Characters came on. There was a little drama, well conceived and well acted. When it was over, the scene vanished as it had come. A comedy team came out next and this time the appropriate scenery materialized at once as one of them stumbled over an imaginary log and fell on his face. The log was not there when he tripped, but it was there by the time his nose hit the stage, neatly turning the joke on his companion who had started to laugh at his unreasonable fall.
On the show went, one scene swiftly succeeding the next. A song that took the fancy of the crowd was a plaintive ballad. It ran:
They tell me you did not treat me right,
Nor are grateful for all I've done.
I fear you're fickle as a meteorite
Though my love's constant as the Sun.
There was a ballet in which a witch rode a comet up into the sky, only to turn suddenly into a housewife and sweep all the cobwebs away. The featured stars came on with the chorus, and Lilly Fitzpatrick sang the big hit song, "You're a Big, Bad Nova to Burn Me Up This Way!" Then a novelty quartet appeared, to play on the curious Callistan bourdelangs, those reeds of that planet that grow in bundles. When dried and cut properly, they make multiple-barreled flutes with a tonal quality that makes the senses quiver. The show closed with a grand finale and flooded the house with the Nova song.
It was over. The stage was bare and the shimmering curtain that was not a curtain was back in place. People began to rise and stream into the aisles.
"La-deez and gen-tul-men!"