synopsis

PKHENTZ!

a new opera in one act

By Dylan Schneider

After a story by Andrei Sinyavsky

Duration: about 1 hour

Cast: 4 singers, 1 actor

Instrumentation: single winds, sax,

accordion, piano, perc, strings

SYNOPSIS

SCENE 1: A LAUNDROMAT IN MOSCOW.

Washers and dryers are churning. Andrei Kazimirovich, a hunchback dressed in a hat and trench coat, folds his clothes and linens. A second hunchback enters, Leopold Sergeevich. Andrei exclaims to himself: “Someone like me!” Andrei surreptitiously records the man’s address from the Laundromat records.

SCENE 2: ANDREI KAZIMIROVICH’S ROOM.

A squalid, Soviet-style apartment. Andrei studies the address in his hand. There’s a knock at the door. In comes Veronica, Andrei’s voluptuous, beautiful neighbor. She is in love with Andrei, in spite of Andrei’s disfigured physique. Oddly, however, Andrei spurns her advances. Tonight she has brought dinner. Andrei sings of the food’s repulsiveness. On her way out, Veronica reminds Andrei: “If there’s anything else you need…”

SCENE 3: ANDREI’S ROOM, LATER THAT DAY.

Andrei regrets his cold treatment of Veronica. Veronica enters. After a brief exchange, she throws open her camisole and launches herself onto the bed. Andrei winces at the sight: “I’ve seen this in pictures and diagrams, but never before in the flesh. It’s horrible! Horrible!” He turns from her and exits—the address from the laundromat in his hand.

SCENE 4: OUTSIDE LEOPOLD SERGEEVICH’S BUILDING.

Rain. Andrei loiters beneath a dripping drainpipe, savoring each droplet: “Oooo…cool…delicious…” He spots the hunchbacked Leopold entering his building and confronts him: “I recognized you at first sight! We’re from the same place, you and I. The name is sacred to us both: PKHENTZ! PKHENTZ!” Leopold appears confused. Apparently, Andrei has been mistaken. Andrei apologies and scurries away.

SCENE 5: ANDREI’S ROOM, MONTHS LATER.

A section of Andrei’s room is occupied by a bathtub, a dingy, claw-footed affair with a large crack on its side and a built-in curtain. Andrei prepares for a bath. He sings of his loneliness and regrets that Veronica has now been married. In a mood of deep contemplation, Andrei tells of his true identity: he is not a hunchback, but a cactus-like alien from a planet called PKHENTZ. His ship crashed, near Irkutsk. Andrei was the sole survivor. Realizing he would never be accepted by society, he adopted the identity of a hunchback, to conceal his true nature. As Andrei undresses, he reveals his luminous, prickly foliage, which he hides in his make-shift hump on his back.

SCENE 6: ANDREI’S ROOM, SEVERAL WEEKS LATER.

Andrei has grown ill. He lies in bed, and moans for water (an odd craving, perhaps, for a cactus). Veronica enters, calm and radiant. She has brought a flask of water. She raises it to Andrei’s lips, only to have Andrei shriek: “No! Not like that! Now leave me alone!” Veronica exits, embittered again by Andrei’s continued rejection. As the door closes, Andrei unbuttons his shirt and sticks the flask inside, neck downwards.

SCENE 7: ANDREI’S ROOM, SOME PERIOD OF TIME LATER.

Andrei is packing his bags. He has recovered from his infirmity. He reminisces joyously of his years before Earth. He has decided to “return” to his home world—in a fiery blaze at the site of the crash. At the end of the opera, he looks up and sees stars: “One of them is mine. Oh native land! PKHENTZ! GORGY TUZHEROSKIP! I am coming back to you. BONJOUR GUTTENABEND! TUZHEROSKIP! BU-BU-BU! MIAOW, MIAOW! PKHENTZ!”

Blackout.