The curtain opens on the day, it is unmistakable, the creak of the pulleys, the gust of cooler air, it opens every day to something fresh if not so different on the stage, but there is always an edge of anticipation, an echo of an echo of the excitement at the start of any show. You are the show, but you wonder where your favourite characters have got to, it's a while since you've seen them. Today the blinds at the sides of the auditorium have gone up as well and the pale light of day floods in. The stage is empty but for some old props scuffed and scored with repurposing, and the coming and going of an occasional hand who moves a piece around and back in a seemingly random way. Everything says, "this is not a show, you can sit there if you like, but nothing's scheduled for today, the theatre is closed". But what you can't help seeing is how shabby everything appears in this light: torn velvet, stained boards, flaking paint, dust motes floating in the diffuse light, a musty smell. This was the scene of your greatest adventures, there could be no other, but what is it now? And what was it always beneath the willing suspensions? Nowadays the empty theatre is almost a cliché of the theatre and you keep waiting for the joke to be revealed, for the meta-narrative to insinuate itself with a wink. Meanwhile you imagine the actors having a day off, sitting in a bar somewhere, drinking and smoking, the real jokes are always behind the mirror, laugh at them and you are lost, don't laugh at them and you just as lost.