ABSTRACT
There is a moment in my music-theatre piece Eraritjaritjaka, in which we hear the French actor André Wilms speak a line from the writings of Canetti, and we are deeply moved, because in doing so the actor wipes away a tear accompanied by the dying down music of a string quartet: ‘To speak as though it were the last sentence allowed you.’ 1 We are moved even though he does not utter the sentence with a lot of inner emotion – as he is occupied with preparing scrambled eggs at the same time: he seasons the already beaten eggs with pepper and salt, cuts some chives into the glass bowl with a pair of scissors, melts some butter in a pan and now peels an onion. Is it the onion that brings tears to his eyes? Is it the stirring of the eggs that stirs our emotions?
