the kitchen theatre

a sheet hung between two chairs across the kitchen doorway. the sheet is one of the good ones, taken without asking; it will be returned with the smell of supper in it and a small wax-stain nobody admits to. the proscenium is exactly as wide as a tea-towel valance pinned to the line.

the audience is whoever the children can persuade to sit on the four kitchen chairs they have set out in a careful row: an aunt, a tired father, a neighbour passing through. they are made to clap at the end whether or not they have understood what happened. they have not understood what happened.

the most often performed is the princess of the larder, in which a princess (the elder) is held captive by a witch (the younger, in a tea-towel) and rescued by a hero (the dog, unbriefed). the dog, every time, eats the princess's crown. there is shouting. it is considered, by the children, the best part — though it is not in the script and never will be.

field-note the sheet, after twenty performances, has acquired a permanent crease where the spoon-fairy enters from. the crease will not iron out.

the marionette stage a punch & judy booth the nursery a child a lost child