Dark Moonlight – Hustlers and Geisha - 3. Part Three

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Scene Seven: “Night and Darkness”

(enter BARITONE stage right, looking thinner and with a scratched and bruised face. He has to draw BASS’s attention to him, and then the men sit)

 

No. 20 – Dialogo

 

BASS:

Have you been in touch

With your family?

 

BARITONE:

No. I haven’t got in touch with my family.

I saw my father a while ago.

He knows where I panhandle,

So he came by with my brother

To say hello. He bought me a meal, […]

We talked a bit. Then I went

Back to panhandling.

I’m happy to see them,

When they come by.

I also saw my mother

Not long ago too.

Except –

She barely recognized me.

It’s been a long time.

I don’t look too good.

A real mess.

Anyway, it did

Something to her.

 

BASS:

What do you mean?

 

BARITONE:

It made her feel bad

To see me looking like this.

 

BASS:

What did she do? […]

 

BARITONE:

She didn’t cry, exactly –

She didn’t really have time to.

I was there looking for handouts

And I saw my mother there.

If that gives you any idea.

 

BASS:

Did she stop?

 

BARITONE:

No, she kept on going.

She was with my stepfather,

So that’s that.

My stepfather doesn’t like me much,

So they just

Kept on going. [MFS]

 

 

No. 21 – Aria

(light fades on BASS and BARITONE, comes up on TENOR entering stage right)

 

TENOR:

If love is inconsistent –

My eyes closed, I dream of a drifting barque

My body is limited –

And if things do not go as I would like,

But my thoughts are infinite –

I see him in the dream of a light sleep

Like the tolling bells of New Years –

Resting on an arm as you look at me.

 

Dark is the night,

Suppressed, my excitement about you –

Feelings rise in me, as you ask

If we should climb to an upper room.

Dark is the night

That can hide things seen, unseen –

Even our pillow is dark,

It subsumes our quiet talk. [SOG]

 

(recap: “If love is inconsistent” etc.)

 

 

No. 22 – Cavatina a Quartetto

(enter COUNTERTENOR while BASS and BARITONE rise. All join TENOR stage center)

 

COUNTERTENOR:

Together at the carnival

He put a rose-mallow in my hair.

I’ve yet to see him since,

But we are here waiting,

The window, his flower and me.

 

TENOR:

Like an ant with grain of sand

One by one, day by day, time piles.

A spec of day goes by

But spec will cling to spec

And time will make of days a mountain.

 

BARITONE:

Alone looking out my window

The cherries’ bloom rose before Fuji.

But, the cherry petals

Never let themselves touch

The stones that cling to the old wall.

 

BASS:

I am very much shut in here

Away from all that can move freely.

And yet there are some parts

Where the mouse in the trap

Need not touch the bait that lured him in. [SOG]

 

COUNTERTENOR, TENOR, BARITONE and BASS:

Like an ant with grain of sand

One by one, day by day, time piles.

A spec of day goes by

But spec will cling to spec

And time will make of days a mountain.

 

(darkness – COUNTERTENOR, TENOR and BARITONE exit)

 

 

Scene Eight: “Made a Shadow”

(lights come up on BASS standing by his chair)

 

No. 23 – Cavatina

 

BASS:

At the small of the day

I am as cold as

A maple leaf spiraling

Down to the chilled earth

Without making a sound.

 

What is there to believe?

I have hated day

Since you left me this morning

Downed by your chilled glance

Cold as the moon’s arising. [SOG]

 

 

No. 24 – Dialogo

(enter TENOR, who takes a seat right away. BASS, sensing something’s changed, sits too)

 

TENOR:

I tried to commit suicide.

 

BASS:

You?

 

TENOR:

Yeah. No joke.

I may be smiling,

But I tried to kill myself.

 

BASS:

Not the first time . . . ?

 

TENOR:

No.

 

BASS:

When did it start?

 

TENOR:

A long time ago –

Since I was young.

Since I was thirteen.

I’m fed up with smoking crack –

[Fed up with living with Willy] […]

So, I tried, but it didn’t work. […]

 

BASS:

How’d you do it?

 

TENOR:

It sounds stupid,

But I went down

To the railroad tracks

And waited for a train. […]

 

BASS:

And did a train come?

 

TENOR:

Yes, but I got out of the way

Just in time.

 

BASS:

You wanted to kill yourself

Because of crack?

 

TENOR:

Yes.

 

BASS:

[After you saw the black wall?]

 

TENOR:

After. [MFS]

 

 

No. 25 – Arietta

(lights fade on TN and BS and rise on BT standing stage right)

 

BARITONE:

How I hate to see myself –

Made a phantom shadow

In the mirror of dark moonlight.

 

How I look thinned out by love –

I think, smoothing my hair

Can I be as faint as that? [8]

 

(recap: “How I hate to see myself” etc.)

 

(exit BARITONE and BASS)

 

 

No. 26 – Cavatina ed Aria

(TENOR rises and goes to stage center)

 

TENOR:

Hide yourself coy moon

Under your great cloud

All the time I wait.

 

I know that you will

Burst forth to pale me

The moment he’s here.

 

Though famous for your jealousy

We’ve had a few nights without you,

When your cold vigilance was down.

 

Aria:

Long arms extend over

The deepest parts of the water

And at the very tips

Bloom the brightest blooms.

Love floats on the surface –

Above the deepest parts of want

But the petals sink too –

Deeper than reflection.

 

My arms extended over

Gathers the top taints of color

But my sleeves pull me down

And down I want to go.

Love floats on the surface –

But the deepest love can drown too

Sleeves pulled with the petals –

Deeper than reflection. [SOG]

 

(darkness – TENOR exits)

 

 

Scene Nine: “To Land Together”

(lights come up on BASS and COUNTERTENOR entering. They sit; COUNTERTENOR beams)

 

No. 26 – Dialogo

 

COUNTERTENOR:

(self-conscious)

Well. First of all,

You know, it’s as they say:

“My heart’s on fire.”

(smiling and cupping his hands behind his head)

My heart’s on fire.

I am in love intensely.

It’s really cool in that sense.

That's what gets me

Through the [work]day.

I have my routine.

I get up every morning.

I sleep every night –

You won’t catch me

On the streets at four in the morning –

Forget it!

 

BASS:

When you think of prostitution,

What do you think of?

 

COUNTERTENOR:

Well . . .

It’s an experience.

I had this experience.

I learned; I learned a lot from that.

We all have a journey.

Even if my journey’s

Been really tough,

It made me who

I am today,

A guy who . . . .

(pauses)

Well, I’m an Arcadian,

And many say that where

I’m from people have

Big hearts. […]

I think that’s pretty much

Who I am.

Honestly, that’s what it is. [MFS]

 

 

No. 27 – Duettino

(lights fade on BASS and COUNTERTENOR. BARITONE enters stage right and BASS slowly rises and joins him)

 

BARITONE:

The warmth of a body that loves

Is both fragile and uncertain –

A castaway barque on cold water

It floats away like an ember.

The lights of nighttime fishing boats

Burn faintly red – my heart burns red –

Stakes hold the nets against the current,

But what holds me against those strong tides?

 

BARITONE and BASS:

To the dawn’s passing –

To the boat’s passing

To the wake the hull left

To the foam the wake left.

 

BASS:

There at the end of the river,

The rushing water slows gently.

The plum blossoms reaching out above

Burst out in laughter to see themselves.

Thus, could we at meeting –

Reconciled like a branch and bird.

Over the water, our reflection

Turns our barque gently back to the bank.

 

BARITONE and BASS:

Above are dark clouds

Below, fishing boats

Both at the will of tides –

Both plaything of the winds. [SOG]

 

(BARITONE and BASS exit; COUNTERTENOR comes stage center)

 

 

No. 28 – Aria

 

COUNTERTENOR:

Steps die on the broken leaves,

I think of many things –

Of evenings like a perched raven

On the bare branch of waning Fall.

And my heart-flutter calms

As all I see is delightful.

 

No more grieving.

I hide myself

In my happiness

As a firefly

Hides in a ray

Of dappled moonlight.

 

White ice frosts over the pond,

And hoars the standing grass –

Like a gentle misting presence

As I tread on cracking Fall leaves

And my heart-flutter calms

As all I see is delightful.

 

No more moaning.

Butterfly or

Falling maple leaf

Which to imitate

Dancing in a ray

Of dappled moonlight.

 

Flowers under winter snows

Scarcely show their colors –

To meet, and smile and be silent

If die I must, let me die now

And my heart-flutter calms

As all I see is delightful.

 

Under the snow

The plum tree lives

And even blossoms

The same as my heart

Thriving in a ray

Of dappled moonlight. [SOG]

 

 

No. 29 – Finale

(BASS, BARITONE and TENOR enter and join COUNTERTENOR)

 

BASS:

How the birds serenade

The flowering fruit trees in Spring

How the Summertime frog

Wakes the water he splashed in

How the fair-weather call

Of people and laughter surrounds.

 

TUTTI:

(chorus section)

All these things are,

All of them equal,

Equate and measure,

Mean and mature

The quality of

Unseen, unfelt love.

 

BARITONE:

How the dawn passes by

And sets color aside for light

How the boat passes by

And leaves people waiting on the shore

How the wake leaves the boat

And how the froth fades from the wake.

 

TUTTI:

(recap chorus section)

 

TENOR:

How the tulips open

Back-bending to Spring till they burst

How the dark pine forest

Creaks and groans the strains of fresh life

How the brooding water

Gaily shows cherries on its bank.

 

TUTTI:

(recap chorus section)

 

COUNTERTENOR:

How midnight’s shadow

Prismatically plays the willow

How this Summer’s firefly

Prophetically lands on my sleeve

For how strange it all is

How strange it all here comes to rest.

 

 

FUGATO – TUTTI:

Mortals in

Each other’s arms

Tumble like

Autumn leaves fall

And hope to

Together land. [SOG]

 

 

(Darkness – Fine della Cantata)