montepío - the musical

Act 2, Scene 1, "If I Die (You'll Go On Living): Reprise"

ACT 2: Eden
Scene 1: Eden in Theory

(The PADRE's hut. DIEGO sleeps, deathlike, on a cot in the foreground. In the background, however, JOMORRA's puppet corpse remains as it will for the entirety of the second act: feet in the coffee and chest to the sky. There is a knock. The PADRE enters, crosses the stage and ushers in IMACULATA.)

PADRE: He's very weak.

IMACULATA: We all are...

PADRE: He'll be happy to see you.

(An awkward silence before PADRE exits. IMACULATA approaches the bed.)

"If I Die (You'll Go On Living): Reprise"

IMACULATA: SO HERE YOU ARE
AND HERE I AM.
WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN
THAT WE COULD BE HERE?
DIEGO, IT FEELS SO STRANGE
TO LOVE WITHOUT FEAR
THAT SOMEONE IS WATCHING,
THAT SOMEONE IS NEAR.

(DIEGO stirs and wakes.)

DIEGO: SHUSH, MY LOVE,
IMACULATA.
IS IT YOU?
ARE YOU REAL
OR YET ANOTHER GHOST BEFORE ME?

IMACULATA: I'M REAL.
DIEGO, I'M REAL
AND EVERYTHING'S OVER,
IT'S OKAY.

DIEGO: How is your father?

IMACULATA: He's disappeared... Nobody knows where he is.

DIEGO: I'm sorry...

IMACULATA: Shush, my love. Let's not talk about it.

BOTH: SO HERE YOU ARE
AND HERE I AM.
WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN
THAT WE COULD BE HERE?

DIEGO: I THOUGHT I'D DIE
         AND YET I'M LIVING.
         I WAS LOST
         AND YET YOU FOUND ME.

IMACULATA: THE FIGHT IS OVER.

DIEGO: AND THE WORLD'S NOT ENDED.

BOTH: HERE YOU ARE
AND HERE I AM
WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN
THAT THIS IS LOVE?

IMACULATA: The revolution's over...

DIEGO: Oh love, the war is over; the revolution's just begun.

IMACULATA: The war, then.

(She takes his hand and kisses it.)

DIEGO: The war is over... What am I doing in bed!? We need a literacy program, we need health care, we need– we need elections!

IMACULATA: (laughing) Don't worry, Diego. A wonderful literacy program is already underway, elections have been held, Salamón and the Padre have been taking care of everything.

DIEGO: An election? Padre's the President?

IMACULATA: Padre? Of course not. You are.

DIEGO: Me?

IMACULATA: While you were sleeping... The people love you, Diego. They're saying you're the best thing to ever happen to this country.

(The PADRE enters with a wheelchair and begins to transfer DIEGO into it. The gunshot wound he received at the end of Act 1 has left the revolutionary leader paralyzed from the waist down.)

DIEGO: (To PADRE) Why don't you ever tell me these things?

PADRE: And let it get to your head?

(DIEGO swats at him playfully.)

DIEGO: Papist.

PADRE: (To IMACULATA) Come, let's give this crazy Marxist of yours some fresh air.

DIEGO: Are all you Catholics this impossible? Imaculata, tell the old fool he's being impossible.

(With IMACULATA pushing DIEGO in the wheelchair, the trio leaves the hut behind. Along the road to the coffee plantation, they encounter JOMORRA's ghost, dressed in his beggar's rags from the first scene in Act 1 but with no military uniform underneath. He holds out a tin cup to IMACULATA.)

♩♫ ♬  MUSIC ♬ ♫♩

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