Adapted from True Events by Pandora Gastelum of The Mudlark Public Theatre
Carl Tanzler was born in a small village in Austria in 1877. He was a curious child, who grew to be a curious young man. He spent his hours fascinated by the sky.
Young Carl kept elaborate journals documenting weather patterns. As he sat with his work and musings, he would often be visited by the image of a raven- haired beauty.
This would be his perfect love; dark as the evening sky and sparkling with a celestial brilliance.
Carl Tanzler began his medical training as a novice field surgeon in the face of the First World War.
After the smoke had cleared and the generation of bodies was cleared away, Tanzler returned to his village.
He soon met and married a young woman. She was pale of complexion, which was not to his favor. But she was all-the-same sturdy and they produced two healthy pregnancies in quick succession. Tanzler moved his blossoming family from under the vast Austrian sky, to the small town of Zephyrillis, Florida.
Zephyrillis was named for the Greek God Zephyr, keeper of the West wind and harbinger of springtime.
Despite the urgency of spring in the name of their new town, following the birth of his second child, which was simple and without remark, much like his marriage, Tanzler became disinterested in his brood. His heart had grown cold to them and he continued to dream of his dark haired beauty. Tanzler left his wife and young children ( enter hospital) to work in the new field of radiology at a humble U.S. Marine sponsored hospital in the city of Key West. And it was there, in this place of sterility and threadbare decorum, that he met the girl of his dreams.
(SLOW LIGHT UP. Enter rod puppet Milagro and mother)
On a bright, stiflingly hot Floridian day, in the land of spring winds, the Gulf Coast waters and their burning sun: A frail young woman was escorted into the hospital. She leaned against her attentive mother. Still a slip of a girl at of twenty-two, her attire was homespun but lavish made by the careful hands of her mother who now escorted her. The girl’s demeanor was shy and her eyes glossy with fever: This was Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. And here was Dr. Tanzler’s vision from childhood. Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. Even within her name was an incantation: (LIGHT DOWN. enter cross, ship, heart and arrow)Maria “ Mary,” “Holy Mother”, Elena” or “ Helen” Queen of Troy whose torturous beauty launched a thousand ships. “ Milagro” Miracle. De Hoyos meaning ‘of holes’ or ‘ punctures’, and Doctor Tanzler’s heart was pierced clean through. The young woman before him was truly his destiny. ( exit shadows, lights up. Milagro is helped to bed)
After his paroxysm of interest had abated, Tanzler immediately admitted his new charge to the most comfortable bed and sent her fretting mother away, assuring her all would be well. It was nothing short of electrical to lay hands on Maria Elena’s slight frame in his medical ministrations. But his exhilaration was cut short. It was clear, the young women had a persistent pleural occlusion, a blockage of the lungs associated with tuberculosis. At this time this disease was a death sentence, but Dr. Tanzler, despite his lack of qualifications, was determined to cure his one true love. ( light down enter Dr. with flask)
While his languished in her bed, the determined doctor experimented with all manner of elixirs, tonics, and chemical cocktails. He was certain that his devotion would could crack the riddle of his darling’s disease. ( light up. Exit shadows)
But in spite of his treatments, his love grew more despondent. Their conversations about the stars and the lives of the saints grew further truncated by her coughing fits. Her lungs were failing. And finally, Maria Elena, the piercing miracle, died under his tearful watch.
( Milagro is covered with shroud. Light down. Enter weeping puppet.)
The Milagro de Hoyos family were devastated. They had spent all their savings on the care for Maria Elena. The good doctor insisted on erecting the girl a proper mausoleum.
( enter graveyard. Slow cross to mausoleum. Enter key. Enter haunted mansion)
In the coming weeks the doctor had his love’s body prepared by an embalmer in secret and had her interred, in the heart of the graveyard, in their absence. The mausoleum was petite but fit for a princess. Dr. Tanzler never told the family that he would possess the only key to the site. He would often visit Maria Elena in secret.
After two long years of midnight meetings, the good doctor determined it was time to bring his bride home. He stole her body from the crypt and brought her to his mansion, now suffering from his grief’s neglect. ( lights up. Enter corpse bride and Dr.)
Maria Elena was set up in the master bedroom and her delicate body became the obsession of his existence. As she continued to decay, he washed her body in fragrant oils, elaborated her shroud to avoid any discoloration. He employed all manner of devices from the world of sculpture, from the realm of medical arts and quackery. He reinforced her crumbling bones with wire hangers, her skin with plaster and beeswax. He made a wax cast of her collapsing face and created a mask, complete with a wig of her own now brittle hair. He replaced her eyes with polished glass. And nightly, they shared a marriage bed. But, on occasion, they would dance.
Tanzler, now a hermit, had made a habit of buying expensive jewelry, women’s hosiery, and perfumes. The citizens of key west had taken note. When a local boy reported to the family having seen Tanzler dancing with a woman that looked like their sister, her mother had had enough. ( enter Mother puppet) This was 1940, seven years after Maria Elena’s passing. When Mother Milagro de Hoyos demanded entry to the house, the doctor seemed unashamed. Within, she found an elaborate boudoir with what she thought was an elaborate doll of her daughter on the bed. In her horror, she notified the police. ( lights down. Enter cop car with siren)
An officer arrived on the scene, expecting little but a harmless hoax.
( light up with cop who examines body, removes mask)
But when the responding officer touched the supposed doll, her waxen mask fell away to reveal the skeletal visage within. Tanzler was arrested for grave robbing.
( Tanzler is taken away. Body is examined in dim light by human dr.)
An autopsy of the body revealed the intricacies of Tanzler’s work, which included a glass tube inserted between her legs, forming a makeshift vagina, although Tanzler never admitted to necrophilic acts, he was concerned about the collapse of her lower abdomen. ( light down. Enter tanzler portrait, Milagro in the sky)
A psychiatric evaluation determined that Tanzler was competent to stand trial. According to several reports, Doctor Tanzler stated that his ultimate plan was to fly Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, “ high into the stratosphere, so that beams of radiation from outer space could penetrate her tissues and restore life to her somnolent form.”
Despite the bitterness and hurt felt by the Milagro de Hoyos family, the statute of limitations had long-since expired on the desecration of Maria Elena’s grave, leaving Tanzler free to go home, to his abandoned marital bower. ( light up. Milagro is examined by human spectators)
Maria Elena’s body was placed on display at a local funeral home, where nearly 7,000 people came to see the beautiful, doll-like corpse for themselves, and always for a fee.
( Light down. enter cemetery. Focus on blank grave.) Maria Elena’s body was not returned to her mausoleum, but finally laid to rest, once and for all, in an unmarked grave Key West Cemetery. ( enter tanzler portrait and wife.)
Carl Tanzler relocated to the nearby county of Pasco, Florida. He was supported by the estranged mother of his children. Lights up. Enter Milagro with mask in place and Tanzler)
Dr. Tanzler used the cast he had made of Maria Elena’s death mask to create a new mannequin of his would-be bride. On July 3rd, 1952, upon his death, he was discovered on the floor of his simple room, cradled in the arms of his effigy. Now only a doll, Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos was simply his bride manufactured from a dream; She remains forever girl who was called “ miracle.”
end
