Act

In my velvet mahogany seat, and I am surrounded left and right by other spectators. No one sits in front. No one sits in front because I am in the front, the front row, so close that I am blessed, by the light spattering of their spit.

The actors' spit. I can see the grease and sweat balling on their foreheads, bubbling to the fore from behind their beautiful and thick makeup, which they wear like second skins. Dressage for the face.

They rejoice, in their feathers and their magenta-and-lime suits, and look at us as much in the front as we look up at them.

We examine their bodies, their screw-up faces and expressions, their magnificant voices which burst forth, in auditorial blooms, and we find it disconcerting, that they can look at us, stare at us, perhaps more than we can look at them for any period of time, almost like we are the real ones on show, we are just as capable of feeling intimidated and that the construction of the stage is nothing more than that - a construct.

Staring at someone is like staring at someone with your guts. Pushing through your skin, visceral, the kind of thing that we tend to keep to ourselves, the kind of thing we tend to keep on the inside. But they stare, they stare with such confidence, and they do not feel ashamed.