How a play is produced/Further Rehearsals

by Karel Čapek

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Further Rehearsals

 

AND yet, at these first rehearsals, in a room where a rickety chair may represent a divan, a throne, a rock or a balcony, most of the real work of the theatre is done. But the dramatist who is simply dying to see his play, here finds it in a mangled and chaotic state calculated to bring tears to his eyes: it is rehearsed simply anyhow, from the end or the middle; an insignificant scene may be repeated twenty times while another far more important one gets left unrehearsed: half of the players are worn out with other rehearsals, while the other half are also worn out with these rehearsals. And yet, there are moments when the dramatist feels that “it”? is becoming a reality.

In a few days a new person appears upon the scene: the prompter. The players cease just to read their lines, and begin to act them properly; and things proceed like a house on fire. The dramatist declares that the first night might easily take place that very evening. But the players curb his enthusiasm: “Just you wait until you’ve seen us on the stage.” After the play has been treated in all the dreadful ways described the great day arrives when rehearsals start on the real stage. The curtain remains down, and the prompter sits at a little table, with the dramatist, who is hoping devoutly that things will proceed famously, hovering around him. Well, as a matter of fact, things do not proceed at all. For during its short journey from the rehearsal room to the stage the play appears to have become unstuck, as it were. And all is lost.

After two or three rehearsals, however, things proceed quite smoothly and brilliantly again. And the producer finally gives the order: “Up with the curtain, please, and the prompter into his box.” At this moment the most experienced player turns pale. For, no sooner does the prompter crawl into his uncomfortable little box than things go wrong again, for some mysterious reason, probably acoustic. Seated in a stall the crushed dramatist watches his beautiful text blowing about like a rotten piece of rag in a strong wind. And to make things ten times worse the producer ceases to worry about what the players are saying, and confines himself to worrying about where and how they are standing and walking. God knows why he worries so much, thinks the dramatist: In the text it simply says, “Exit Danesh.” Surely that is enough? The producer has no doubt gone raving mad, for he is roaring to Clara that she must step back a pace; even the players are now worked up and start to quarrel with the prompter, accusing him of mumbling instead of speaking properly. Finally George Danesh announces that he has influenza and is going to bed. In the background the stage-manager and the property-man are barking at each other in a fit of atavistic fury. Finally the producer roars himself hoarse, and the disjointed text stumbles about the stage in a death-like weakness. Seated in his stall the dramatist shrinks like a creature of misfortune. Things are going sadly and cannot be helped—and to-morrow is the dress-rehearsal.