I walked onstage and said:
"Today, you will see a production come into being."
In the third row, a man with a white card raised his hand.
"Are we allowed to watch in silence?"
"That is precisely what the white card is for."
"Then why did I raise my hand?"
"You've already participated."
He lowered both his hand and his card, plainly displeased by how quickly he had violated his own intention.
I continued. I explained that we had an unfinished play, nine unfinished stories, a system that proposed matches and people with the right to say no. At the words "the right to say no", one of the invited participants stood and asked whether she might first be told what, precisely, she was being asked to refuse.
Ariadna displayed the first instruction: `THE ACTORS READ THE SCENE UNTIL THE FIRST DISAGREEMENT. AN AUDIENCE MEMBER STOPS THEM`.
Timur and Lidia Pavlovna began the scene beside the ladder. In the text, a married couple were deciding, after twenty years of marriage, which of them would get the top rung. On the fourth line, a woman with a blue card said:
"Stop. Why are they dividing up the ladder at all if they share the flat?"
I prepared to explain the metaphor, but a man with a red card had already gone onstage and suggested moving the ladder against the wall. Timur asked whether they should continue with the text. An invited participant wanted to know why she had been seated beside a woman who kept crying. The woman replied that she was not crying; she was allergic to theatre dust. From the aisle, Stas said the dust had been cleaned up the previous day. Lyudmila Andreyevna, who was standing by the door, objected that only the foyer had been cleaned the previous day.
Within three minutes, they were discussing the ladder, the dust, the right to alter the author's text and the standard of cleaning. The production vanished.
I raised my hand. The company fell silent, followed by the front row and then everyone else. Even Irina Sergeyevna stopped writing.
The pause was flawless. I stood at the centre of the pool of light, looking into the auditorium without saying a word. Ordinarily, at such a moment I know exactly what I am waiting for: the intake of breath before the necessary line, someone else's mistake that can be turned into a move or, at the very least, a telephone ringing. This time I did not know.
So I remained silent longer.
An elderly woman with a red card rose in the fifth row. Until then, she had been sitting beside one of the invited participants and writing something on the back of her ticket.
"Since you've finished, may I say something?"
Judging by Vera's expression, the pause did not count as a completed contribution. But it was too late to object.
"Go ahead."
"We keep working out who is supposed to do what, but no one has asked why any of us came. Let's take turns. One sentence each. I came to watch a rehearsal because I've never seen actors make mistakes. Your turn."
She pointed to the man beside her. He said that he had received an invitation because of a story he did not want to tell, but wanted to understand why he had been invited. The next woman had come with her daughter because her daughter intended to apply to drama school. The man with the white card admitted that his wife had bought the ticket and he had expected to sit quietly.
The circle moved around the auditorium without my permission. People spoke briefly and sometimes passed their turn. One invited participant said only, "I wanted to see whether I could leave," and left. Vera recorded the withdrawal, Raya opened the door, and the money was refunded to the woman's card before she reached the bottom of the steps.
The answers that followed were less convenient. Timur had come to act and hoped the audience would not interfere with the text. Lidia Pavlovna had come to see whether it was possible to survive an open evening without coming to hate everyone present. Stas had come because he was rostered on, but wanted to know who had authorised the cards being attached to his ladder. Raya intended to see whether they could find a use for costumes that did not belong in any current production.
One of the invited participants said that his sister had telephoned and asked him to come in her place. Vera stopped the circle, checked the consent terms and established that his sister could bring a companion but could not transfer the invitation. The man was offended not by the rule, but by his sister, who had once again failed to read an email to the end. He had paid nothing, so there was nothing to refund. He was offered the option of staying as an ordinary audience member without access to the story. He agreed and exchanged his red card for a white one.
Irina Sergeyevna asked who had made the decision. Vera named herself, showed her the relevant consent clause and entered the decision in the log. It took two minutes. No machine assumed responsibility, but nor did a human hide behind one.
When Irina Sergeyevna's turn came, she said:
"I came to establish who will answer for it if anyone leaves in a worse state than they arrived."
I was supposed to speak after her.
"I came to put on a production," I said.
The elderly woman looked at the empty stage.
"You haven't yet."
"No, not yet."
It was the first line I had spoken that evening that improved nothing. That was precisely why the conversation finally moved on.
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