Theatrical Architecture
If these walls could talk,
you would only be disappointed:
Walls are not natural conversationalists as a rule -
lend them an ear, and they will merely complain,
bitterly and at great length,
about the rheumatic cramps in their patches of damp;
of the aches in their joists – how they are kept awake
by the boisterous banging of the radiators;
or of former glories, faded like their own fleur-de-lys:
how they once narrowly lost out
on the award for best supporting wall
to that scoundrel in the hall – the one with all
the columns and cherubs glued all over him…
You would do far better to listen to the Tabs:
the veil that separates the one from the other,
whose every rising is a clairvoyance;
Guardian of the stage, who, every night,
will sweep the bones and wreckage
of past performance from its edge – World’s End
where the ships of imagination,
getting too close, are swept over its falls
into the dark, and the unspeakable horrors below:
with their hundreds of pairs of eyes,
and their programmes, clutched tightly
in their glistening tentacles.
Each night, she listens to the whispers from both sides:
the dramas in both spheres, marvels at how
the sounds of one space echo within the other.
Ask her about the Magic Of Theatre,
and she will be the one to tell you how,
after every show, the stage lies empty:
how there is nothing else hidden in this space;
no spectral players, acting out further scenes
from their protagonists’ lives;
no stories that continue past the fall of the curtain,
save for this:
one, long-form improvisation
where the best lines are never remembered,
and the timing never quite right;
where love is not Romeo, or Juliet,
but just a divine comedy of errors;
shambolic, under-rehearsed – performed
purely for the benefit of its cast,
who, even now, are buttoning up
the long costumes of their overcoats,
hailing taxis, huddling home
through the sudden, driving snow:
a special effect that we have provided,
tonight and tonight only,
with huge effort and at great expense.
