Friday, November 28, 2008

He struts on the silent stage, alone

The actor struts on the silent stage alone. There is no audience to watch him act and so he must act alone. This is not intentional for an actor wants an audience and a few spectators, an actor cannot strut on a silent stage alone. The lines have been rehearsed, the act perfected, the lines repeated again and again in his head, but there is no audience to watch him, he struts silently on the silent stage alone. If he delivers perfectly on the stage, alone on the silent stage, if he acts perfectly and this act is not witnessed, it goes unseen, he goes unheard, then he is not seen alone, strutting on a silent stage alone. So he stands now, after delivering his lines, rehearsed again and again in his head, having acted to perfection, the rehearsed lines, the perfect part, the perfect part alone on a silent stage, as he struts on the silent stage, alone. There are no sighs, there is no applause or disappointment to great his performance that he had rehearsed to perfection, for he has played this role many times, spoken these lines again and again in his mind, has walked this stage again and again in his mind. But unlike now, he has always seen an audience, even if it has been in his mind. But he struts on the silent stage alone, and there is no audience to watch him, so what is not seen does not exist and what is not whispered is not heard. And so too with life generally and so too when words are not spoken to people who have not heard them thus, like actors who go unseen and unheard and with authors who are not known or with songs that are not sung. For what use is a book that is not read and a song that is not heard, even if that book has been written to perfection and the song sung to perfection, for the book and the song thus remain unwitnessed and unheard and thus do not exist.

Such were his thoughts, like the unseen and unheard actor's, as he was making his way home, thinking of the actor, an actor rehearsing his lines, repeating them again and again many times in his head, such were his thoughts as he was walking home. For what is not said and not heard go unwitnessed and unheard and thus do not exist, like the actor who struts on the silent stage alone, to act his act silently with no audience to watch him act. As he makes his way home, he knows that the changes are taking place inside him but these are not seen or heard and thus go unwitnessed and unheard. So, as he walks alone, a walk that is walked alone, unseen and unwitnessed, a melancholy walk, he thinks of the actor on the silent stage, the actor who struts alone, on the silent stage alone, and there is no audience to watch the actor, as he struts alone on the silent stage. And so with him too, as he he makes his way home, alone.

2 comments:

Roxana said...

and couldn't you stop writing about the same things I just happen to ponder about? :-)
this question is on my mind: if nobody sees my photographs - do they cease to be? even the greatest picture, let's suppose, does it still have a meaning? and that moment of reality encapsulated there, does it then cease to be the trace of the dead time?
I know your answer, it is yes. but I don't know.

Kubla Khan said...

Keats said that unheard melodies are sweeter, but I am not so sure.