ABSTRACT
The curtains are white. As the house lights go down the crack of a whip is heard through the auditorium. A spotlight shines brightly, getting brighter and fiercer, on the white curtains, at the point at which they meet, as though someone were about to slip out between them on to the forestage and speak to us, to make some kind of announcement. Perhaps an actor is indisposed and an understudy will appear in his or her place tonight. Instead of someone stepping into this light, a small sign, bearing a word or a message of some kind, is pushed out into the light. The hand of whoever is holding it is briefly visible. The sign says ‘. . . vskij’. This sign, perhaps, will stand in for someone, for Stanislavski[j] perhaps,1 the actor, director and teacher of theatre who has done so much to shape our modern understanding of what it means to stand in for, to represent, another human being.
