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Comedy of Error
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"Oh. My. God. They have those damned things down-time too?"
"What things Flo?" Anna followed Flo's icy glare toward a temporary stage erected in the Grantville market. On it, a group of Italian traveling players were performing a broad, ribald and highly improvised show. She turned back to her friend. "Traveling comedy theater? They had them up-time too? I would have thought that with all of the television and movies you had, there wouldn't be room for live theater."
"No. Those-those things. With the face."
"Flo, you're sputtering. They are almost all wearing a kind of mask. I think they call it Commedia."
"No. That face. The white one. The-the-the mime!"
"Mime? Well, the players—"
"Of all the things I thought I left behind, that is one that I haven't missed. Mimes. Ugh. There was a time when they were all over back up-time. You couldn't go to a park in the summer without tripping over them. Pulling on ropes and walking against an invisible wind. They were like pigeon crap. Everywhere. And now they're here. In Grantville. Oh my God."
Anna looked at her up-time friend in amazement. "I always thought they were funny. The Italian players, I mean. Usually it is great fun. You see, they are stock sorts of characters . . ." Anna thought for a moment, and then smiled widely. "Oh, my. They might be able to do the Priest here. I have only seen him one time, and then they got run out of town. But here, they can do all of them as much as they want. This should be good." She clapped her hands together and moved closer to the stage.
"Hang on a second. You mean you like this stuff? Even with a stinking mime?"
Anna stopped and turned to her up-time friend. "I do not understand this 'mime' thing you are talking about. Why is someone pulling on a rope in the wind like pigeon crap?"
"They were always in boxes too. With invisible walls. I always wanted to carry a can of paint to toss it on the wall so they could see the damn thing. Actually to toss on the mime, to be honest about it." Flo smiled a slightly evil little smile.
Anna scratched her head, trying to figure out why her up-time friend was "on a rant." It had been such a nice morning so far, and then, out of the blue, Flo was going on about something. . . . "Flo, what the hell is a mime?"
"That one. The one with the white face and the white costume. He doesn't have a mask." At that moment one of the other characters lifted up a stick about the size of a baseball bat, and began chasing one of the other characters around the stage, swinging wildly, and connecting with almost everything except his target. Each time the bat hit someone, it made a loud slapping noise.
Anna and the rest of the audience—with the exception of Flo—began to laugh. She turned to Flo again. "I love this part. They are using a slap stick. It makes a crack when it hits. He's not really hitting them that hard."
The actor with the slap stick managed to hit a cowering military-looking character square on the head. The actor began to stagger, and the audience roared with laughter. Anna giggled too. "The Capitan is always such a coward and a blowhard. Everyone likes to see him get hit. I haven't seen one of these in years. They are soooo funny!"
"So they all have a name?"
"Of course. Let's see, that one is Pulcinella with the hooked nose. He is chasing the Harlequin in the bright colors. Harlequin is a mischief maker, but very clever. The beautiful girl is Pulcinnella's wife. Or maybe his daughter. And the one in the white face is pining for her love. He is Pierrot or Pedrolino." At that point, there seemed to be a break in the action, and for no apparent reason at all, the players began to sing and dance to a bawdy tune. After a moment they stopped, and went back to the play as if nothing had happened.
Flo just shook her head sadly. "This is awful. And what language are they speaking? Some of it sounds like gibberish to me."
"You're right! Some of it is gibberish. Isn't it wonderful?!"
Anna looked at Flo, and the normally calm up-time lady had her face screwed up like she had just eaten something rancid. There were some veins throbbing on her forehead. Veins which Anna had never seen before. She took a step back from her friend. "I guess you really don't like it, do you?"
"I don't like anything that has one of those mime shitheads in it. At least this one isn't pulling on ropes and walking into the wind." Flo crossed her arms and turned to the stage. After watching a while, Anna saw that Flo's face relaxed a little, to somewhere around the level of sourness that registered as "sucking on a lemon." When the Captain got smacked again, Flo's face softened to merely frowning. The Captain took another shot to the head. Flo cracked a tiny smile. He looked like one of Gustav's men with the uniform.
At that point the "mime" started prancing around the stage, hand on his heart, and emoting in a manner that was sad and funny at the same time. "He speaks. Whadaya know? That, at least, is an improvement."
Anna grabbed Flo's hand and wove their way to the front of the crowd. "This is funny, Flo. I think you need to smile a little. Come with me." With that, she pushed Flo in front of her, until she had a good view of the stage. Within two minutes, Flo was laughing out loud.
That ends the preview. Probably in the middle of a sentence. Sorry.