The sun rises on a cool Hyperagora, blessing the monuments with dawn's warmth and chasing away the night's dewy mist.
Primus had been quiet for some time, and Secundus takes note. "You've not said much this morning. Is there something weighing on you?"
"Yes." Primus pauses as he looks around the market for a simple breakfast, eventually meandering towards a stall that smells of hot butter. "Quintus' play. Amica the Pylarian was played by Tertius."
"Tertius is a good actor, she was fit for the role." Secundus says, following Primus' sandalled feet towards the buttery smell of buttery butter. "What didn't you like about her performance?"
"It wasn't her performance." Primus says, his thoughts still grinding like grist in a mill, and his words coming out like the flour, "It was her skin tone. Tertius is far too pale for a Pylarian."
"But you liked her performance?"
"Oh, yes, you couldn't find a better actor than Tertius. There are no Pylarian actors in that group as talented. What bothers me is that the secondary characters were all played by Pylarians."
"So?"
"So, Tertius is pale and the other actors were dark. Are we to believe that some Pylarians are pale and some are not? The Pylarians of the play should either be all pale or all dark."
"It was a play, one can imagine what one likes. Would you have a real lion instead of an actor in furs? Surely you did not believe that Tertius - sorry, Amica the Pylarian - really died on stage last night."
Primus looks over the pancakes cooking on the griddle but finds it unappealing. Far too much sugar for a breakfast. "No. There is a suspension of disbelief that one must invest into any play - but why paint a square when one means to depict a circle? Even a square with rounded corners is better than a square - a circle doubly so. Why depict some circles as squares and others as circles?"
They wander on to another stall. They come across a fruit cart.
"Would you care for an apple?" Primus asks, picking up a pear and handing it to Secundus.
"That's different." Secundus says, putting it back among the pears.
"Maybe you could imagine it an apple when you eat it." Primus says casually. "You can tell that it's a pear because it comes from a pear tree. Its skin is different, its taste is different, its shape is different. All of these things contribute to it being a pear and not an apple. One cannot easily imagine a pear to be an apple when our senses are telling us otherwise, no matter how well the pear learns its lines."
"So Tertius may never play the role of a Pylarian in Primus' plays?"
Primus holds his tongue while he purchases a pear. Feeling its roughness in his hand, he says "I think you misunderstand me. I'm not concerned with depicting things as they are - otherwise we would stand at the side of the road and watch things as they occur instead of sitting in a theatre. I'm concerned with consistency within the play. By making Pylarians interchangably pale or dark within the same play we forget they are a race of people from a place. By ignoring this we are ignoring the fundemental laws of nature that make us."
"Perhaps it was not important to the play that they are a race of people." Secundus says to an orange as he holds it to his nose before purchasing it. "Perhaps it's enough that they are there together as a group of people under the title 'Pylarian'."
"If that were the case, Tertius' first line would not have been -" and here Primus holds out his partially eaten pear and makes a grandiose gesture, "'We are the Pylarians, isolated on this island for two thousand years, behold my swarthy skin!'. It seems trite to have such a large focus of your worldbuilding be on how monotonus the races are only to ignore that in your casting."
"But you were able to imagine the backdrop to be a beach."
"Because it was not a painted mountain or a floor strewn with sand for a desert. There was no backdrop."
"And you were able to imagine Tertius a king, though she has not got the beard for it."
"She put on a gruff voice and wore a prosthetic beard. There was an attempt to mask the flaw. If she had said, 'behold, I am Tertius, pale visitor to the lands of the Pylarians, and they have made me one of them.', this would have been sufficient. Instead we are meant to be colourblind and imagine that all skin tones are the same. We are different, but it is those differences that make us interesting and varied characters."
"Perhaps Quintus was uncomfortable with writing that to her play."
And there they saw Quintus at the other end of the market, crossing the road to avoid the path of a group of Pylarians.
Primus had been quiet for some time, and Secundus takes note. "You've not said much this morning. Is there something weighing on you?"
"Yes." Primus pauses as he looks around the market for a simple breakfast, eventually meandering towards a stall that smells of hot butter. "Quintus' play. Amica the Pylarian was played by Tertius."
"Tertius is a good actor, she was fit for the role." Secundus says, following Primus' sandalled feet towards the buttery smell of buttery butter. "What didn't you like about her performance?"
"It wasn't her performance." Primus says, his thoughts still grinding like grist in a mill, and his words coming out like the flour, "It was her skin tone. Tertius is far too pale for a Pylarian."
"But you liked her performance?"
"Oh, yes, you couldn't find a better actor than Tertius. There are no Pylarian actors in that group as talented. What bothers me is that the secondary characters were all played by Pylarians."
"So?"
"So, Tertius is pale and the other actors were dark. Are we to believe that some Pylarians are pale and some are not? The Pylarians of the play should either be all pale or all dark."
"It was a play, one can imagine what one likes. Would you have a real lion instead of an actor in furs? Surely you did not believe that Tertius - sorry, Amica the Pylarian - really died on stage last night."
Primus looks over the pancakes cooking on the griddle but finds it unappealing. Far too much sugar for a breakfast. "No. There is a suspension of disbelief that one must invest into any play - but why paint a square when one means to depict a circle? Even a square with rounded corners is better than a square - a circle doubly so. Why depict some circles as squares and others as circles?"
They wander on to another stall. They come across a fruit cart.
"Would you care for an apple?" Primus asks, picking up a pear and handing it to Secundus.
"That's different." Secundus says, putting it back among the pears.
"Maybe you could imagine it an apple when you eat it." Primus says casually. "You can tell that it's a pear because it comes from a pear tree. Its skin is different, its taste is different, its shape is different. All of these things contribute to it being a pear and not an apple. One cannot easily imagine a pear to be an apple when our senses are telling us otherwise, no matter how well the pear learns its lines."
"So Tertius may never play the role of a Pylarian in Primus' plays?"
Primus holds his tongue while he purchases a pear. Feeling its roughness in his hand, he says "I think you misunderstand me. I'm not concerned with depicting things as they are - otherwise we would stand at the side of the road and watch things as they occur instead of sitting in a theatre. I'm concerned with consistency within the play. By making Pylarians interchangably pale or dark within the same play we forget they are a race of people from a place. By ignoring this we are ignoring the fundemental laws of nature that make us."
"Perhaps it was not important to the play that they are a race of people." Secundus says to an orange as he holds it to his nose before purchasing it. "Perhaps it's enough that they are there together as a group of people under the title 'Pylarian'."
"If that were the case, Tertius' first line would not have been -" and here Primus holds out his partially eaten pear and makes a grandiose gesture, "'We are the Pylarians, isolated on this island for two thousand years, behold my swarthy skin!'. It seems trite to have such a large focus of your worldbuilding be on how monotonus the races are only to ignore that in your casting."
"But you were able to imagine the backdrop to be a beach."
"Because it was not a painted mountain or a floor strewn with sand for a desert. There was no backdrop."
"And you were able to imagine Tertius a king, though she has not got the beard for it."
"She put on a gruff voice and wore a prosthetic beard. There was an attempt to mask the flaw. If she had said, 'behold, I am Tertius, pale visitor to the lands of the Pylarians, and they have made me one of them.', this would have been sufficient. Instead we are meant to be colourblind and imagine that all skin tones are the same. We are different, but it is those differences that make us interesting and varied characters."
"Perhaps Quintus was uncomfortable with writing that to her play."
And there they saw Quintus at the other end of the market, crossing the road to avoid the path of a group of Pylarians.
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