This cast-off church made a good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had
been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies.
The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well
distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and
two pillars at the back of the auditorium, and the slightly
ecclesiastical seats below.
There are two tiers of little boxes in the theatre, some forty in all,
with fringe and red velvet, and lined with dark red paper, quite like
real boxes in a real theatre. And the padrone's is one of the best. It
just holds three people.
We paid our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs.
I opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin,
looking down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing
profusely in a box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round:
ah, the chemist, on the upper tier, near the barber; how-do-you-do to
the padrona of the hotel, who is our good friend, and who sits, wearing
a little beaver shoulder-cape, a few boxes off; very cold salutation to
the stout village magistrate with the long brown beard, who leans
forward in the box facing the stage, while a grouping of faces look out
from behind him; a warm smile to the family of the Signora Gemma, across
next to the stage.
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