Story for the Day: A New Creation

 There is much art born out of misery. Whether that art is any good, however, is another question-- and whether the new play the Royal Theatre Company puts on will be worth watching must be left to be guessed:

“Is the Royal Theatre open again, Alasdair?” Boudicca asked, her ear catching the end of a theatrical wail warbling across the far field.

Here was a small sigh. “Should I say ‘unfortunately’?”

“Only if you mean it, which I think you must, after hearing the overture of whatever it is they plan to put on.”

Alasdair went to the window and looked across the field to the theatre. “I am glad that they’re rehearsing again, because I don’t think it right that we should not have any theatre at all,” said he, grimacing as a few dissonant sounds offended his ear. “I’m only not glad that they’re so loud about it.” Another poorly sung A feeped out from the theatre. “And so flat about it—isn’t the choir master there with them? They should have the piano forte. Dobhin gave them his when we couldn’t find a tuner for the Marridon grand in the orchestral pit. ”

“They’ve got it, Brennan,” said Dobhin, smiling, “that doesn’t mean they know how to use it, or even that any one of their newest members has the ability to sing along with it.”

Alasdair’s head wilted to his chest, he pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and put the other against the wall, bracing himself as he sighed.

“Which play is being put on for the autumn season?” said Boudicca, taking up her tea. “I don’t recognize the song the person is so desperately trying to sing.”

“A new creation, according to the director,” was Alasdair’s withered reply.

The violent clamour of a hand crashing against the piano’s lower octaves echoed from the theatre. Alasdair clapped a hand over his eyes, Dobhin leaned back in his chair and laughed, and Boudicca simpered and sipped and said nothing, rather anticipating the dramatic blunders of the Royal Frewyn Players than disdaining them.

                “Something tells me that you will be glad of another iteration of Mad Queen Maeve by the time we see whatever theatrical travesty they are planning to put on,” Dobhin observed. “Ten to one it’s about our recent epidemic.”

                Alasdair had picked up one of the muffins from the table, but when he heard Dobhin add, “You know how they love to capitalize on a good tragedy. Dramatizations of historical misery always bring in an audience,” he immediately put it down again.

“I certainly hope not,” Alasdair cried, marching away. He went to the larder door, declaring that he was just going to pay the theatre a little visit, to see how they were going on, and was off, posting across the far field and toward the royal theatre with all the haste and determination of a gallinacean about to watch her flock funnel into a drain.    

Dobhin simpered and took up the muffin Alasdair had lately put down. “I have a notion ‘My Time in Quarantine: A Lover’s Bastion’ is never going to premiere.”

“Is that what they’re putting on?” said Boudicca, intrigued. “I would be interested to see how they are going to perform romance in an infirmary.”

“Easily, if their production of Mule the Blacksmith was anything to go by. They gave the leading man, a stunning beast with a solder’s carriage and a farmer’s physique, a hump on his back and a boil on his face, and though they meant to convince us that he was an absolutely hideous abomination, I could not but be reminded of his magnificence every time he bent down.”

“You look for excuses to find men beautiful,” said Boudicca playfully.

“Of course I do, MacDaede. That is the only use for me.” Dobhin presented himself with a flourish. “And do not dare insult me by thinking I am only lecherous with leading men. All the women of the theatre are beautiful creatures too. Even the ugliest spinette is thirty-two, with a bit of the crow’s foot and a horrid wig put on. I care more about musical ability than appearance, however. The woman singing that song,” eyeing the theatre across the field, “could be the most irresistible creature that has ever lived, but butcher a ballad that badly, and I will never concede to like her. She may be an excellent actress, but I am a selfish old man and ask for all the chips in the bargain. Ask Brennin.”

Alasdair then returned, and hearing his name said, “Ask me what?”

“How I demand that you exhibit your many talents before I agree to bed you.”

“Oh, yes, which is why you seldom join us.”

“Oh, Brennin,” said Dobhin, laughing heartily. “How I love when you tease me. You even spite me well.”

An affectionate look was exchanged, and Boudicca sipped her tea in the comfort if know that however much Alasdair loved his wife, Dobhin loved him more.