Act 1

Act 1 begins with the gangster Trock Estrella talking to his sidekick, Shadow, in a New York City riverbank tenement. Trock has six months to live. He wants to make sure none of the people in the tenement will share evidence that could send him back to jail for the rest of his life. Miriamne Esdras finds out that her brother Garth knows that Estrella is guilty of a murder for which a radical thinker named Bartolomeo Romagna was executed. After hearing that a professor is causing a new stir about the case, Trock visits Garth to threaten him.

In scene 3, Judge Gaunt of the Romagna case enters the tenement street scene and argues that he was right to give the death sentence. Then Mio Romagna enters, telling his friend Carr that he has come to the tenement to prove his father's innocence. Mio is struck by Miriamne's...