Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alerations.
Head without Premeditation.
I know nothing of the role play.
I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it.
I have to guess on the spot
just what this play's all about
Ill prepared for the priviledge of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation. I trip at every step over my own ignorance. I can't conceal my hayseed manner.
My instincts are for happy histrionics. Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more. Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.
Words and impulses you can't take back,
stars you'll never get counted, your character like a raincoat you buttom on the run?
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.
If only I could just rehearse on Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed! But here comes Friday with a script I haven't seen. Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse, since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage).
You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I'm standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are suprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on. Oh no, there's no question this must be the premiere. And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.
~Wislawa Szymborska~
