(Short summary)
March. Time of the Napoleon wars. Ruined church and surroundings on the stage. Seriously ill, leprosy people on the ground. Basilius, the alchemist, comes out of the undercroft. Here he will meet soon the rulers of the nature and the Universe, the rulers of us, the entire humankind.
Our world is full of many factors that we can not handle. We can’t decide how long we live, and when and how will we die, we can’t manage either the evolutional processes, or the general rules of the nature and the Universe that are out of our control. This is basically the nature versus mankind problem. However, we, people, should unite our forces in order to take control of these issues! But we fight each other instead. Ego and selfishness block our path for achieving rather greater things than making our feeling for comfort better and better.
In this dark comedy two tyrants and their two panders dictate the laws of the nature and decide the fate of the living beings. Namely, Johnny Bing Bang lieutenant general, Her Majesty The Evolution (appearing as an ostrich), His Excellence Tobias Death general, and Her Excellence. Amalie, The Devastating, as an eternal queen of sicknesses. The story runs in a ruined church building where the day after day embodied tyrants have banquets with rich meal consisting of varied living beings and properly cooked human beings. Their banquets time by time is interrupted by Basilius, the alchemist, who has considerable knowledge about the evolutional and genetic views of Lamarck and Augustinus, and who, with his colleaugues, works for an entirely new world that planned to be independent of the recent natural rules of the living and non-living world. He represents the humanity, and. the scientists who want to fight against the dictators of the nature and the Universe. The sarcastic conflict between Basilius and the tyrants takes the most of the playtime. Basilius shows to the tyrants the models of the new world which the people will create to free themselves from the tyranny. The tyrants look down on him, laugh at him stating that the models won’t work. Then the older than old and doting Quintus Leopoldus, the Cardinal, and State Representative, the first person of Leopoldia State arrives , who misunderstands everything. He has a belief, that Basilius made friendship with the devil tyrants, that he turned against the humanity and the human interest, thus in the name of the Holy Mother Curch and the State Authorities he kills the scientist with the help of his corrupt and hypocrite friar servants. The play is shocking, however, the audience still can laugh many times following the story.
ANDREW R. DAMU