House Lights

A cartridge on the Slopbox, signed by the Slopwright. The apprentice gets into the walnut theatre through the shell, with a free ticket from Dot, tea from Mo and a word with the usher. Three programmes found about the house buy Ms Quill’s opera glasses; the gods, the pit and the stage join up as one map, past curtain moths, hecklers and stagehands.

A seat spring from a tip-up seat gives a second jump, rosin in the wings lets you cling to a wall, and a trapdoor drops from the wings to under the stage. Up the fly shaft and round the fly gallery, Ms Quill is in the gods, and the wrong end of her opera glasses folds you small: small enough for the squeeze under the stalls, and for the crawl to the lighting desk, behind a hatch above the gods. The house moth sits on the desk. It has eaten most of a curtain and would like the rest.

The big lever on the lighting desk puts the house lights down, and only then will the Understudy go on. Beaten, it bows to nobody, and the curtain lets go of the golden thread that is the wick. Like everything else here, it was made by a machine.