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Page:How a play is produced by Karel Čapek (1928).pdf/49

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FURTHER REHEARSALS
 

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.

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