INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

时间:2007-10-23 05:38:36来源: 作者:

SANTIAGO
And suppose death had a heart to love and to release you? To whom would he turn his passion? Would you pick a person from the crowd there? A person to suffer as you suffer?

AUDIENCE

A young girl cries out in jest.

YOUNG GIRL
Oh, yes, take me Monsier Vampire! I adore you!

Audience roars with laughter.

ONSTAGE

SANTIAGO
You wait your turn.

The AUDIENCE laughs again.

The Mortal Woman shakes her head in panic.

SANTIAGO
Well, have you a sister, a mother, a daughter you would send in your place?

CLOSE ON CLAUDIA

Even she is repelled by the cruelty. She shakes her head.

MORTAL WOMAN

Shakes her head. She is helpless.

SANTIAGO
We alone can give death meaning. Do you know what it means to be loved by death, to become our bride?

MORTAL WOMAN looks up on hte verge of hysteria or fainting. But then her eyes mist over. She is being entranced.

FROM HER POV we realise she is looking past Santiago at the divinely beautiful Armand, who has just stepped out of the wings. Armand has entranced her. He passes Santiago. Santiago stiffens, but yields the stage.

ARMAND
No pain.

MORTAL WOMAN
No pain?

ARMAND takes her by the nakes shoulders.

ARMAND
Your beauty is a gift to us.

ON STAGE

Armand gestures to the others who slowly, gracefully close in.

ARMAND
Who deserves such a gift?

He pulls the drawstring from her skirt and it falls revealing her nakedness. But she is spellbound.

MORTAL WOMAN
No pain...

Armand embraces her, drinks, her naked body stark against her black clothes, then he passes her to the other vampires one by one.

CLOSE ON LOUIS who battles desire and hunger with anger.

LOUIS
I've seen enough of this! I loathe it!

CLAUDIA
Be still!

ON STAGE

The naked Mortal Woman lies dead on the floor. The vampires seem to vanish one by one. As the curtain draws across, the Audience loudly applauds what they presume are theatrical tricks.

ANOTHER ANGLE

The audience, milling towards the exits. They talk in vacuous terms about the beauty of the show, the symbolism of it, the daring of it as they leave.

Gradually Louis and Claudia are left alone in the empty theatre. Louis seems anxious to leave. Claudia whispers in his ear.

CLAUDIA
Patience, Louis. Patience.

He looks around the empty theatre, more eery now than when the play was on. The red curtain shifts slightly in a hidden breeze, a candle sputters and dies in a box. Then the candle flares again, and we see Armand in the box, looking down on them. He stares with a dreamy expression, saying nothing.

LOUIS
We've been searching for you for a very long time...

His voice echoes eerily. Armand gestures for them to follow him.

INT. FOOT OF STAIRWAY.

Armand leading, Louis and Claudia following. It opens into a --

HUGE UNDERGROUND BALLROOM

Walls are painted with famous copies of Durer, Brueghel, Goya and Bosch depictions of death. Fine wooden coffins line the walls. Candles burn in sconces, casting alternate shawdows and pools of light. Armand walks through, gesturing Louis and Claudia to follow him.

As they walk through, vampire man and women appear out of the shadows like wraiths, startling them, drifting around them, stroking them, touching Claudia as if she were a doll. Shrieks of preternatural laughter.

Armand gestures to the vampires to back off.

All obey but ESTELLE.

ESTELLE
Such a darling.

She menaces Claudia, her breasts enormous, her fangs bared. Armand throw her a look, and she is flung against the wall.

Louis stares around. The vampires faces drift towards him and away, always disclosing the face of Armand, who seems some distance away, but strangely close, staring at Louis with a constantly calm, hypnotic gaze. Then a young mortal boy comes from the shadows with a candleabra, which he hands to Armand.

Armand and the boy come towards them, leading them along the walls, his candleabra illuminating the ghastly murals, his face gleaming like an angel above the candleflame.

LOUIS
Monstrous.

ARMAND
Yes, and very beautiful.

LOUIS
Your lips, they didn't move.

ARMAND
They did, but too fast for you to see them. No magic, just grace and speed.

The boy is watching Louis. Armand's hand beckons and the boy draws up to Louis in the candlelight. He places his arms on Louis' shoulders. Louis glances at Armand, who smiles. Louis sees the puncture marks on the boy's neck.

ARMAND
He wants you...

Louis is utterly confused. Can't resist. Drinks his blood.

The boy's body presses against him, sensual, willing. The other vampires appear all around Louis, who suddenly senses it and draws away, ashamed.

Claudia watches warily, from a distance. Armand beckons at her and Louis and open a door in the wall which reveals a stone staircase.

INT. MEDIEVAL ROOM.

Medieval chairs, table, an old coffin, a bed in one corner, a blazing fire. A medieval painting of Satan, being banished from heaven, above the fire. Armand places the boy on the bed, settling him so he sleeps.

ARMAND
Disappointing, isn't it? To come so far and find so little. Jaded ingenues, amusing themselves with make- believe...

LOUIS
We had feared we were the only ones...

ARMAND
But how did you come into existence?

He glances at Louis, then at Claudia, who averts her eyes.

ARMAND
You don't want to answer... Two vampires from the new world, come to guide us into the new era as all we love slowly rots and fades away.

LOUIS
Are you the leader of tis group?

ARMAND
If there were a leader, I would be the one.

Claudia stares at him constantly, guarded.

LOUIS
So you have the answers...

ARMAND
Ah! You have questions?

LOUIS
What are we?

ARMAND
Nothing if not vampires...