The stage was still being set for the Victorian period drama of the century, at least that's what it advertised itself as. The truth was that nobody had any real idea of what was supposed to go where, the managers where nowhere to be found at any given time and only a core few staff members had been there from day one.
If you ask the newer members they'll say they're quitting to go elsewhere, there have been family problems, they're just too exhausted by the constant commute etcetera. The core members will tell you that the whole thing seems suspicious but their pay has been gradually increasing so they feel it's worthwhile to keep coming in and studying the script to gain further hints at where things need to be.
There's been no sign or show that actors will be hired at any point so the staff have adapted to using newer members as stand-ins to figure out where a person would naturally move to interact with the mentioned objects as well as where other objects would look aesthetically pleasing and period-correct (which the emails from management emphasised above all else).
Nearly nine months later the show was due to begin with no actors in sight, no posters handed out save for the three on the noticeboard on the street out front. Everyone had been handed the same notice that they wouldn't be needed on the night of the show and their duties were "taken care of", but by whom it never said.
The night before the show, all current staff were hand delivered tickets by a woman dressed in full Victorian mourning garb with a thick veil obscuring her face. She introduced herself by the lead protagonist's name and said they simply must come see the first show for good luck.
The following evening at 18:15 sharp the majority were there, all wearing their crew shirts as the tickets had specified. They were greeted out front by people they'd never seen before (actors, they presumed) dressed in similar old fashioned uniforms who bade them to their seats and made no noise when they walked across the hardwood flooring.
The stage was exactly as the crew had left it, now operated by utter strangers though this gave them all a stronger sense of camaraderie than they'd experienced during the set-up. They exchanged worried looks and mutterings about the specifics of the equipment and how it liked to be handled until the hoarse voices of their fellow theatre-goers shushed them harshly.
At 18:45 the curtains raise as the narrator missed his cue to walk onstage, instead lingering in the wings and running from corner to corner, ducking under the furniture and scurrying about like a cockroach fleeing an incoming boot. The fear in his voice was almost too real but the crew whispered to each other about his dedication and character interpretation.
They began to smile as the narrator continued to fling and hide about the stage until his speech was over and he ran full pelt across the stage with a drawn out shriek that ended with a quiet groan and a loud thump. It set the mood for the rest of the play as the protagonist walked on in the same mourning garb she'd worn to give the crew their tickets.
Anything human about they play ended there as she violently tore off her veil and collapsed into a pile of maggots that began to devour each other until one enormous, white thing writhed about the stage, coughing up smaller maggots and eating them again and again in a sickening cycle instead of the scripted weeping and soliloquising about her late husband killing their son in a murder-suicide pact with her estranged sister.
Then the only other character - the Doctor - came on stage, at least his stick thin and hideously long legs did. The rest of him was hunched over by the ceiling though the shadowy outline of his chattering mandibles could be seen, as could the viscous grey saliva that dripped steadily down upon the writhing protagonist.
The first few drops didn't phase the creature but after a few moments of tense silence it began howling and trying to attack the doctor who leapt and swooped upon it with such a fury that his garbled chitters could almost form words. It sounded like he was saying a mixture of "stand still", "leave your carapace" and "the stage is wrong, there's nothing where everything is" (though it was hard to say which was worse to hear - a death threat or a critique).
There was no interval, no break between this strangely hypnotising battle of monsters for two hours until it concluded with the doctor's mandibles snapping the morning protagonist cleanly in half to reveal two human children who broke the fourth wall. They announced themselves as the writer, the creators of the play and the creatures, that they were the creatures and they were finally free from "the flesh cell" that had held them all these years.
After thanking everyone for coming they bowed and fled the stage leaving the crew to realise their fragile position as the only humans there. All around them the rest of the audience complained of hunger pangs. The sounds of chittering grew, the sounds of screaming rose and fell and then all was silent.
Outside the theatre the signs peeled off and crumbled to ash when they hit the floor.
If you ask the newer members they'll say they're quitting to go elsewhere, there have been family problems, they're just too exhausted by the constant commute etcetera. The core members will tell you that the whole thing seems suspicious but their pay has been gradually increasing so they feel it's worthwhile to keep coming in and studying the script to gain further hints at where things need to be.
There's been no sign or show that actors will be hired at any point so the staff have adapted to using newer members as stand-ins to figure out where a person would naturally move to interact with the mentioned objects as well as where other objects would look aesthetically pleasing and period-correct (which the emails from management emphasised above all else).
Nearly nine months later the show was due to begin with no actors in sight, no posters handed out save for the three on the noticeboard on the street out front. Everyone had been handed the same notice that they wouldn't be needed on the night of the show and their duties were "taken care of", but by whom it never said.
The night before the show, all current staff were hand delivered tickets by a woman dressed in full Victorian mourning garb with a thick veil obscuring her face. She introduced herself by the lead protagonist's name and said they simply must come see the first show for good luck.
The following evening at 18:15 sharp the majority were there, all wearing their crew shirts as the tickets had specified. They were greeted out front by people they'd never seen before (actors, they presumed) dressed in similar old fashioned uniforms who bade them to their seats and made no noise when they walked across the hardwood flooring.
The stage was exactly as the crew had left it, now operated by utter strangers though this gave them all a stronger sense of camaraderie than they'd experienced during the set-up. They exchanged worried looks and mutterings about the specifics of the equipment and how it liked to be handled until the hoarse voices of their fellow theatre-goers shushed them harshly.
At 18:45 the curtains raise as the narrator missed his cue to walk onstage, instead lingering in the wings and running from corner to corner, ducking under the furniture and scurrying about like a cockroach fleeing an incoming boot. The fear in his voice was almost too real but the crew whispered to each other about his dedication and character interpretation.
They began to smile as the narrator continued to fling and hide about the stage until his speech was over and he ran full pelt across the stage with a drawn out shriek that ended with a quiet groan and a loud thump. It set the mood for the rest of the play as the protagonist walked on in the same mourning garb she'd worn to give the crew their tickets.
Anything human about they play ended there as she violently tore off her veil and collapsed into a pile of maggots that began to devour each other until one enormous, white thing writhed about the stage, coughing up smaller maggots and eating them again and again in a sickening cycle instead of the scripted weeping and soliloquising about her late husband killing their son in a murder-suicide pact with her estranged sister.
Then the only other character - the Doctor - came on stage, at least his stick thin and hideously long legs did. The rest of him was hunched over by the ceiling though the shadowy outline of his chattering mandibles could be seen, as could the viscous grey saliva that dripped steadily down upon the writhing protagonist.
The first few drops didn't phase the creature but after a few moments of tense silence it began howling and trying to attack the doctor who leapt and swooped upon it with such a fury that his garbled chitters could almost form words. It sounded like he was saying a mixture of "stand still", "leave your carapace" and "the stage is wrong, there's nothing where everything is" (though it was hard to say which was worse to hear - a death threat or a critique).
There was no interval, no break between this strangely hypnotising battle of monsters for two hours until it concluded with the doctor's mandibles snapping the morning protagonist cleanly in half to reveal two human children who broke the fourth wall. They announced themselves as the writer, the creators of the play and the creatures, that they were the creatures and they were finally free from "the flesh cell" that had held them all these years.
After thanking everyone for coming they bowed and fled the stage leaving the crew to realise their fragile position as the only humans there. All around them the rest of the audience complained of hunger pangs. The sounds of chittering grew, the sounds of screaming rose and fell and then all was silent.
Outside the theatre the signs peeled off and crumbled to ash when they hit the floor.
No comments:
Post a Comment