How a play is produced/The Prompter

by Karel Čapek

Layout 2

The Prompter

 

IT is quite a mistaken idea to imagine that the prompter merely anticipates the text mechanically for the actor. This is not the case. The great and inspired prompter lives with the actor. While the actor is letting himself go, he does not interrupt: he knows two minutes beforehand when it will be necessary to “reach” the actor his words. The actor only gets annoyed if the prompter butts into his speech unnecessarily, or if, in a moment of uncertainty, the prompter precedes him with a couple of words: then he is still more irritated. There is a mysterious contact between player and prompter, and to be a born prompter is to be gifted by the gods. For this reason the good prompter is treasured as no one else is.

The prompter also has his personal contact with the play. There are plays during which he delights to prompt, and others in which he hates to prompt. He is bored if the piece is a boring one, and amused when it is an amusing one. When dramatic authors bother about the casting of their plays they always forget the prompter: this proves their ignorance of the stage.