Upstaged

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On Tuesday March 9th our eighth performance of Going Out to the People, written and directed by Marcel Flavy, was disrupted. Even now, it’s extremely difficult to say whether this was unfortunate — either for us or for the audience. In any event, this disturbance was so artfully concealed from the public eye that the hallowed reputation of our national theater suffered no injury. Were it not for the professionalism of all involved — including, to be fair, the source of the disturbance himself — this would never have been possible.

There is something misleading in what I just wrote. What March 9th’s audience saw was not actually Going Out to the People. Although they did not know it, although they could not know it, although there was no way for us to tell them, what they saw was far stranger.

For this to make any sense I need to begin at the beginning. Before I do, it is imperative that I stress that the following — indeed, somewhat contradictory — account was not written with the aim of assigning blame to any of the players in that night’s drama. It should be remembered that these were professional artists violently shaken from their usual routines. There can be no doubt that for the duration of the crisis they performed to the best of their abilities. Taking sides for or against any of them would be not only inappropriate, it would be unfair. So as to be as absolutely explicit as possible: this document is offered with no other aim than the edification of a noble profession.

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