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Sofia Andrukhovych
the indignant man.
“I amsorry, I can’t do anything
about it,” the fan opens
abruptly, nervously beating
the air like heavy cream.
“Of course!” sigh the man
dramatically. “What can you
expect from this audience,
what can you expect of its
tastes? If they do not care
to come to hear the great
Proskurnytska, or a concert
by the Boyan choir, or see
the touring Lublin opera, but
come to amuse themselves by
the tricks of some conjuror.”
“Ah, Mr. Yanovych,” resounds
an ironic girlish voice. “But
your learned presence is
expected everywhere.”
“And
at
that,
in
an
embroidered peasant shirt!”
hisses disdainfully the lady
with a caravel on her head.
Like ripples on water, giggles
and timid muffled sounds of
disparagement roll across the
theater, but at that moment
the curtains shake and start
opening, revealing the stage
at the center of which stands
a
red-and-blue
Chinese
pagoda with several levels of
roofs, dashingly upturned at
the edges. Below them two
neat bundles of straw hang
on ropes.
Silence falls, only occasionally
broken by a squeaking chair,
someone’s quiet cough or
stomach rumbles. Thepagoda
is lit from the top and from
the sides; the rest of the stage
is covered in semidarkness.
The eyes of the audience
thoroughly study this space,
seeking to register the tiniest
movement, single out a hint
of action about to start.
They hold back the spring of
impatience, fully prepared
to see the jumping out of
some kind of otherworldly
creature, the rolling out of
a crazy-looking scarecrow,