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
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