[“…re-enactments. With actors recreating the postures, sounds, and ensuing mayhem …” – Pil & Galia Kollectiv]
The producer wishes to re-enact the famous play where there was a riot, with many injured and a few dead.
“How realistic do you want this to be?” the director asks. “If we advertise it as a re-enactment, then ticket-holders will know that some of them, at least, may die. The original production wasn’t that way, of course; the catastrophe was a complete surprise. So we can’t call it a ‘re-enactment,’ since if it’s not a surprise it wouldn’t play the same way.”
“Yes, we can call it a ‘re-enactment,” the producer says. “The new audience will not believe that the previous calamity will actually occur, not in all its horror anyway, not just a few deaths but worse: wringing of hands, mournful newspaper stories, thoughts and prayers, finger-pointing at city officials, aggrieved and profitable lawsuits. So they will again be surprised; there will again be the deadly event and the tedious misadventures that follow.”
“But,” asks the director, “what do we do for the second performance?”
<END>
If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share a comment here or in StumbleUpon or Face Book. Subscriptions to A Memorable Fancy are available on Amazon. (www.bit.ly/Fancies), or just Follow this site.
See www.terencekuch.net for a profile of the author, publications, reviews, etc.
Terence Kuch’s speculative fiction novels * may be purchased directly from the publishers or via his Amazon author page, www.amazon.com/author/terencekuch
*The Seventh Effect: a thriller from Melange Publications about a new kind of bioterrorist plot against the USA; praised by Kirkus Reviews.
*See/Saw: a literary/sci-fi gender-bender from Ink Smith Publications.
Memorable Fancies 
Leave a Reply