About the work

When the vacuum cleaner starts, the pigeon outside the window flinches, a quick, almost imperceptible jerk of its head. It’s too late for the light to be this blue. Someone has forgotten to replace a bulb. The sign says “Out of Order,” but it has said that for weeks now, and no one really notices it anymore, not even the people moving the puppet. He wonders if the sweatband belongs to one of them, pulled off in the heat of the papier-mâché, or if it was there already, a forgotten prop from an earlier act. There is a story here, of a temporary fix that became permanent, of an actor who gave everything to the show. He wonders who wrote the sign, and if they ever meant to fix the thing it describes.