THE BABY OF MÂCON

The complete script of Greenaway’s highly theatrical film telling the story of a miraculous baby born in a time of infertility and plague in the cathedral city of Macon.
The Baby of Mâcon is the story of the exploitation of a child for gain. In a time of plague when the community of the cathedral city of Mâcon is struck with infertility, a beautiful, healthy child is born. The child is immediately seen as an opportunity for profit, both by his own sister and by the Church. The Child brings prosperity and is considered to be a saint. But the prosperity brings greed and ambition. The Child is sacrificed and all is lost.
This story is told on stage in a provincial theatre at the height of the Counter-Reformation before an audience whose appetite for religious melodrama is strong. We do not know whether this narrative is acted or merely real, whether or not we are witnessing the events in a theatre or in a Church, and in the end, we are not certain who are the actors and who are the audience.