1DAY 1 ACT 1 SCENE 1
Keraasak and Chorus:
Costumes for bodies and makeup for faces
Dressing rooms, workshops, and dry storage spaces
Meals that are just barely better than none
That’s what it takes to make theaters run.
Sweepers with broomsticks to clean up the aisles
Greedy producers with insincere smiles
Boxes of propses that weigh nigh a ton
That’s what it takes to make theaters run.
Critics to grumble on the morning after
Dancers, and therefore a choreo-grapher
Directors to crush spirits for everyone
That’s what it takes to make theaters run.
If you’re homeless
If you’re beggared
If you’ve naught to eat
Simply join up with a theater troupe
And soon you will miss
The street!
Printers to print up the handbills and flyers
Handbill composers and other skilled liars
Playwrights to sacrifice art for a pun
That’s what it takes to make theaters run.
Spotlights to point out where you should be looking
Cashiers to handle the tickets and booking
Ushers to empty the house when it’s done
That’s what it takes to make theaters run.
Riggers with ladders and painters with brushes
Actors who gen’rally speaking are lushes
A crowd full of killjoys to spoil the fun
That’s what it takes to make theaters run.
If you’re homeless
If you’re beggared
If you’ve naught to eat
Simply join up with a theater troupe
And soon you will miss
The street!
* * *
The director called, “Lunch, back in ninety!” and Sara and I waited for Kota. By the time Kota reached us, the director, a Chreotha, by the way, was talking with a well-dressed gentleman who seemed to be an Orca. We couldn’t hear the conversation, but the director was shaking her head furiously and gesticulating, while the Orca kept shrugging and spreading his hands.
I looked around. It was a large company, and a large theater. Er, “house.” If I had to guess, I’d say you could fit at least a thousand people in it, but I’m terrible at estimating things like that, so I could be wrong. The ceiling was high and arched, painted dark blue with gilded swirls coming together in the middle. There was no balcony, though it looked as if there might once have been one. A few sets hung from the ceiling, angled toward the various sides, but they didn’t look like they were part of the same setting—one showed a few low buildings as seen from out a window, another looked like part of an interior, with a table and chairs.
After a little, I realized that I could identify the groups: the actors were draped across the chairs facing side two, the tech people held the stage like an occupying army, and the musicians, except for Kota of course, stayed in their spot, in the sunken area in front of side one. A few people with large boxes held by straps around their necks went around and distributed things—lunch, it appeared. It reminded me unpleasantly of an experience I’d had in the army during a set of events I don’t want to talk about. Maybe whatever the theater people were being served was better.
Eventually the Orca nodded and left. Kota led us over to the director, whose name, Sara told me, was Praxitt, and who was still standing near the door, frowning. Before Kota could start the introduction, however, the director looked up and said, “Sara?”
Sara broke into one of her smiles-like-morning-in-the-East. “I hadn’t thought you’d remember me.”
“Of course I remember you. High soprano in The Color of Water. Unforgettable. How do you know Kota?”
“We’ve worked together several times, and we’re old friends,” she said. “This is my somewhat younger friend Vlad Taltos.”
I could see the director struggling with asking how she came to be friends with an Easterner, but courtesy won and she didn’t. Lady Teldra, the long knife that was hanging from my left side, no doubt approved. How it is a knife can approve or disapprove of something is complicated. We’ll get to it later.
Praxitt gave a slight bow and said, “Lord Taltos.” Addressing me as “lord” meant she’d noticed I was armed, so she wasn’t stupid, at any rate.
“Lady Praxitt,” I said, giving her a very slightly deeper bow than she’d given me. My knife would approve of that, too.
“Just Praxitt. So what can I do for you?” she said, taking us both in. Kota squeezed Sara’s arm, smiled, and went back toward the stage. Praxitt led us across the stage and back out the way we’d come in. There was an open area, now empty, where I suppose the actors would wait for their entrances; I knew that most entrances and exits were this way, though sometimes they’d be through the audience to one of the other sides of the stage.
Praxitt stopped, turned to Sara, and waited.
“Vlad,” said Sara, “would like to hide out here for a few days, maybe up to a couple of weeks.”
“Hide out from creditors?” said Praxitt, smiling a little.
“More serious than that, I’m afraid,” said Sara.
“Oh,” she said. “Then, huh, perhaps don’t tell me from whom. If you tell me, it’ll certainly get around, and actors being actors they’re liable to sell you out if they know who to sell you out to. Hmm. So might I, come to think of it.”
“Heh,” I said. “I appreciate your honesty. I think.”
“So, would it be possible?” asked Sara.
“For him to stay here? Maybe.” She looked at me more closely. “Did you notice the Orca I was just speaking to?”
“Yes,” I said. “Who is he?”
“He’s producing the show.”
“Producing?”
“Yes. He’s the producer.”
“What does a producer do?”
Her eyes widened a little. “You don’t know?” I was grateful she didn’t say “He produces,” which I probably would have.
I said, “I barely know what to call the different sides of the stage.”
She chuckled. “Not a theater buff, I take it?”
“I used to attend from time to time when I was, that is, no, not a buff.”
She nodded. “A producer provides the money to finance the production, hires the director and the company and sometimes others, and rents the house. Short version, he owns the company and we all work for him.”
“Rich as he looks, then.”
“He doesn’t put that much of his own money into it, he mostly finds investors.”
I nodded.
No one spoke for a while, I guess each of us waiting for the other. It sounded like Praxitt had been going somewhere, but she didn’t seem interested in getting there. Finally, Sara said, “What do you think? He knows how to keep out of the way. Can you do this?”
“Maybe,” said Praxitt, giving me a speculative look.
“Mmmm?” I said.
“You’re an Easterner,” she stated, I guess needing to get around to whatever it was the slow way.
“Yes.”
“And you’re carrying a sword.”
“Picked up on that, did you?”
She licked her lips and said, “Have you had much contact with the Jhereg?”
I stared at her, trying to decide if she was joking, but then realized I wasn’t wearing my colors anymore, so I just nodded.
“So then,” she asked, “you know how they work?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Then perhaps you can do something for me in exchange.”
My first thought was to ask Sara if she knew any other theaters, but before I could speak, she said, “You know he isn’t going to want to leave here.”
Copyright © 2024 by Steven Brust
