2. Street People / Pope of Fools

STREET & POPE OF FOOLS COMPETITION

STREET PEOPLE
It's the day for the election of the Pope of Fools. The people are rowdy and festive. Among them are the Gypsies and thieves, telling fortunes, begging, and picking pockets. The fools are there too, vying to be the most foolish.

GRINGOIRE'S PLAY
The playwright Gringoire is to be putting on his play, a lofty spiritualism, but no one will pay attention. His moment of attempted decorum breaks down as the . . .
POPE OF FOOLS
. . . coronation begins. It's a mock-regal ceremony. Just as the winner is about to be crowned, Quasimodo is discovered hiding. In the heat of the action they place him center stage. His ugliness transfixes and scares them as he dances (to a solo tuba), light and agile in his severe infirmity. The audience is spellbound.
Other fool contestants are in an uproar with all the attention going to Q.

NOBLES AND FOOLS
After the dance ends the nobles enter, true royalty in full gear. They have come for the play. But chaos reigns. As the royalty try to go about their business, the coronation of Pope Quasimodo takes place. The street people's behavior mimics the nobles' in simultaneous ceremony.
Quasimodo's moment is stolen from him when Claude, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, enters and orders Quasimodo to his side. Q. reluctantly obeys.
Quasimodo was abandoned on the doorstep of Notre Dame as an infant, and Claude is his foundling father and benefactor, who is appalled at Q.'s display of emotion and frivolity.
The nobles continue with their procession, as do the somehow-more-noble fools, and the act ends in repose.