Death and Love
A NEW musical play
An end’s journey, and a tale of redemptive love.
Action, Dance, Song, Video, Fantasy, Surreal, Macabre, Latino and orchestral music. A unique memento mori spectacle! Death and Love!
A murdered man travels to find his living lover to warn her of the coming troubles and attest to his everlasting love.
“You can open for me the portals of Death´s house, for Love is always with you, and Love is stronger than Death is.”
― Oscar Wilde
The story
In an impovershied town called Carmelita, in Almeidan, a boy is born, in a shack, in an makeshift home by the main road to another bigger city, where the trucks come and go.
The town celebrates the birth, after the plague, as there has been no child born for years.
People come out to sing and dance.
It is a time of great rejoicing and carnivale.
The child is named Francisco.
"For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one." - Khalil Gibran
Dreams of
a new life
The boy Franciso tries to fly his kite.
The wind does not pick up and he is devastated. His parents console him and sing of a new day to come where he will rise up to the skies.
Francisco is heartened and the townsfolk cheer him on.
"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything existrs, only because I love." - Leo Tolstoy
The meeting of souls
Covering a protest, Francisco, now a rising peripatetic photographer, meets Vicki, an Australian journalism student. They share their dreams and are smitten, as they dance with newfound love.
Vicki is in a gap year and must return to Australia to complete her studies. They part with a hope for a reunion.
“He held her with the type of intensity that only happens when a person wants something that isn't quite theirs. But she was. She just needed to tell him she loved him.”― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After
Death's journey
A cartel gang takes Francisco away and he is never found again. On the Day of the Dead he returns in a ghostly skeleton to his astonished then accepting parents.
He travels to Australia to warn Vicki to keep away from Carmelita, and to say goodbye.
"If you're out there can you touch me? Can you see me, I don't know
If you're out there can you reach me?"
― Robbie Robertson, Fallen Angel
I died
twice
Arriving at the University dormitary where Vicki is staying, he finds her outside at a party, embracing the love of another man.
Francisco is devasted. "I died twice. Once when you left and then when they took my life."
Vicki's new love all the other students flee out of fear at seeing Francisco.
Love rekindled
in death
"The days I’d spent on my bed in the dormitory, wishing he would appear. Now he is here and he is dead." - Vicki.
Vicki and Francisco finally share a moment and she remembers her love that was in another country, far from her and elusive.
The dead and the living dance in a touching, longing but impossible love.
Death and love.
A new
beginning
Vicki seeks truth and returns to Carmelita.
There she flies Francisco’s kite in the hope for a new day.
“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
From an Irish headstone.”
― Richard Puz, The Carolinian
Victor
Valdes
An extraordinary artist and his musicians will perform music and songs composed by Victor for Death and Love.
Also with music by Daniel Stone and others to be announced.
“Love doesn’t die with death. Love is like liquid; when it pours out, it seeps into others’ lives. Love changes form and shape. Love gets into everything. Death doesn’t conquer all; love does. Love wins every single time. Love wins by lasting through death. Love wins by loving more, loving again, loving without fear.”
― Kate O'Neill
The storyteller
Victor will play the storyteller as a resurrected ghost (with his own character background to be revealed), to narrate the story and sing from the stage, and guide the audience through this magical world of joy, heartbreak and new found love of oneself.
"It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death." - Thomas Mann
A celebration
The play will celebrate the people of Latin America in all their joy and splendour and unite voices and song in a dramatic, fantastical, harmonious way, to show the world how diverse and joyous our vibrant cultures are, all over the world.
“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us,”
― Helen Keller
Performance
The play will debut in late October 2024 to coincide with the Day of the Dead and Halloween celebrations.
We will feature animation and video creations by Daniel Stone projected on a background screen for Death and Love.
“True love defies the realm of death.”
― Anoir Ou-Chad
More Artisits
The play will feature choreographed dancing from a Latino team and other dancers, musicians, singers, actors, and make-up and design specialists. (Photo from my last play "Bod Bodies")
“People you love never die. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters.”
― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time