THE ELECTRICIAN

Brothers, I would never argue idly as to who's the most im-
portant man in the theater the actor, the director, or maybe the
stage carpenter. The facts will out. Facts always speak for
themselves.

This affair took place in Saratov or in Simbirsk; in a word,
someplace not far from Turkestan. In the municipal theater.

They played opera in this municipal theater. Besides the
outstanding roles of the artists, there was in this theater, among
others, the electrician Ivan Kuzmich Miakishev.

When they took a picture of the whole theater in a group in
the year twenty-three, they shoved this electrician somewhere to
the side: technical personnel, they say. And in the center, on a
chair with a back, they sat the tenor.

The electrician, Ivan Kuzmich Miakishev, said nothing about
this boorishness, but in his heart he nourished a certain grievance.
The more so since on the picture they had snapped him some-
what murkily, out of focus.

And here's what happened. This evening, for opening, they're
playing Ruslan and Lyudmila. Music by Glinka. Conductor
Maestro Katzman. And at a quarter to eight two girls he knows
come up to this electrician. Whether he had invited them be-
forehand or whether they just showed up is not known. So these
two girl acquaintances show up, flirt intensely, and just ask
to be seated in the main orchestra to see the show.

The electrician says: "Well, for God's sake, mesdames. I'll go
get you a couple tickets right now. Sit down here in the box."

And he himself goes, of course, to the manager.

The manager says: "Today's a holiday. There's a whole slew
of people. Every seat's taken. I can't."

The electrician says: "Ah, so," he says. "Well then, I refuse to
play. I refuse, in a word, to light your production. Play without
me. Then we'll see which of us is more important, who you can
shove off to the side and who you set in the center."

And he went back to his box. He turned off the light in the

whole theater right up to the gallery, locked up the box with all
his keys and he just sits and flirts with his girlfriends.

Now, of course, everything is in a regular muddle. The man-
ager's running around. The public is yelling. The man in the
box office is whimpering, he's afraid somebody might run off
with the money in the dark. But that beggar, the first opera tenor,
accustomed to occupy the center, goes up to the director and says
in his tenor voice: "I refuse to sing tenor in the dark. If it's
dark/' he says, "I leave. I," he says, "prize my voice more than
that. Let the electrician sing himself."

The electrician says: "O.K., so he doesn't sing. Spit on him.
Once he gets out in the center, he thinks all he has to do is start
singing with one hand, another light goes on. He's a tenor, he
thinks, so there are always lights for him. Now there are no more
tenors!"

Here, of course, the electrician tangled with the tenor.

Suddenly the manager shows up and says: "Where are those
two damn girls? Everything's gone to pot on their account. I'll
seat them somewhere right now, may a fiend roast them!"

The electrician says: "Here they are, those damn girls! Only
it's not because of them everything's gone to pot. Everything's
gone to pot because of me. Now," he says, "I'll give you light. I
don't begrudge energy on principle."

And that very moment he gave light.

"Begin," he says.

So they seat his girls in excellent seats and the show begins.

Now you can figure out for yourself who is more important in
the complex theatrical mechanism.

Of course, if you examine the matter dispassionately, then a
tenor is of immense value to a theater. Another opera cannot
go on without him. But without an electrician, too, there is no
life on the theatrical boards. So that each of the two represents
a singular value.

And so there's no reason to put on airs: so to speak, look at
me, I'm a tenor. There's no reason to avoid friendly relations; or
to take a murky picture, not in focus.