Free At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón

servant.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œAnd what does he say?”
    â€œHe says, ‘The time has come, like I told them it would.’”
    â€œAnd what does he feel?”
    â€œHe feels uneasy. A little afraid. Angry. Oddly, a hint of pride.”
    â€œGood,” Henry said. “And where are you?”
    â€œBackstage.”
    Henry shook his head gravely. “There’s no such thing as backstage. The play begins, and there’s only the world it dramatizes. Now, where are you?”
    â€œWith my father, the president. In his chambers.”
    â€œRight. With me. Your father. And now—this is important—do you love me?”
    Nelson considered this; or rather, Nelson, as Alejo, considered this.
    â€œYes,” he said after a moment. “I do.”
    â€œGood. Remember that. In every scene—even when you hate me, you also love me. That’s why it hurts. Got it?”
    Nelson said that he did.
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood. Because it
does
hurt,” Henry said. “Don’t forget that. It’s supposed to. Always.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, Henry recited his usual lines with a little more bite, berated Alejo with a little more vigor. It was hard not to take it personally, and even when the rehearsals ended, something of this bad feeling lingered. The president and Alejo were two members of a troubled family, with a complicated, tense history; Nelson and Henry were two actors who barely knew each other. Patalarga tried to run interference, but it wasn’t easy. He suggested drinks at the Wembley one evening after rehearsal, but Nelson begged off. He proposed lunch the following day, but Henry arrived late. He organized a dinner of old Diciembre veterans, and the two actors spent the evening at opposite ends of the room, never interacting. And still: they were getting it, scene by scene; getting at the dark truth of it.
The Idiot President
could be an acidly funny farce about power, trickery, and violence, Patalarga told me. That much anyone knew. What he hadn’t realized until now was that it was also a painful statement about family.
    There was a scene toward the end of the first act, when Henry is having his boots laced up by the servant. Patalarga is on his knees before the president. It’s an oddly intimate moment. “Rub my calves,” Henry’s character says, then confesses, “I’m sore from kicking my boy.”
    The startled servant says nothing—the president is famously cruel, and he assumes this statement to be true. With downcast eyes, he kneads the president’s calves, while Henry exhales, relishing this impromptu massage. “In truth, I only dream of it,” the president says, and then pulls his leg away and kicks the servant in the chest. “But oh, how I dream!”
    In early rehearsals (and in the original 1986 performances at the Olympic) this moment happened with Alejo offstage; in later versions, Henry wanted Nelson’s character there, hidden just a few steps behind the action, eavesdropping as his father daydreams about kicking him. This small change was, in part, a recognition of the realities of the tour that awaited: more likely than not, there would be no backstage (real or metaphorical) out in the hinterlands, when they were on the road. Still, it altered something, shifted the chemistry of the performance. They ran through it again and again one afternoon, and even set up mirrors so Henry could see Nelson’s reaction. Three, four, five times, he kicked poor Patalarga, all the while locking eyes with Nelson.
    â€œRemember, I’m not kicking him, I’m kicking you!” Henry shouted.
    On the sixth run-through, he missed Patalarga’s hands, and nearly took off the servant’s head. Patalarga threw himself out of harm’s way just in time. Everyone stopped. The theater was silent. Patalarga was