SCENE 1
INVOCATION
Darkness. Light rises dimly to reveal three women, draped 
in anonymous clothes. Shadows crouching among leaning 
crooked buildings.

ALL	      Listen
              if stars are lit
              it means there is someone who needs it.
              It means that someone wants them to be.
VOICE 1	      Listen
VOICE 2	      if a man is on fire
VOICE 3	      it’s because he has need of flame
              it’s because the city is rotten with tears
VOICE 2	      and the night is sick with murder
ALL	      Listen

Screen slowly rises, revealing MAYAKOVSKY, centre stage,
in an oversized yellow shirt, a big black cravat and 
a top hat.

VOICE 1	      The tears of a slave are a black mirror
              The poet burns with his greedy love

	      In the vermin streets in the starving eyes
              He meets himself like a blazing gift
	
              His furious blood is a red banner
              He shakes his soul from his drunken skin

ALL	      Listen
	      The poet dreams of fire
              And then the flames devour him

The set is revealed as an artist’s studio, with vibrant
images by Malevich, Mayakovsky, Goncharova, Rodchenko,
etc. On a small stage there are performers dressed in 
Futurist costumes: absurd hats, blue eyebrows, frock coats, 
birds or tears painted on their cheeks.

SCENE 2
MAYAKOVSKY     (Reading from a sheet of paper.)
               Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome
               to the time machine! Here we summon the future!
               We rip the joy from years to come! Tonight we
               present for your delectation, illumination and
               education … The Tragedy of Me! Vladimir 
               Mayakovsky! A story of wrath and death,
               love and despair, revolution and betrayal –

MAYAKOVSKY crumples the paper, amid laughter from the others.
              
               This is the future? Who wrote this shit? 
               Where is the author?

Peers into auditorium as spotlight hunts through the audience.

               Come, don’t be modest … He’s down there somewhere …

THE AUTHOR scrambles on stage, out of breath, giving MAYAKOVSKY 
a filthy look. He wears an ill-fitting suit, just this side of clownish. 
His shoes might be too large.

MAYAKOVSKY     Just as I expected. Cockroaches survive
               everything, even the Revolution! You 
               wrote it, you sing it.

Performers laugh. MAYAKOVSKY throws the crumpled sheet
at THE AUTHOR, who smooths it out and looks uncertainly
out at the audience.

AUTHOR (Sings) Ladies and gentlemen
			Come to the show
		   A great poet
				    Will dance before you
	       Mayakovsky is the symbol of innovation!
	       He gave us the poetry of socialist realism
	       armed with Marxist-Leninist ideology
	       to transform the culture of society!

MAYAKOVSKY     Enough with these lies! You make me want to be sick!

AUTHOR	       You called me here!

MAYAKOVSKY     This play is about me. I’m more than 
               this pathetic shadowman, this murderous
               ghost that creeps in my footsteps. I’m 
               taking it back.

AUTHOR	Arrogant clown!

MAYAKOVSKY attacks THE AUTHOR, who slapstick tumbles 
and retreats shaking his fist. The others hoot and clap.

AUTHOR	I’ll be back!

MAYAKOVKSY     Well, that got rid of him.

MAYAKOVSKY turns to the orchestra and silences them. 
A new theme.

MAYAKOVSKY      Now for the real story.
	        First, there is love.

Spotlight on LILI.

	        Then revolution.
SCENE 17

MAYAKOVSKY	I thought the world was bigger than a bucket
                I rhymed potatoes with feathers and lightning
                The new meanings blazed like life in a new colour
                I rhymed everything with everything

                In America I was a genius
                That was even better than being famous
                I stood on Brooklyn Bridge like a stupid artist
                I watched the shivering jobless drown

                Meyerhold admired my Mexican carpets
                He invented whole sciences to stage my words
                Laughter was our consolation and our weapon
                So we rhymed bureaucrat with numbskull

                In France I bought a car and a tin of soap
                I fell in love and chivvied my longing home
                What’s left behind when you stand on life’s furthest rim?
                A scrapbook adding up to nothing

                I scrubbed so hard but bedbugs kept on biting
                Critics and officials with their insect jaws
                There were not enough bath houses not enough soap
                My soul itched until it was red meat

                I saw the world was smaller than an orange
                I rhymed my body with love and found coffins
                The old meanings jumped up like death in a new suit
                And then everything rhymed with nothing

Commissioned by Victorian Opera, to be staged in 2013, with score by Michael Smetanin.