“Yes. Getting even is what it’s all about.”

[from Marie Laveau’s
Spoken Prologue Aria]

***********

It is 1900, on the eve of Mardi Gras. In her New Orleans Parlour the legendary Marie Laveau is in crisis; her once-sacred powers have degenerated to “mere
theatrics” and, tonight, she has discovered that she’s been cursed.

In order to prove to the gods that she can still play God and fight off the curse, Marie Laveau manipulates the two desperate people who came to her for help that night —and turns one against the other. But the entangled web Marie attempts to weave for her own ends, unravels, and each character’s painful confrontations entangle Marie as well.

Mixing Nineteenth Century revenge operatic conventions and voodoo rhythms, playwright Gagliano counterpoints the larger-than-life theatricality with lyricism, humor and compassion, and shapes the heightened, lurid Language into unsung spoken arias; mixing, finally, sexual encounters with voodoo ritual and propelling each character toward a climax of redemption — and murder.