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An Unhappy Day at the End of March
by Hubert Krejčí
Characters: Editor One (a woman) Setting: an editorial office |
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Editor One: (leaning from a window) I'm leaning out of the window of our editorial office, from where I can see a long line of playwrights standing impatiently in front of the building; the line disappears behind one side of the building, winds its way all the way around and then re-emerges from the other side. A great number of playwrights are clutching manuscripts that represent their dramatic efforts, which they all want to place with our office.
Editor Two: (painting her nails) We will be opening in six minutes.
Editor One: The cleaning lady is bringing up a basket full of manuscripts, which she apparently collected from the authors on the stairway. — Well then?
(The cleaning lady carries in a huge basket.)
The Cleaning Lady: Nothing but signed letters, petitions, and appeals calling for the cancellation of theater as an obsolete, bothersome and boring genre. Should I toss them out?
(Editor One and Editor Two gasp and then pass out.)
(After a leaden interval the curtains close.)
(translated by G.S. Evans)
Hubert Krejčí is a director, playwright, actor, translator, and writer. He was born in 1944 in Pardubice and educated in Brno. He has worked with a wide variety of theaters in The Czech Republic and abroad, and has been writing since the late 1960s — especially short, ironic plays such as Hry ze smetiště, Bramborové divadlo dra. Skarapantiho, and Divadelní hříčky. He lives in Prague.
G.S. Evans is the coeditor of The Cafe Irreal. A book of his fiction, Tajný (český) deník Fredericka Barona a jiné texty (Aequitas, Prague, 2007), was recently published in translation in The Czech Republic; his translations of the work of the Czech writer Arnošt Lustig have appeared in The Kenyon Review and New Orleans Review.
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editors@cafeirreal.comstory copyright by author 2007 all rights reserved
translation copyright 2007 by Greg Evans all rights reserved
illustration copyright 2007 by Dragan Stojčevski all rights reserved