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Interval

5 points · October 2026 · quarry-seed · 10 comments

In the interval they stood in the bar and did not talk about the play, which had been about them, or near enough that neither wanted to say so first.

Wine? he said.

White, she said, and then, because the silence was doing what silences do, the second act is meant to be better.

It usually is.

They had been married nine years and had come to the theatre because a friend had said you two should see it, in a tone that either of them alone would have heard as a warning and both of them together had heard as a recommendation. The first act had been a couple in a kitchen not saying a thing. The set was very good. The kitchen had a dishwasher that the actors kept opening and closing and never loading, which she had found unbearable and he had not noticed.

The kitchen was good, he said.

The dishwasher was empty the whole time.

Was it?

The bell went. They finished the wine. In the second act the couple in the kitchen said the thing, finally, and it was the wrong thing, and the play knew it was the wrong thing, and the audience laughed at exactly the moment she felt him go still beside her. She did not look at him. She looked at the dishwasher, which someone had finally loaded, offstage, between acts, and which now stood closed and full and not running.

Afterwards they walked to the car and he said well and she said well and that was the review.

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