Before the transfer of privileges, the new framework was tested during an ordinary rehearsal. Not on an important case, not in front of journalists and not at a moment of danger. Timur and Lidia Pavlovna were playing the scene without the ladder, Vera was on procedural duty, two council representatives were monitoring consent and the operator was checking the log. I sat in the fifth row.
Under the new arrangement, the artistic director could stop a scene for artistic reasons, but could not override a refusal or open someone else's context. Every intervention appeared in the log under the person's surname.
The first ten minutes went badly. Timur rushed, Lidia Pavlovna forgot her new line and the chair creaked at moments when the text was already flagging. Three times I raised my hand, and three times I lowered it.
The fourth time, Timur stopped of his own accord.
"Lidia Pavlovna, am I getting in your way?"
"You're not giving me room to breathe. You've always got the next line ready."
"What should I do?"
"Wait."
He waited. Not for a theatrical pause, but for the ordinary four seconds it takes a fellow actor to draw breath. The scene found its balance.
I wrote down a note and did not deliver it. No reward followed. Timur did not give a brilliant performance, Lidia Pavlovna did not discover a new meaning and the council did not notice my restrained act of heroism. They simply finished the scene without me.
After the run-through, Timur came over.
"Well?"
"It was better after you stopped."
"I realised that too."
"You rushed at the beginning."
"I know."
He went to change without waiting for the second part of the notes session. In the past, I would have regarded that as ingratitude. Now it occurred to me that a man needed to take off someone else's jacket before the next scene.
The log showed zero interventions beside my surname for the entire run-through. I admired the figure for about two minutes. Then Ariadna asked:
"Would you like to add an observation?"
"Yes. Timur found the pause himself."
"Recorded."
My zero did not appear in the final report. It was an internal counter that disappeared once the record was saved.
A pity. It was a beautiful figure.
At the next run-through, I intervened in the third minute. The chair Lidia Pavlovna flung aside after her line sent one leg into the aisle. Stas moved the mark, Raya taped down a new strip and we started again.
Then I stopped Timur at the end of the scene.
"Don't wait for the laugh."
"I'm not waiting."
"You are. After the word 'widow', you leave room as though you were waiting for applause."
"There's a pause in the text."
"The pause is there so Lidia Pavlovna has time to look at you. But you're already accepting the audience's love."
He frowned. They played it again. There was no laugh, but Lidia Pavlovna looked at him, and at last the scene became about her.
Two interventions appeared under my surname in the log. No tragedy ensued. It turned out that the new arrangement did not require me to disappear. It required me to distinguish between work and the habit of entering first.
The distinction was less exalted than self-sacrifice and therefore suitable for daily use.
The trial lasted two weeks. On the first day, the log irritated everyone. Before every interruption, we had to select a reason: artistic, safety, consent or technical. I pressed "artistic" and felt like a man being forced to sign for his own inspiration.
On the third day, Timur asked for "I don't understand" to be added as a reason. The lawyer objected that it was not grounds for action. Vera replied that this was precisely why a person needed the right to stop before acting. They added a button that did not trigger an automatic continuation. It was used five times in a week: three times by Timur, once by Raya and once by me.
My turn came in the scene with the empty cup. Lidia Pavlovna poured water into it, Timur said the text specified that the cup was empty, and I raised my hand before realising that I did not know whether I was defending the text, the prop or my former production. I pressed "I don't understand".
"What now?" Lidia Pavlovna asked.
"Nothing. I don't understand."
"Shall I pour the water away?"
"Leave it for now."
They continued with the water. Two lines later, it became clear that the cup did not need to be empty at all: the character spoke about it without looking. It was funnier because the audience could see the lie and the other character could not. I wrote the discovery in the margin and did not proclaim it as my method.
At the final notes session, Ariadna demonstrated that most interruptions did not destroy the rhythm. The longest were those in which someone tried to choose the correct grounds instead of the honest ones. The log did not make us moral. It merely delayed the hand just long enough for us sometimes to see what it was reaching for.
Once, I delayed my hand too long. Lidia Pavlovna lost her place, repeated the beginning of the line and looked into the auditorium. I decided not to rescue her. She repeated it a third time, then took off her glasses and asked:
"Lyonya, are you even there?"
"I'm here."
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
"I'm letting you find it."
"I've forgotten my line. I don't need freedom, I need the line."
The prompter supplied it. Lidia Pavlovna continued, but came over to me after the scene.
"Don't turn me into an opportunity for your spiritual growth. Even when you don't intervene, keep watching what's happening."
She was right. Silence could also become a way of placing myself at the centre: behold me, magnanimously refraining from controlling other people's work. The log had no separate button for that.
We agreed on a simple gesture. If an actor wanted to search alone, they raised a palm. If they wanted help, they looked at the prompter. It was not a universal law of theatre, merely our company's procedure. At the next rehearsal, Lidia Pavlovna raised her palm, found the line and then said the gesture was distracting her. We abandoned it.
What distinguishes a good system from a grand idea is that it can be abandoned after Wednesday.
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