by David Smith
***
Following this was The Judge’s House, the story of a young man seeking a quiet place to study and choosing to rent a house once owned by a judge renowned for his harsh sentencing and love of the noose. Each night at eleven o’clock the young man heard the sounds of rats scurrying and scrabbling as the two women players knelt scratching their nails on the sides of the tea chests and produced a pair of bright red rat’s eyes upon the back of the fireside chair where the judge used to sit. Inevitably the young man’s fate was to be found hanged on the end of a severed rope, the judge still passing sentence from his grave even upon the innocent. The audience remained quiet in their seats at the end this performance despite the raising of the lights for the interval; their apathy for refreshments only surpassed by that for the plays themselves.
