Wandering Theater, Dudo Machado, trans. John Berendzen
For three years they had been representing the same play. The success was so great and the requests from country towns so many that they decided to tour. But their travels, contrary to what they'd hoped, went to accentuate the tiredness and routine of those always identical representations. To relieve themselves the actors went augmenting each time in more improvised stretches until, little by little, the story and the characters began to change. By the end, the piece had transformed itself. But the audience didn't seem to notice this total change. Nobody complained, the enthused public accepted this other drama represented, and of course the presence of the famous actors. And the actors felt reinvigorated. The secret of the metamorphosis acted like a pact to strengthen the knot between them.
One night some time on, without being able to comprehend or control what was happening on stage, the words and gestures being executed, they started to turn into others, unrecognizable. For all of Act II the whole cast was shocked and bewildered. At the end of the show the public applauded with enthusiasm as always, but in the dressing rooms the actors could hardly look at each other. Only later dining at the hotel restaurant did they realize with excitement that they had followed, dialogue for dialogue, scene by scene, the original piece, abandoned some time back.
that again again