Pre-Entrance
He was doing something important and she wouldn't shut up.
He was on the verge of triumph and she wouldn't shut up.
Cheryl was a wonderful woman: not the most artistic soul to be found in the Theatre Sans Argent (the opposite in fact), but Geoffrey liked her. She kept him grounded, or as grounded as he would let himself be and that was something, really. She took care of the bills (as in, she told people they had no money to pay them), and looked after the actors (as in, made sure they had any), and went after the stage crew (as in, begged them to continue working even when they, once again, had no money to pay them) and where Geoffrey was the heart of the broken down heap of brick and bohemian values, Cheryl was the mind.
That said, she was getting on his nerves.
"I can't run a theatre without a telephone, Geoffrey," she pleaded to him before sticking the cloth back over her nose.
"There were no phones in Ancient Greece and their theatres did very well," he replied in all seriousness as he neared his ever-important goal. Almost there, almost... Honestly, didn't people know their history anymore?
"You're not taking this very seriously, Geoffrey. We're hanging by a thread!"
Ah.
"And the very best things," he said with great satisfaction as he pulled himself from against the wall, "happen just before the threads snaps. I thought you would have learned that by now. Case in point--"
And with great aplomb, Geoffrey Tennant pushed the handle and listened to the sweet sweet sound of water swirling down into the depths of the porceline throne he had been working on for nearly twenty minutes.
"I just fixed the toilet."
"You're a genius, Geoffrey."
Geoffrey grinned at her, one eyebrow cocked and his hair looking wilder than ever, and headed out of the 'bathroom'.
"Breaks over..."
They walked out into the theatre, past his actors and onto the plain wooden flooring that made up his stage.
"Good news," he announced with great show, arms spread wide (one still holding the plunger), "I have fixed the toilet."
This got the applause due such a grand and important triumph and Geoffrey found himself almost grinning at the enthusiastic young faces watching him from the seats.
'A most rare vision'...
"As a reward to myself, I would like to run the storm. What do you think, Andy?" he asked of the special effects man still working on some of the lighting fixtures at the back of the 'theatre'.
"Go for it, man," everyone heard.
"Go for it, man," Geoffrey repeated, enunciating every word with a crisp satisfaction, "These are the words a director likes to hear. Andy has been working on the lights for three days and three nights. He assures me there will not be another fire."
Another round of applause.
Bless them all...
"Andy," he said, holding his arm aloft as the text possessed him, as the scene suffused him entirely, as the world became more than the audience, more than a theatre, more than those faces watching him, more than the hard wood beneath him--
"The Storm."
The lights dimmed and his arm, still aloft, turned with him as he spoke in a voice both quiet and grand. For a moment, there was nothing but the darkness, a darkness he feared above all else most times--
Which is not tomb enough...?
-except now, except in times like this, times when there were no other voices but the one, no words he could not speak. These words were his, shared with him by a man dead many years past, and this voice was both him and not. And as the darkness came, he welcomed it.
He welcomed the Storm.
"Now Cheryl seems to think a theatre needs phones. I disagree. A theatre... is an empty space, and as per the four hundred year old stage direction, we begin... with a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning!"
The lights flashed and the Storm began, the plunger now a staff in the hand of a great man, no longer Geoffrey but Prospero himself, wielder of magics that could bend the elements in fantastic and terrifying ways.
"It is a storm of color and sound, a dense, unnatural storm. We see it in glimses and flashes, as Miranda would have seen it. We see fragments of the horror and our minds provide the details. We see the crew, struggling to save the ship: Alonzo, Sebastian, Antonino run below deck."
His voice rose in volume as the storm ragged around him: he it's master, he it's witness. He stood apart from the doomed souls, bellowing their tale out in a voice as fierce and magnificent as the Tempest itself.
"'Let us all sink with our king', Antonio cries. The boatswain calls out 'Take to the topsail. Lay her a-hold!' But the ship is torn apart by Prospero's magic! The mechanism of his revenge is set in motion!
"'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and children!'-- 'Farewell, brother!'"
"The lights churn and swell like the sea--"
Which is when the fuse blew and the mighty storm... blinked out.
He was on the verge of triumph and she wouldn't shut up.
Cheryl was a wonderful woman: not the most artistic soul to be found in the Theatre Sans Argent (the opposite in fact), but Geoffrey liked her. She kept him grounded, or as grounded as he would let himself be and that was something, really. She took care of the bills (as in, she told people they had no money to pay them), and looked after the actors (as in, made sure they had any), and went after the stage crew (as in, begged them to continue working even when they, once again, had no money to pay them) and where Geoffrey was the heart of the broken down heap of brick and bohemian values, Cheryl was the mind.
That said, she was getting on his nerves.
"I can't run a theatre without a telephone, Geoffrey," she pleaded to him before sticking the cloth back over her nose.
"There were no phones in Ancient Greece and their theatres did very well," he replied in all seriousness as he neared his ever-important goal. Almost there, almost... Honestly, didn't people know their history anymore?
"You're not taking this very seriously, Geoffrey. We're hanging by a thread!"
Ah.
"And the very best things," he said with great satisfaction as he pulled himself from against the wall, "happen just before the threads snaps. I thought you would have learned that by now. Case in point--"
And with great aplomb, Geoffrey Tennant pushed the handle and listened to the sweet sweet sound of water swirling down into the depths of the porceline throne he had been working on for nearly twenty minutes.
"I just fixed the toilet."
"You're a genius, Geoffrey."
Geoffrey grinned at her, one eyebrow cocked and his hair looking wilder than ever, and headed out of the 'bathroom'.
"Breaks over..."
They walked out into the theatre, past his actors and onto the plain wooden flooring that made up his stage.
"Good news," he announced with great show, arms spread wide (one still holding the plunger), "I have fixed the toilet."
This got the applause due such a grand and important triumph and Geoffrey found himself almost grinning at the enthusiastic young faces watching him from the seats.
'A most rare vision'...
"As a reward to myself, I would like to run the storm. What do you think, Andy?" he asked of the special effects man still working on some of the lighting fixtures at the back of the 'theatre'.
"Go for it, man," everyone heard.
"Go for it, man," Geoffrey repeated, enunciating every word with a crisp satisfaction, "These are the words a director likes to hear. Andy has been working on the lights for three days and three nights. He assures me there will not be another fire."
Another round of applause.
Bless them all...
"Andy," he said, holding his arm aloft as the text possessed him, as the scene suffused him entirely, as the world became more than the audience, more than a theatre, more than those faces watching him, more than the hard wood beneath him--
"The Storm."
The lights dimmed and his arm, still aloft, turned with him as he spoke in a voice both quiet and grand. For a moment, there was nothing but the darkness, a darkness he feared above all else most times--
Which is not tomb enough...?
-except now, except in times like this, times when there were no other voices but the one, no words he could not speak. These words were his, shared with him by a man dead many years past, and this voice was both him and not. And as the darkness came, he welcomed it.
He welcomed the Storm.
"Now Cheryl seems to think a theatre needs phones. I disagree. A theatre... is an empty space, and as per the four hundred year old stage direction, we begin... with a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning!"
The lights flashed and the Storm began, the plunger now a staff in the hand of a great man, no longer Geoffrey but Prospero himself, wielder of magics that could bend the elements in fantastic and terrifying ways.
"It is a storm of color and sound, a dense, unnatural storm. We see it in glimses and flashes, as Miranda would have seen it. We see fragments of the horror and our minds provide the details. We see the crew, struggling to save the ship: Alonzo, Sebastian, Antonino run below deck."
His voice rose in volume as the storm ragged around him: he it's master, he it's witness. He stood apart from the doomed souls, bellowing their tale out in a voice as fierce and magnificent as the Tempest itself.
"'Let us all sink with our king', Antonio cries. The boatswain calls out 'Take to the topsail. Lay her a-hold!' But the ship is torn apart by Prospero's magic! The mechanism of his revenge is set in motion!
"'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and children!'-- 'Farewell, brother!'"
"The lights churn and swell like the sea--"
Which is when the fuse blew and the mighty storm... blinked out.