Free Web NovelChapter 205: Chapter 187: The Beginning of the Great Performance (Part 2)
To create a greater distinction between live theater and the "Shadow of Evil" and to achieve better stage effects, Zog hired a student team that had originally planned to start a business creating mechanized assembly lines.
He had them switch careers and pioneer an entirely new industry: stage automation.
And thus, another thankless, grueling industry was born.
"Boring little tricks," Sir Turt said with displeasure. "The core of drama should be the performance and the script, not all this flashy, insubstantial nonsense."
Even his secretary could tell he was just spouting jealous nonsense.
Anyone could understand that improving stage effects didn’t conflict with delivering good performances and scripts.
But the Chairman was the Chairman, and he still found a cunning angle of attack.
He began to write furiously.
’Using gimmicks to fool the audience and divert their attention is just a way to cover up for a weak plot and poor acting. This will have a negative impact on the entire theater industry.’
’If future troupes all resort to such opportunistic tricks to win favor, who will be left to seriously hone their craft? Theater is at a crisis point.’
Meanwhile, on stage, after the largely comedic first act was more than halfway through, the main plot finally began.
The client began to tell his story.
In order to secure an investment, he had gotten close to a wealthy older woman, hoping to use her fortune to start a business.
This part resonated strongly with Sir Turt, because Turt was not his father’s surname, but his father-in-law’s.
His second father-in-law, to be precise.
His first wife had merely been the daughter of a wealthy merchant with no noble title. After getting his hands on her fortune, he had, of course, abandoned her to seek a higher rung on the social ladder.
’Being able to continuously win the favor of wealthy women is a talent in itself, isn’t it?’
Sir Turt was quite proud of this fact.
He refused to believe that anyone, when presented with the opportunity to live off a wealthy partner, would refuse.
’It’s just sour grapes from those who can’t get any.’
Anyone who mocked him for it was just jealous, and anyone he mocked deserved it.
The Chairman had mastered the ultimate defense mechanism of internet trolls long before they became a widespread phenomenon.
The client continued his story.
The wealthy woman was found dead in her home, and he became the prime suspect. He claimed he was already home at the time of the incident—a fact his wife could corroborate—but the city guard didn’t believe him.
’A cliché plot,’ Sir Turt judged.
’The client definitely did it. Now he’s just playing innocent and hiring a lawyer to defend him.’
’The rest of the play will be about the lawyer gradually seeing through the client’s facade, ultimately exposing him and delivering justice.’
A classic two-hander.
The appeal lies in the battle of wits between the two leads. Both the hero and the villain need to have sufficient charisma.
This protagonist, however, was just a nasty, fat man.
Because he was watching with a preconceived bias, Sir Turt didn’t even notice that the lawyer was actually the "tough-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside" type—a good man who was outwardly harsh but secretly helped others.
Or perhaps he did notice, but couldn’t bring himself to admit it.
That way, he could just take things out of context, and plenty of audience members who hadn’t seen the play—or hadn’t been paying close attention—would join in the jeering.
The lawyer began to inquire about the details, clipping a monocle to his eye.
The lens reflected a blinding light onto the client’s face.
’High beams! He’s using high beams on him!’
The client flinched away, even trying to shield his eyes with his hand.
’A mistake in the performance!’
Seeing this, Sir Turt grew ecstatic.
He had finally caught them. ’Controlling stage lighting is a technical skill that requires a great deal of experience.’
’Clearly, their technicians aren’t up to snuff, letting a reflection interfere with an actor’s performance.’
’Amateurish. So utterly amateurish.’
He immediately instructed his secretary, "Get people to start a commotion. The actor is covering his face."
In traditional theater, a cardinal rule is to always keep the main character’s face visible so the audience can see their expressions.
If an actor covers their face, it must be to express shame, but that was clearly not the case on stage now.
He was certain it was a mistake.
A professional mistake like that deserved to be called out by a professional audience member like himself.
Stage mishaps were unavoidable and could be either minor or major.
Having people jeer was a way to blow a mistake completely out of proportion.
Once the order was given, a few scattered voices rose from the seats on either side of the theater.
Why from the sides?
Because the sort of people who needed to earn this kind of dirty money couldn’t afford the tickets for the center seats.
"Boo! You’re bombing!"
"He’s covering his face!"
"Get a refund!"
"Amateurs, amateurs..."
At that moment, Zog, who was also in the theater watching the performance with the Elf City Lord, was startled as well.
He wasn’t surprised by the heckling itself—after so brazenly challenging the Drama Guild, it would have been stranger if no one had caused a scene.
The main thing was that their heckling sounded like it came straight out of a traditional comedy club.
The actor on stage remained unaffected. Grandpa Galina had warned them beforehand.
This performance wouldn’t go smoothly. There would definitely be troublemakers. They were simply to focus on their performance, as the script itself was airtight.
Any disruption would only serve to make the troublemakers look like clowns as the plot unfolded.
"I didn’t kill her! No matter how bad things look for me, I really didn’t do it! You have to believe me. You do believe me, right?"
The client stared straight into the harsh light, his voice urgent and pleading.
He perfectly portrayed the image of a pitiful man, falsely accused and at a loss in the face of his predicament.
"I wasn’t sure before, but now I am," the lawyer said, removing the monocle.
Most of the audience understood what had just happened: the lawyer had used the harsh light to put psychological pressure on the client, to judge whether he was lying.
The city guard sometimes used a similar interrogation technique: they would lock a suspect in a small room with only a single, bright lamp shining in their face.
The interrogator would stand in the shadows, visible only as a silhouette, maximizing the pressure. Unless one was a hardened, repeat offender, it was difficult to withstand. Sometimes, it was even more effective than the Great Memory Recovery Technique.
Now, the few people who had been heckling looked incredibly awkward.
Causing trouble wasn’t so bad, but looking like a complete idiot was terrifying.
They felt the eyes of the surrounding audience on them, looking at them as if they were fools.
Whether to keep earning this dirty money or not was now a real question.
"Are they nuts?!" Sir Turt slapped the armrest of his chair, feeling like he’d been made a fool of.
Though the hecklers were the ones who had been embarrassed, he was the one who had given the order, and his secretary had been the one to carry it out.
His magnificent image in his secretary’s eyes had been tarnished.
"If he wanted to interrogate him, why not just use the Truth-Telling Technique? What kind of famous lawyer resorts to these petty tricks!"
He tried to excuse his blunder by finding logical flaws in the play’s writing.
"Chairman, lawyers aren’t Mages. Not everyone knows the Truth-Telling Technique," the secretary explained. "Besides, the technique isn’t all that effective. Many people can lie their way through it, so it doesn’t hold a significant advantage over this method."
’The only truly effective method is Soul Search, but that’s forbidden in most situations.’
The secretary wished the Chairman would stop making a scene. They weren’t in a private box; their every move was being watched by the people around them.
He noticed a burly man in the row ahead had already turned to look back several times whenever the Chairman spoke.
He strongly suspected it was someone from the Zog Group, placed there to keep an eye on them.
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Sir Turt fumed.
’Whose secretary is he, siding with outsiders?’
In the Sir’s opinion, taking a side was far more important than being right or wrong.
The secretary had no choice but to tactfully shut his mouth.
’If the boss wants to dig his own grave, I’ve already done more than enough by trying to stop him once.’
’If the boss really does go down because of this, as the secretary who’s followed him for so many years, I’ll definitely have to do something... out of a sense of loyalty, of course.’
’For instance, what would be the proper way to celebrate?’
’Maybe I’ll write and publish a memoir of the Drama Guild Chairman’s sordid past. It’d be a guaranteed bestseller.’
On stage, the lawyer made a simple deduction based on the recent questioning.
The client wanted the wealthy woman’s investment. With her dead, that investment was gone.
Therefore, from this angle, the client had no motive to kill her.
He concluded that if he built his defense on this point, combined with the wife’s testimony providing an alibi for the time of the incident, there was a high chance of clearing the client’s name.
Just then, however, the butler hurried in, holding a newspaper.
"The lady left the majority of her estate to the client."
