Lyrics by Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda.

Eric:
So the way the story goes is subject to interpretation
There’s a lot of different versions and a lot of variation
But rappaccini came from Venice
(Local passer-by) I heard it was Padua
(Another local) I heard it was Trieste

Eric: whatever, he came from somewhere in Italy, set up shop and did his best
To make things perfect all summer long before his very pregnant wife arrived in the fall
And he bought that house behind the garden wall.

(We see the house fresh and new with a bright coat of paint and an empty garden)
(Spoken) now keep in mind, this is like gaslight, horse-drawn carriages and stuff.
Conti: horse drawn carriages? How long ago was this?
Eric: i don’t know. A long time ago. This is how I heard the story. Anyways,
(sings)
So Rappaccini meets his wife as she disembarks from the boat here in the big easy.
But she got sick on the trip on the sailing ship and now she’s feverish and queasy

Redhead: I heard she died in childbirth!
Delgado: I heard she lived a few years more.

Eric: I heard she gave birth on the staircase right after getting in through the front door
And a brand new baby girl was born and her wailing cries did echo down the hall
Of that strange old house behind the garden wall

Conti: so the mother, did she die in childbirth or not?
Eric: I don’t know. I don’t think so but some people do.

(sings)
But most everyone agrees that she succumbed to some disease
Some new world nastiness and her frail constitution couldn’t fight it
And Rappaccini watched her fade in the sickbed where she stayed
Until she passed away and Rappaccini could not abide it
and they buried her above the ground here,
'cause that's how we do it around here
But they did it at midnight with only the daughter and dad.
No family or priest to say a blessing, just the little girl crying, I’m guessing
While she’s holding hand of her father who’s gone slightly mad
Back at home he’s acting peculiar, people see him in fits of rage
He locks the girl behind the gates, her house is like a cage
he’s certain he coulda saved his wife if he worked harder to protect her
And he damn sure won’t let those new world nasties get to his daughter and infect her
He orders a panoply of poison plants, maxes out his credit card

And he sows the seeds of poison there, and fills up his entire yard.


And the garden grows...
(And Eric and the cast sing in chorus as the garden does in fact grow before our eyes: from nothing into a teeming, alive, flowering and otherworldly place. )


So nobody goes in the garden unless they're coming back out in a hearse, now,
Rappaccini got poisonous plants with razor-sharp blossoms, venus flytraps and worse now.
And he wears his big ol' long black gloves and collects his clippings one by one,
and he grinds them down, adds a little distilled water, fills a syringe and then he's done
and calls his daughter close, be brave my dear, roll up your sleeve, a little sterile wipe of alcohol,
and you can hear the little girl's screams from far outside the garden wall.

CONTI
You’re saying he injected...the poison? His own daughter?
ERIC
For her own good, he figured, yeah. Larger and larger doses till her system becomes tough enough to fight off anything. Immunity off the charts.
CONTI
You gotta be kidding me.
ERIC
But wait. This is where the story gets a little strange.
CONTI
This is where it gets strange?
(The Servants, drawn by her screams, surround Beatrice as she reels with the effects of the injection.)

ERIC
All those toxins running through her system turned her into a walking poison herself. A beautiful poison, they say. But deadly. Can’t touch or be touched.
(Beatrice reaches out to those around her, all of whom back off fearfully, disappearing, leaving her alone in a POOL OF LIGHT.)

ERIC
(sings)
AND NOW SHE’LL NEVER TOUCH ANOTHER LIVING THING AT ALL
IN THE HOUSE BEHIND THE GARDEN WALL
ENSEMBLE
IN THE HOUSE BEHIND THE GARDEN WALL
IN THE HOUSE BEHIND THE GARDEN WALL IN THE HOUSE...
ERIC AND ENSEMBLE
...BEHIND THE GARDEN WALL!