Voces Populi
F. Anstey
(IDB Productions, Jan. 1, 2019)
Voces Populi An Evening with a Conjuror. SCENE--A Suburban Hall. The Performance has not yet begun. The Audience is limited and low-spirited, and may perhaps number--including the Attendants--eighteen. The only people in the front seats are a man in full evening dress, which he tries to conceal under a caped coat, and two Ladies in plush opera-cloaks. Fog is hanging about in the rafters, and the gas-stars sing a melancholy dirge. Each casual cough arouses dismal echoes. Enter an intending Spectator, who is conducted to a seat in the middle of an empty row. After removing his hat and coat, he suddenly thinks better--or worse--of it, puts them on again, and vanishes hurriedly. FIRST SARDONIC ATTENDANT (at doorway). Reg'lar turnin' em away to-night, we are! SECOND SARDONIC ATTENDANT. He come up to me afore he goes to the pay-box, and sez he--"Is there a seat left?" he sez. And I sez to 'im, "Well, I think we can manage to squeeze you in somewhere." Like that, I sez. [The Orchestra, consisting of two thin-armed little girls, with pigtails, enter, and perform a stumbling Overture upon a cracked piano. HERR VON KAMBERWOHL, the Conjuror, appears on platform, amidst loud clapping from two obvious Confederates in a back row. HERR V. K. (in a mixed accent). Lyties and Shentilmans, pefoor I co-mence viz my hillusions zis hevenin' I 'ave most hemphadically to repoodiate hall assistance from hany spirrids or soopernatural beins vatsohever. All I shall 'ave ze honour of showing you will be perform by simple Sloight of 'and or Ledger-dee-Mang! (He invites any member of the Audience to step up and assist him, but the spectators remain coy.) I see zat I 'ave not to night so larsh an orjence to select from as usual, still I 'ope-