Inspired by Ruggero Leoncavallo's tragic play Pagliacci, this adaptation follows the love, betrayal and madness that grip a desperate heart. Pagliacci explores the torment of the clown Canio, who, upon discovering his beloved's deception, loses his sense of reality. Desperate, he acts out his own tragedy on stage, culminating in a finale where acting and reality intertwine in one last, bloody scene. Here, we adapt this play to the characters of Helluva Boss, where Blitzo, in his quest for love, becomes a reflection of human tragedy: a clown entangled in the irony of his own life.


The stage, damp and dark, stands like an echo of the past, with a faded, torn tent creaking in the rhythm of a freezing wind. In the center, under a yellowish light, Blitzo observes his own reflection in a broken mirror. His makeup, the black and white of his cheeks, seems a cruel irony: a mask to hide the pain that boils beneath. Each line of paint accentuates his dark, dejected eyes, full of the marks of sleepless nights and stifled crying.

Blitzo (internal monologue, looking at himself in the mirror):

—Can someone so broken love without destroying what he touches? My Loona... could you love someone like me, a poor jester trapped in his illusions?

His hands tremble as he tries to rearrange the paint that has run down his cheeks, remembering those moments when Loona looked at him with contempt, a contempt so sharp that it embedded itself in his skin. And yet, he loves her with a fervor that burns his soul, a love that consumes him and turns him into a slave to his own madness.

He closes his eyes, letting his mind travel to those memories where Loona laughed, if only for a second, in some corner of his mind where that laughter still belongs to him. However, his memories are shattered when he hears footsteps: it is Loona, elegant, cold, with her imposing figure and a gaze as icy as it is distant.

Loona (expressionless, her tone is sharp):

—Blitzo, that's enough. This obsession of yours... it means nothing to me. You're just an old clown clinging to a broken dream.

Each word is a knife that sinks into Blitzo's chest, but he doesn't back down. He feels that he can still break that barrier between them, convince her that the love he feels can tear down the wall of ice she has built around herself.

Blitzo (with a trembling, desperate voice):

—Loona, I know that inside you… there is a place where I exist, even if it is only a memory… something you cannot forget. Tell me that I am something more than the echo of my own mistakes. Tell me that you can… feel.

Loona does not answer, and the silence that takes over the place is as thick as the fog that envelops the tent. However, that silence is interrupted by the sound of firm footsteps. Verosika enters the scene, her dress red as fire and her eyes shining with a mixture of contempt and pity. Her presence, elegant and cruel, contrasts with Blitzo's desolation. She stops, observing the scene with a bitter smile.

Verosika (with a soft but sharp voice):

—Oh, Blitzo, always so pathetic. Trapped in an impossible love, like a poor jester who does not understand that his function is over. Why do you insist on this… show?

Blitzo looks at her, his eyes red and wet, a mixture of rage and pleading that makes him look like a man on the edge of the abyss. His voice is barely a whisper, full of bitterness and misery.

Blitzo:

—Verosika, you don't understand... to love is... to destroy oneself, to give oneself even if there is nothing to gain. But if I can laugh in my pain, then at least I am my own tragedy.

Verosika smiles, a crooked and cruel smile, and approaches him, observing him with a coldness that chills the atmosphere. But in her gaze there is something else, a trace of her own hidden pain, a wasted love that she has learned to poison with contempt.

Verosika (in a low tone, her words full of irony):

—Blitzo, laugh then, laugh until your laughter drowns you. Because that is all you have left: to be the jester of your own delusions.

Blitzo lowers his head, defeated, but inside him there is still a flame, a last glimmer of hope. He takes a step towards Loona, his voice turning into a whisper full of pain.

Blitzo:

—Loona… give me something, anything I can hold. A smile, perhaps? Even if it is one last lie, just so that my love is not an eternal joke…

But Loona looks at him without emotion, her eyes empty of any trace of compassion. Silence is the only answer, a chasm that Blitzo cannot fill, no matter how hard he tries.

With one last desperate attempt, Blitzo takes a step towards her, but Verosika steps in between. The tension in the air is palpable, and Blitzo, unable to distinguish between reality and his own feelings, feels his mind breaking into a thousand pieces. In a final act of madness, he lunges at Verosika, caught in a storm of jealousy and despair.

Blitzo (screaming, in a fit of pain):

—Laugh, clown, laugh even if your heart is in pieces! Laugh, even if each laugh is one more wound!

The stunned audience watches the scene without understanding whether it is an act or a real tragedy. Confusion takes hold of everyone as Blitzo, in one last desperate act of love and pain, collapses to the ground, his eyes empty, and a last crooked smile on his lips.

Blitzo (in a final, barely audible whisper):

—Smile… clown… smile…

Silence falls like a heavy curtain, and the audience, still not fully understanding the scene, begins to applaud slowly, unable to discern whether they have witnessed a sublime performance or a real tragedy.

The applause is slow and hesitant, as if the spectators fear that the slightest sound might break the strange atmosphere that fills the tent. The murmurs turn into whispers and questions among the attendees, their faces confused and shocked, trying to grasp what they have just seen. The show seems to be over, but the stage remains empty and desolate, with the dim light on Blitzo's inert body. A man in the audience murmurs:

Spectator:

—Is this part of the play…? Or have we witnessed its true ending?

But no one answers him. The tragedy that seems to envelop the place feels so real that each attendee, in their own bewilderment, feels unable to move, as if any attempt to leave their seat were an insult to the memory of the fallen clown.

Finally, Loona steps down from the stage. Her face, which until a moment ago seemed a mask of coldness, now shows deep cracks. Her trembling hands cross over her chest, as if trying to protect herself from something she can barely understand. With hesitant steps, she approaches Blitzo's body and kneels beside him. Verosika's figure, stiff and shocked, watches the scene, perhaps feeling that, somehow, she has lost something too.

Loona raises her hand to Blitzo's face, slowly tracing the line of faded makeup, as if trying to etch every detail into her mind. Her voice, once sharp and cutting, becomes a muffled whisper of regret.

Loona (almost inaudible):

—Blitzo… why did you do this? Why… why did it have to be like this?

The air grows heavy, and a shudder of sadness seems to run through Loona's body. For a moment, she allows herself to remember the few moments when Blitzo showed her selfless affection, his clumsy but sincere attempts to make her laugh, to draw her out of her own darkness. He never answered her, never even gave her a sign of gratitude. Now, in this final scene, he seems to understand too late the value of that love he scorned and threw aside as if it meant nothing.

Verosika (from a distance, her voice filled with a mixture of mockery and pity):

—In the end, we are all prisoners of our own tragedies. He had to love too much, and you… you have to bear the weight of his memory.

Verosika's words stab Loona's heart like a dagger. The silence is broken by a sob, a soft, stifled one that barely escapes her lips. All she was left with was this absurd and cruel ending, an echo of the tragic play that was once just a tale to her, but has now become the bitterest truth of her life.

Loona (with a final whisper, lying down next to him):

—I'm sorry, Blitzo… I'm sorry I didn't understand before.

The light slowly goes out, and silence becomes the only witness to the tragedy that now closes in on the empty stage.