the one-chair theatre

a chair on a landing, in front of a small framed alcove cut into the plaster. the alcove is the stage. it is fourteen inches wide and lit by a candle whose flame the operator, out of sight in the eaves, can adjust by a length of black thread. the chair is upholstered in horsehair that does not encourage long sitting.

the audience is one. you put your name in a small book at the foot of the stairs and wait your turn, sometimes for months. when it is your turn you climb up alone, in your own clothes, and find the chair facing the alcove and somebody, somewhere above you, ready to begin. you may not bring anyone. you may not take notes. the show is fitted to you and is never performed twice in the same form.

what they call the small instructions — a series of brief tableaux a few minutes each, lasting altogether perhaps an hour — is the only piece in the repertoire. accounts of it differ wildly. some leave the chair changed. some leave it angry. some leave it not believing they have seen anything at all. nobody who has sat in it discusses it later, by an unspoken rule no one set.

field-note the book at the foot of the stairs has more names crossed through than kept. there is no record of who crosses them. the proprietor is unknown and may, by now, be no one.

the marionette stage a shadow-puppet stage solitude ritual the attic