9th Summer 511AV
The Lightshow Theater
Just Before the Midnight Performance
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The Summer was heavy-handed and moist, and the crowd in the galleries sweat profusely. This was opening night, and the midnight showing - the least expensive, and therefore, in Minnie's opinion, the one to attract the best crowd, for the Afternoon showing tended to bring in the elite, those who wished to be seen as much as to see, the Evening Show was fine, but attracted as often as not, the petit-bourgeoisie, families, ship's officers, people who wanted a quiet, enjoyable evening. The midnight showing? This was a mixture of street draggle out for a night on town, half-drunken students, fully drunken sailors, cadgers, grifters, and artistes. Those who revelled in the shadow, felt no concern for getting up the next morning, and knew the worth of saving 4 silvers. The first crowd clapped, either way. The second applauded or frowned, depending on the performance. Midnight's children roared to wake the neighbors, or hooted, hissed, and somehow found themselves in possession of heaps of sun-rotten kelp for throwing. Minnie, in her youth, had half suspected fellows threaded through the crowd selling the stuff if a performance turned sour.
There was unlikely to be a sour performance tonight though, and the crowd fairly strained at the hawsers, stomping feet in time, and chanting the names of favorite performers, mixed with great hawking, often lewd shouts to the prettier performers, male and female. Minnie, tiny, and experienced in the ways of the Lightshow - she had been attending regularly since the day it opened - had squirmed her way to the front. This was an old-fashioned tonight, a formalist concert of the old style, with high stage built, high enough that Minnie could nearly rest her tiny chin atop it, and that a misstep from an actress would kick either Minnie's tooth out or her hat off. So the crowd pressed and rolled around her, pressing her almost breathlessly against the wood bulwark, her face warm from the flame of the footlights.
Tonight was, as mentioned, the opening night, a revival of Khirelly's "Wright in Abura," a cycle she had originally composed as a poem, then later, with the help of her lover, set to music. It had, in fact, been one of the first performances of the Lightshow, and had helped to make Agnes Fotheringhay's reputation as the premier diva of the city. The Akvatari's duet, between Kenabelle and the Woodcarver was one of the best known melodies of the last 50 years, so pervasive one heard the theme trilled along by the fiddlers on the capstans of Zeltivan ships, or parodied by the students in the University beer-haunts.
Minnie herself clutched her satchel tight to her and stared across the footlights, her eyes burning as brightly as the footlight before her. She watched the entrance - the left rear entrance, for this was a repertoire piece, she'd seen enough times over the years, she knew just what to expect each moment.
//First the Dockworker enters through the rear, and sings the song-of-the-coming-ship, and then, Agnes will appear from the left, and the Akvatari Woodcarver will come from the rear entrance...//
The crowd heard the doors shout, and the chanting began up again, "Snuff the lights! Snuff the lights! Snuff the lights!"
The body of them pressed forward, three burly students pushing up against Minnie's spot, hard. She closed her eyes, and braced her elbows in a practiced way against the framing.