Acquanetta (2005, rev. 2017) 70'

program note

In 1943, a former cheesecake model, known only as “Acquanetta,” lit up the screen in the B-movie horror film and now cult classic, Captive Wild Woman. Stunning and exotic, Acquanetta played the untameable and gorgeous creation resulting from a mad scientist’s experiments on an ape, a role the young actress sizzled in and played so well a sequel was soon in the can. So began a brief career in bread-and-butter films that ended only a few years later when Acquanetta inexplicably walked away from the Hollywood studio system and swanned off to Mexico.

Her past is a mystery. Because of her come-hither stare and sensuous pout, Walter Winchell nicknamed her “The Venezuelan Volcano.” In interviews, she claimed Native American roots, and her obituary in 2004 stated that she was born on an Indian reservation near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Who was Acquanetta, and why did she walk out on her contract with Universal Pictures at the height of her career?

In Acquanetta, the mock serious, campy spirit of horror movies is turned inside out in a bravura, one-act deconstruction of the five minutes that changed Acquanetta’s life forever. The mad scientist Doctor, the insistent Ape, the reluctant Brainy Woman, the visionary Director and the beautiful monster herself, Acquanetta, gather in this re-imagining of that fateful experiment. In soaring, sometimes comic and always indelible songs that perfectly capture the heightened drama of horror films, these vivid characters reveal their inner longings and emotional shadows in what is ultimately a haunting meditation on the meaning of identity, transformation, stereotypes and typecasting, set in the heyday of Hollywood gloss.
––Deborah Artman
Librettist, Acquanetta

Libretto

Libretto

Cast/Characters:
Acquanetta (mezzo-soprano/alto)
Brainy Woman (soprano)
Ape (coloratura)
Doctor (tenor)
Director (bass/baritone)
Chorus

Scene 1:

Acquanetta, Ape, Brainy Woman, Female Chorus (scream)
Ahhh…, oooh….

Scene 2:
Acquanetta: aria
Conceal me, disguise me, obscure me, exchange me.
Obliterate me, transubstantiate me.
Shield me, mask me, shroud me, blind me, screen me, veil me.
Bury me, transform me, convince me, remake me.
Conceal me, disguise me, hide me, translate me.
Screen me, transform me, camouflage me, transmute me.
Veil me, convert me, transfigure me.
Metamorphose me, obscure me, shroud me, blind me.
Remake me, convince me, alter me, translate me.
Alias me, modify me, cover me up.
Assimilate me, convert me, alias me.
Exchange me, transmute me, transubstantiate me.
Conceal me, disguise me, alter me, bury me.
Assimilate me, obliterate me, hide me.
Transfigure me, turn me, exchange me, remake me.
Convert me, conceal me, modify me, assimilate me.

Scene 3: Musical Interlude
Chorus
Ohhh… (Gasp!)
Strangest of sights!
Introducing Acquanetta.
Burning fire in deep water.

Scene 4:
Doctor: aria

Doctor (urgent and possessed)
Who am I today?
The mad scientist.
I live in the inner sanctum.
The fantastic world of my dreams.
Who do I play today?
I transmutate an ape into a woman.
I glandulate an ape into a captive wild woman.
I’ll transmutate an ape into a woman.

Scene 5:
Ape: aria (+ Female Chorus)

Ape (despairingly)
Because I’m inside this costume –

Chorus
Ahhh…, ohhh…

Ape
Because I’m inside this costume –

Chorus
Ahhh…, ohhh….

Ape
You can’t tell if I’m good or bad.
You can’t tell if I’m black or white.
You can’t tell if I’m thin or round.

Chorus
Would it surprise you if I were a woman?
Would it surprise you –

Ape
¬– if I were a woman?
Because I’m inside this costume –

Chorus
Ahhh…, ohhh…

Ape
You don’t know if I’m decisive or persuasive.
You don’t know if I’m commanding or alluring.
You don’t know if I’m enlightened or disheartened.
Would it surprise you if I were a woman?

Scene 6:
Doctor/Ape Duet

Doctor (obsessively)
Gown, gloves, mask,
magnifying glass.
Razor, drape,
forcep, scalpel, hand drill.
Bulb syringe,
kellies, tweezer, morphine.
Blood, more blood, more morphine.
Electric coagulator.

Ape
Last week I played the Bones from Beyond.

Doctor
Transmutate –

Ape
Before that the Black Widow.

Doctor
Glandulate –

Ape
It was so hot I almost fainted.

Doctor
Trephinate –

Ape
The Demon Without a Face –
the mask alone took six hours.

Doctor
Evolution, fluctuation –

Ape
A hairy tarantula, the Fog Creature

Doctor
Plasmatic transfusion.

Ape
The Doppelganger, Ooze, a killer bee.

Doctor
Gown, gloves, mask,
magnifying glass.
Razor, drape,
forcep, scalpel, hand drill.

Ape
Would it surprise you if I were a woman?

Doctor
I’ll transmutate an ape into a woman.

Ape
Would it surprise you if I were a woman?

Doctor
I’ll transmutate an ape into a woman.

Scene 7:
Director: aria (+ Chorus)

Director
And cut! (with authority, to Acquanetta) Acquanetta, are you ok in there?
(to Ape) Ape, you are hungry. (to Doctor) And Doctor, a bit more.
(to Brainy Woman) And sweetheart, think of your brain as your first-born child.
(dreamily, to Audience) The medium is black and white.
Movies are made with shadows and light.
I use chiaroscuro, deep shadows that are practically black.
We call them bread-and-butter pictures.
That’s where the big money is – the B’s.
We’ve got to make this movie in ten days.
It might gross over a million the first week.

Chorus
She had a certain something.

Doctor
She had a certain something.
(to his cast) Alright, here we go. Quiet!
Quiet, please. Roll camera! Sound.
Action!

Scene 8:
Brainy Woman (+ Ape + Female Chorus)

Brainy Woman
Please don’t take my brain.
I could be the Queen of Scream.
I could be the ingenue.
I could be the femme fatale.
I could play a real woman.

Chorus
(yodels) Ahhh..

Brainy Woman
Please don’t take my brain.
I could be a bathing beauty.
I could be desirable.

Brainy Woman/Ape
Ahhh…

Chorus
(Gasp!)
I want to play a real woman.

Brainy Woman + Ape + Chorus
I want to play a real woman.

Brainy Woman
I could be the ingenue.
I could be the femme fatale.
Please don’t take my brain.

Scene 9: Quintet

Acquanetta, Brainy Woman, Ape, Director, Doctor
In the celluloid world,
once you are cast, or miscast,
you are that forever.

Scene 10: Musical Interlude

Scene 11:
Acquanetta (+ Cast + Chorus)

Acquanetta
I am your beautiful monster.
Lovely and shy,
I can stop a lion in its tracks.

I am your beautiful monster.
The one with an invented past.
Who will I play today?
The Venezuelan Volcano.
It all happened so fast.

I am your beautiful monster.
Lovely and shy,
I can stop a lion in its tracks.

I am your beautiful monster.
My shadow cast upon the wall
causes fear in people’s hearts.
The secret you want to ignore
is inside this costume.
(yodels) Ahhh…

Ape + Brainy Woman + Chorus
(yodels) Ahhh…

Director ( + Male Chorus + Doctor)
I know you want everything
to be clear and simple as black and white.

Acquanetta (+ Brainy Woman + Ape + Female Chorus)
I am your beautiful monster.
Lovely and shy,
I can stop a lion in its tracks.

Acquanetta + Ape + Brainy Woman
Ahhh…

Doctor + Chorus
Once you are cast or miscast,
The one with the invented past
Burning fire in deep water

Director + Male Chorus + Doctor
I know you want everything
to be clear and simple

score preview