT: I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. But I could hear. I listened as Louis and Claudia argued over whether or not to burn me.
SANTIAGO: And then...?
LESTAT: Claudia wanted to incinerate me. She was adamantine. And Louis... Louis wouldn't allow her to shovel me into the flames.
SANTIAGO: And then...?
LESTAT: They wrapped me in a carpet, dumped me on the curb with the garbage like I was garbage, with the Mardi Gras dregs, tinsel and liquor bottles, and took off for the welcoming shores of Nazi occupied Europe, in search of... other vampires.
SANTIAGO: And then...?
LESTAT: I dined on garbage-bloated rats. I nursed my neck wound. My recovery was clavially slow. When I was strong enough, I crawled out of the garbage dump. Back to Antoinette's apartment in Algiers. I couldn't return to our home on Rue Royale where a massacre had taken place... And of course I was one of those who was massacred.
SANTIAGO: And then...?
LESTAT: Waited by the Mississippi for any word... any whisper.
SANTIAGO: And then...?
LESTAT: I heard your voice among the many. A thin wavering sound from across the Atlantic... wafting towards me. The sound of Parisian French...
SANTIAGO: We were atop the Eiffel tower. We told you...
LESTAT: ...that Louis and Claudia had arrived in Paris. That they claimed their maker was "Bruce", that Claudia had joined the Parisian coven, that Claudia slept in a coffin under my portrait nightly, that she toasted me on Blood Sabbaths, that Louis was now the paramour of the little gremlin, the call-boy, the middling theatre director, the camp follower.
PROJECTION OF THE COVEN HANGING OFF THE EIFFEL TOWER SENDING TELEPATHIC MESSAGES ACROSS THE ATLANTIC AND CONTACTING LESTAT IN NEW ORLEANS, A COFFIN ON A HILL OF GARBAGE! THE COFFIN LID OPENING UP, LESTAT SITTING UP MAD.
SANTIAGO: You survived your own murder.
LESTAT: I did.
SANTIAGO: And crossed the Atlantic for justice...
LESTAT: I did.
SANTIAGO: Let's give it to you then. Shall we? Shall we?
SANTIAGO RILES UP THE AUDIENCE HERE.
SANTIAGO: Shall we see the swift hand of justice served? Justified by their clear guilt! Shall we have grand and wondrous justice? And a spectacle heretofore unseen by human eyes! A vision of righteous death, a climactic satisfaction for all?! Or would you rather they be spared and we all go home, empty and unfulfilled?
SANTIAGO AD LIBS WITH HIS AUDIECE HERE. GUIDES THEM TOWARDS LOUIS AND CLAUDIA'S GUILT. THEN HE SIGNALS TO THE BAND TO START UP THEIR SENTENCING MUSIC.
SANTIAGO: For the Heretical Desecration of the first, third, fourth and fifth of the Great Laws what say you for the Vampire Claudia?
CELESTE SLAMS DOWN HER GAVEL!
CELESTE: Avocat! Are you not the horse a mile ahead of the cart?
SANTIAGO: Madame Justice?
QUANG PHAM: The Vampire Madeleine. What is her crime?
SANTIAGO: She's a bastard fledgling, made without the knowledge or consent of the Coven Master...
HANS: Yet she is oblivious of the crimes committed by her maker, Louis de Pointe du Lac.
ESTELLE: It is only fair that she be offered the same choice as any vampire.
EGLEE: This is true and fair.
CELESTE: In accordance with Vampiric Laws, may she not join the Coven and become one with us?
SANTIAGO: She must join or die. Madeleine Eparvier, rise.
SHE WILL RISE OR WE WILL RISE HER.
SANTIAGO: The choice is yours. Will you renounce the accused you sit with and join our coven?
COVEN IS FREE TO AD LIB ADVICE AND THOUGHTS HERE! HOLD WHILE THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE MAKES HER CHOICE. IF SHE JOINS US WE WELCOME HER INTO THE COVEN. IF SHE CHOSES TO DIE WITH THE VAMPIRE CLAUDIA AND THE VAMPIRE LOUIS, THE SPECTACLE IS RICHER. PERHAPS THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE WILL SPEAK AT LENGTH HERE, WE AD LIB AS SHE CRIES, SPEAKS, PLEADS ETC.
SOME POSSIBLE LINES IF THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE DECIDES TO JOIN OUR COVEN.
SANTIAGO: An assistant for you in the costume department, Hans. Welcome, miette, your apprenticeship begins now.
IN THIS SCENARIO, ALL COVEN MEMBERS ONSTAGE WILL CONGRATULATE AND WELCOME THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE, MADELEINE WILL BE PRAISED FOR HER CHOICE, AND MUCH WILL BE MADE OF HER, MANY SHOUTS OF "WELCOME TO THE COVEN" AND "WE WILL BE YOUR FAMILY FOR A 1000 YEARS", ALL OF YOU AD LIB AS SUITS EACH OF YOUR NATURES, AND ESTELLE DO NOT LICK HER AND HANS TRY NOT TO SAY ANYTHING TOO STIFF OR AWKWARD OR IN ANY WAY ATTEMPT TO ACT IT IS NOT YOUR FORTE AND DON'T MAKE ANY JOKES, YOU ARE NOT AS FUNNY AS YOU THINK YOU ARE AND ROMAINE, PLEASE ATTEMPT TO KEEP THIS PORTION MOVING ALONG, WE HAVE TO GET TO THE FINALE. AND THEN THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE WIL JOIN THE COVEN AND STAND BESIDE GUSTAVE. GUSTAVE WILL ENSURE THAT MADELEINE DOESN'T CHANGE HER MIND AND ATTEMPT TO SAVE THE GUILTY PARTIES. SOME POSSIBLE LINES IF THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE DECIDES TO JOIN CLAUDIA AND LOUIS IN DEATH.
SANTIAGO: My vampire heart quivers.
LESTAT: The martyr skips her way to hell.
EGLEE: A thousand years squandered and for what?
SANTIAGO TURNS TO THE AUDIENCE AND POINTS TOWARDS [MADELEINE].
SANTIAGO: Members of the jury, for the Heretical Desecration of the First of the Great Laws, what say you to the Vampire Madeleine? Guilty or not guilty?
THE AUDIENCE WILL CALL GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY.
SANTIAGO: And there being only one sentence applicable, that being death. What is your sentence?!
THE AUDIENCE WILL CALL FOR DEATH. HERE WE RESUME THE BELOW, NO MATTER WHICH OF THE ABOVE CHOICES IS MADE BY THE VAMPIRE MADELEINE.
SANTIAGO: The Vampire Claudia. Rise.
GUSTAVE WILL ASSIST HER IN RISING IF SHE'S NOT RISING.
SANTIAGO: For the Heretical Desecration of the first, third and fourth of the Great Laws and the murder of the Vampire Antoinette Brown and the attempted murder of her maker, the Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. What say you for the Vampire Claudia? Guilty or not guilty?
THE AUDIENCE WILL PRONOUNCE THEIR SENTENCE.
SANTIAGO: The sentence?
THE AUDIENCE WILL PRONOUNCE THEIR SENTENCE.
SANTIAGO: The Vampire Louis. Rise.
GUSTAVE WILL ASSIST HIM IN RISING IF HE'S NOT RISING.
SANTIAGO: For the Heretical Desecration of the Great Laws - One, Two, Four and the murder of the Vampire Antoinette Brown and the attempted murder of his maker...
SANTIAGO: The Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. What say you for the Vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac? Guilty or not guilty?
THE AUDIENCE WILL PRONOUNCE HIS GUILT OR INNOCENCE.
SANTIAGO: And the sentence?
THE AUDIENCE WILL PRONOUNCE DEATH, OR WILL BE GUIDED TOWARDS IT WITH THE ALLURE OF SPECTACLE. BREAD AND CIRCUS!
GUSTAVE, OR DEAR VAMPIRE BAILIFF WILL ESCORT THE THREE VAMPIRES TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE AND ASSIST THEM TO THEIR KNEES IN THE CORECT SPOT BELOW OUR SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT. THERE MAY BE VIOLENCE. IF THERE IS, GUSTAVE AND SANTIAGO WILL TAKE THE LEAD IN SUBDUING THEM.
CLAUDIA, LOUIS AND MADELEINE WILL NOW BE ON THEIR KNEES AT THE FRONT OF THE STAGE. CELESTE, ESTELLE, ROMAINE, PLANCHE, MERDE'EM, BASILIC AND LESTAT WILL STAY BEHIND THEM WATCHING IN A CIRCLE. SANTIAGO WILL ADDRESS THE AUDIENCE AS MASTER OF CEREMONIES.
SANTIAGO: And now for your viewing pleasure, a spectacle and marvel never to be repeated, never to be spoken of, never to be forgotten! Does anyone have the time?
THE AUDIENCE WILL SHOUT OUT THE TIME. IT'LL BE JUST BEFORE 2PM IN THE AFTERNOON.
SANTIAGO: Oh dear... well past our bedtime.
ROMAINE HANDS SANTIAGO HIS PROP FLYING ROPE. BASILIC WILL START PLAYING "IN NOMINE MAGNI".
SANTIAGO: What you are about to see is fake. Remember that when you leave here today. You are all agreeable, adored and absolved... And I despise you for it.
SANTIAGO AD LIBS IF HE DESIRES AND FLIES UP. HE'LL REACH FOR A TIE TO OUR BLACK OUT CURTAIN HANGING FROM THE CEILING. THE CUT HOLE FOR THE PERFECTLY TIMED SUN IN THE SKY ABOVE THE THEATRE! CLAUDIA, LOUIS AND MADELEINE GET HIT WITH A BEAM OF DIRECT SUNLIGHT. ALL COVEN MEMBERS SILENT WHILE THE THREE OF THEM BURN UP AND TURN TO DUST.
WE WILL ALL TAKE A BOW, AND ALLOW THE AUDIENCE TO CLAP AND CONGRATULATE US. WE WILL BE CAREFUL TO LEAVE LOUIS, MADELEINE AND CLAUDIA IN SITU, AS A MONUMENT TO THE PERFORMANCE, WHILE THE AUDIENCE DEPARTS THE THEATRE.
End of play.