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"Giraut, please," I said. "I've been meaning to tell you I prefer that you use
my given name."
"Giraut, then. I don't suppose you can imagine what all this means to us."
I sighed. "I really don't suppose I can, either."
The lights were beginning to flicker where had they learned that traditional
signal for show about to start? so Paul, with another nod, got down
off the stage, and
Thorwald brought up my lute in its case. "We had it expressed from the Center
when
Val told us," he explained. "I hope that was all right."
"It was splendid of you," I said, meaning it. "I always prefer
playing my own instrument."
I had all the normal tension I get just before a performance, but packed into
the five
minutes of tuning while Thorwald made some veiled political jokes about the
police and "what a night, friends our first cabaret, our first poet, our
first riot." The crowd seemed quieter and more subdued.
If I may say so, Valerie and I were brilliant together. Her instincts for
improvisation were every bit as good ensemble as solo, and I don't think there
have been very many finer performances of the dozen Occitan standards we went
through.
And yet warm and friendly as the audience was, good as the performance was as
much as I knew that in style and quality, we were far ahead of everything so
far that night ... I had a curious empty feeling about it People were
applauding beauty, which was as it should be but somehow that moved them less
than Valerie's defiant (and to me incomprehensible) anthem, or Anna's dreadful
verses or even, as I hated to admit to myself, less than Taney Peterborough's
stale jokes.
I moved back to let Valerie take all the remaining bows, to applaud her
myself. The applause was hers by right; I found that I resented the whole
situation a little, and felt deep shame, like a spreading stain on my
enseingnamen, that I could be so petty. I
thought of some things Bieris had said to me earlier, and realized how silly
some of my posturing must look to her ... and to the students at the Center.
When at last we were permitted to sit down, Thorwald came onto the stage
almost at once, as if afraid of any loss of momentum, and seemed edgier than
before. The reason became clear in a moment: "Our final piece is by
a playwright of such remarkable ability, and represents so major a
break-through for him and indeed for all of Caledon culture, that I can only
say to you ... I wrote it."
The place roared with laughter and he looked relieved. I realized he had no
idea how dependable that old joke was.
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Deu, he probably thought he had invented it.
"Let me point out that because this is the first presentation of this
play anywhere, there are no accepted interpretations of any of the roles, so
our actors have truly had to create from scratch." There was another scattered
burst of clapping, probably from the more supportive friends of the actors.
"What that means, of course, is that if they get it wrong, it's not my
fault I assure you it was written brilliantly." More laughter
followed; I saw Thorwald check for a cue from backstage, and then he added,
"All right, I suppose I really can't delay this any longer. If you have any
questions I'll be out in the hallway, either biting my nails or throwing up."
A group of awkward people in mostly dark clothing, working in mostly dark
that they didn't blend in with, lurched around getting two tables and four
chairs onto the stage.
"Oh, uh, yap," Thorwald added, returning to the stage, "the play is called
Creighton's
Job."
His exit was even more awkward this time.
The actors stumbled and thudded a lot getting into places in the dark, and
there was a little tittering at that. When the lights came up, all the actors
were scratching or shuffling to a new position, so of course things took a
moment to start. I noticed they all wore prompter earpieces, so at least
we would not be treated to the charming effect of watching them try
to remember their lines.
As far as I could make out there was too much laughter and applause too often,
and apparently the play was set in the back country up beyond Gomorrah Gap,
far to the icy south, so the accents were thick the play was about Creighton,
whose parents wanted him to get a good job and kept proving to him using a
blackboard at the dinner table, for example that he wanted one. Then he would
go interview, always with the same man (I was not sure whether this was part
of the joke or a shortage of actors) and after a
lot of complicated mathematics, and a lot of (apparently hilarious and
possibly ribald)
dialogue in Reason, Creighton's father would get the job.
After the second time this happened, the pattern began to vary and
escalate Creighton's mother got hired, the interviewer hired himself, the
interviewer punished Creighton for applying by firing his father and marrying
his mother. The little
I could understand was very broad, low and old humor.
Just as the wedding ceremony was being performed, with Creighton's
father officiating and Creighton running from function to function as
simultaneous best man, maid of honor, choir, and flower girl, the lights went
out completely.
The crowd had been roaring its approval almost continuously Margaret had been
so excited she was practically in my lap but now they fell instantly
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