FULL SYNOPSIS

 

ACT I 

Ruins of Pompeii, 1977: A group of kids on a school trip. Suzie and Cass gaze at the Ash-Embrace bodies of two lovers ‘frozen in time.’ The light flickers, something begins to shift, the lovers move, they breathe … the girls are transported to Pompeii 79AD, to the Villa of Mysteries where they fall in love during initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries. The Priestess names them Suli and Cassia and vows to protect them against Roman Centurion, Marcus Quintus. He is enchanted with Suli, and determined to destroy the Mystery Cult and take her as a prisoner to Rome. The Priestess predicts ‘a coming devastation’ as Vesuvius rumbles ever louder and Marcus & his legion invade the inner sanctum of the Temple of Isis.

 

ACT II 

1981, downtown Toronto: Saturday night at the Fly by Night lesbian bar. Jules the Bartender encourages the women to join a protest march against police brutality during last night’s Bathhouse Raid.

Cass mourns her breakup with Suzie and longs to see her. Jules and the women tell Cass, “Forget her.” When Suzie enters the bar, the estranged lovers reminisce about meeting in high school, and becoming lovers for the first time on their school trip to Pompeii. Then Suzie reveals that she’s just come out to her mother. Cass has been thrown out by her own parents and lives in a lonely basement apartment. She wants Suzie to move in with her, but Suzie won’t leave her widowed mom. The couple argue and Cass worries about Suzie’s future; about her uncle’s plans to marry her off. 

When Suzie’s Uncle bursts into the bar, all hell breaks loose. He and the mother have followed Suzie and plan to take her home, but Suzie wants freedom to reunite with Cass. She is given an impossible choice – to take the protection of family, or go with her lover and be banished.