SCENE I: Time -1954
MUSIC
A bed is placed stage left. A chair and a small table are positioned close to it. There are a jug of water, two bottles of medicine and a basket with fruit on the table. Some wilted flowers are in a clear glass vase that has no water in it. A pale and sick looking FRIDA KAHLO is in bed. She is writing in a diary. She folds the book and puts it aside. She takes some pills from a bottle and takes them with a drink of water. She closes her eyes.
DIEGO RIVERA, an overweight man in his early fifties enters the stage. He walks to the bed. Takes the diary. Reads for a moment. Holding the diary close to his chest he walks to the edge of the stage and addresses the audience.
DIEGO: My wife, Frida, died today. (pause) The doctors are going to say she died of complications from some fancy medical condition (shaking his head) but I tell you something. She was too strong a person to be defeated by any disease. Hell, a bus ran over her. Broke half the bones in her body. A metal rod pierced through her pelvis. That didn’t kill her. She spent months in hospitals undergoing surgeries, thirty surgeries! Those didn’t kill her. (pause) She was married to me – twice. That nearly killed me, but it didn’t kill her. She didn’t want to die in the autumn and be a part of the season when everything is dying. She didn’t want to die in the spring and be a contradiction to nature. She chose to go in the blaze of summer. Yes, listen to this. She wrote in her diary: “This is the time. I hope the exit is joyful— and I hope never to return— Frida" (pause) You can draw your own conclusion, but as far as I’m concerned, she made a decision. (walking to the table and picking up the bottle of pills) She was in control. And when the time was right, she said, “I accept.” What she did is not accepting defeat. It’s heroic. (pause) There’s a tradition in Japan. It’s called hara-kiri. A most honorable way to go. It takes real guts to look death in the eye and shake hands with it and say, I accept….That was my Frida, always the fighter. Never the quitter. (DIEGO walks to the bed. Puts the book down and pulls a white sheet across her face.)
(The bed is carried out, leaving a table and a chair on the stage.)
Lights go down.