Close your eyes...
Breathe deeply and feel yourself drifting on the winds of time. Traveling back to an era long before you were born and a place which now exists only in the memories of those who once loved it dearly.
No, don’t open those gorgeous dark eyes of yours just yet. Take a moment to truly feel everything around you. Experience this place with your other four senses. Can you feel the wooden chair beneath you? The scent of oil burning brightly in hundreds of glass lamps is thick in the air. Do you hear the voices of the crowd around you? Hushed whispers of King Louis and the Revolution are soon drowned out by the somber melody of a nearby orchestra. Can you taste the excitement and anticipation? Word of this place has spread quickly around the City of Lights and there are many who cannot afford to pay the hefty admission price that would allow them to sit exactly where you are now.
Now open your eyes.
Directly in front of you is a stage draped in a heavy red velvet curtain. To your right is the orchestra pit. The musician’s faces are pale as death and their cheeks are painted with perfect circles in the most delicate shade of crimson. Their movements are stiff and mechanical like those of wooden marionettes and the music they produce is dark enough to send a chill through your soul.
Welcome to the Theatre des Vampires. Tonight’s performance will consist of three plays written and directly by yours truly.
Part 1
Le Violon Magique
The golden cords are pulled and the curtains open. The backdrop is a small village painted upon nearly translucent scrim, giving the illusion of depth and distance. A dozen dancers stand perfectly still upon the stage. The music takes on a more lighthearted tone and they begin to move... swaying to and fro in a dance which mimics the actions of daily life. One carries a basket of fruit down a busy street as others spin and twirl around her. Another sits in front of a tall mirror brushing her shiny, black hair in long, graceful strokes. A young couple strolls down the street arm and arm... then in the midst of all this movement and commotion one young man falls to the ground.
Pestilence had struck and it spreads quickly through the town. One after another, each of the beautiful young dancers took ill, succumbing to the fever and dropping to the floor in the very center of the stage in a broken heap of lifeless bodies.
There is a moment of darkness and silence and when the stage lights up again the scene has changed. The orchestra plays a somber funeral dirge and a solitary figure, dressed in a long black robe with a stark white collar, stands alone amidst a nighttime cemetery. He clutches a rosary in his trembling hands. The many tomb stones that surround him are wreathed in circles of blood-red chrysanthemums.
“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis.” He repeats over and over again. The priest’s voice is strong, but his tone carries an underlying despair as he prays for the Lord to grant their souls eternal rest. He drops to his knees and weeps at this tragedy that has struck God’s children down in the very prime of their lives. The lights dim once again and the theater falls into a hush.
The haunting sound of a lone violin pierces the darkness. Its source is not the orchestra pit... in fact it seems to be coming from all around you. The mournful wail growls louder and a solo violinist is lowered onto the stage... as if the night skies opened up and the shadows themselves had aided his descent. Perched upon a broken tomb, his dark hair whips about his face as the melody becomes almost fierce in its intensity. One by one, the stone crosses fall to the ground and figures begin to emerge from the graves.
As the corpses of those stricken down by the plague rise to their feet, it becomes obvious that they have been transformed. No longer does the pallor of sickness and death claim them... they are reborn. Their skin is as smooth and white as porcelain. Wide, expressive eyes glisten like dark glass orbs from beneath hair as black as coal. And if you look close enough, you can see the gleam of their long fangs as they hiss and cackle like the demons they have now become. Dressed in flowing ruffles of black lace and satin they begin to dance, moving like liquid over the old floor boards. Perfect bodies now trapped in an eternal but ghastly youth twist and writhe in time with the music. With gestures fluid and feline, they surround the violinist in the center of the stage... twirling and spin in circles around him obeying the command of the music, knowing that it’s magic has brought them forth from the grave.
They thirst for the blood of the living and it is the young violinist who must lead them the a place where they can quench this thirst. Like some gruesome Pied Piper, he lures them away from the cemetery. They dance along merrily behind him leaving one to wonder if it is the music itself which wills their lifeless bodies to move. Should it stop, would they drop to the ground as dead as they were when the sickness took them? Every step and motion is in perfect rhythm with the chilling requiem that now overtakes the entire theater.
The scrim lights up to display the most perfectly rendered painting of Paris. The Arc de Triomphe de la Porte Saint-Denis, the Conciergerie, Notre Dame and the Seine glow brightly in the background as these newly born vampires follow the musician towards the city, vanishing into the shadows to the left of the stage. They will create a plague of their own upon the people of Paris, leaving hundreds dead in their wake.
The velvet curtain closes slowly, shrouding the theater in darkness. A brief intermission before the next play begins.