“After thinking about it for a while, Roland had to admit that this was indeed the case… the price for the armor and farm tools was stable, and since the material costs accounted for the bulk of the price, it was still difficult to force the price down by forging them with his more efficient steam engine instead of the hydraulic hammer, so, in the end, the difference was too small to attract the interest of a big merchant.
In addition, these plate armors’ which had Soraya’s anti-stabbing coating on it, was actually a part of the First Army’s armament upgrade, so until the iron production didn’t go up, it would be impossible to sell in large amounts.
…
Soon, it was time for the anticipated theater premiere.
On this afternoon, even though Roland had demolished the surrounding buildings, which doubled the size of the former central square, the town square was still so tightly packed that not even a drop would be able to trickle through.
To promote the play, Roland had already started informing people about it a week ahead of time. Moreover, he had specially requested the Ministry of Agriculture to send people to the outskirts of the town and mobilize the serfs to come watch the drama.
Roland, as the town’s Lord naturally had the best view point. In the direction of the stage, directly facing the show, Karl had erected a temporary wooden platform. It was made up of three rows of wooden benches, which could accommodate about a 100 people, and the place in the middle of the third row was reserved for Roland. On one side, were places for the members of the Witch Union, with Anna sitting next to him, while on the other side the merchant group had taken their place, with Margaret sitting as his direct neighbor.
The first and second rows were mostly filled with City Hall officials and their apprentices.
In order to ensure their safety, the people surrounding the wooden platform were made up of members from the First Army, who could watch the drama while at the same time separated the location of the Prince from the civilian population.
Now, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the sun’s burning heat had already faded and together with a fresh breeze from time to time which was produced by Wendy, everyone on the platform could enjoy a VIP level treatment.
Under the applause of the crowd, the actors stepped onto the stage one by one.
To tell the truth, Roland was completely unsure of what kind of result the premiere would achieve in the end. After giving the script to Irene, he no longer interevent in the drama. The recruiting and rehearsal have been fully done by her and Ferlin. Now, in retrospect, how much experience could a theater newcomer, who had only appeared on stage once have gathered? And the friends recruited by her, were those people who had never gotten the chance to perform on stage in Longsong Stronghold, only here in a small town could they become actors.
In other words, this was a newly created team of new actors, who planned to perform a new drama.
Fortunately, Roland didn’t mind if it became a failure, after all, this drama wasn’t meant to sell tickets and also not there to promote a good script. The only goal of the show was to remold the people’s ideology and free them of their prejudices, for this to happen it had to be performed more than once. So even if this time they didn’t play out well, they would undoubtedly have improved by the time of the next performance.
“Now, I finally understand why you were so confident in this show,” Margaret suddenly exclaimed, “you invited Miss May!”
Roland got startled, “Who?”
“Do not tell me you do not know about it yourself, my God! Before I came here, I’ve also seen her show in King’s City,” Margaret smacked her lips, “No matter if it is taking hold of her character or the build up of emotions, she is the best. I do not know how many people she has already moved to tears with her performance in “Prince seeking for love”, even Kadin Faso was full of praise for her!”
“Who is Kadin Faso?” Roland went through his memories bus he couldn’t find any impression of him within his head.
“…Your Royal Highness, are you really a person from King’s City?” Margaret blinked with her eyes. “Please give me the liberty to ask, who is the most famous person in King’s City, apart from the people of the court?”
“Yorko ‘The Devil’s hand’ ” Roland blurted out, but directly afterward he knew it was the wrong answer.
“Oh,” the businesswoman gave him a meaningful glance. “The most famous playboy, I heard that with one hand alone he could get a woman to never forget him… I understand.“
“Relies only on one hand?” Anna leaned over, “What for?”
“No-Nothing.” Roland slammed himself on the forehead, “We had better earnestly follow along with the drama.”
Chapter 189 Stars and Flowers
The play didn’t have a theater curtain, nor an introduction, their preparation area was separated from the stage by a board, their stage was simple and crude, and for most of the cast it would be the first formal performance of their lives.
“This story takes place in the capital of a kingdom. Within the outer city, there lived a beautiful and kind-hearted girl…”
Accompanied by the sound of the narration, Irene slowly walked onto the stage. Her whole attire was a filthy gray gown, the hair on top of her head was a hideous mess, and her face was covered with dust.
Swinging the broom in her hand, she was carefully cleaning the ground, from time to time even bending down to wipe the difficult to remove dirt using the end of her gown.
After several days of rehearsal, Irene had thoroughly memorized the whole story’s process in her heart. The story was quite simple: a civilian girl had lost her mother, and was now constantly being bullied at her home, but because of the girl’s kindness she was then rescued by a witch, who used her magic power to give the girl the opportunity to participate in the prince’s party, where the prince and she fell in love the first moment they saw each other.
But since the witch’s magic was only effective for a limited time, she was forced to leave the ball in a hurry, and in her panic she left behind a crystal shoe. In order to find the beautiful girl, the prince had the whole city be searched. Ultimately, he found her in the outer city, and from then on the two of them lived happily ever after.
The story was simple and easy to understand, yet its plot completely broke away from the former description of a princess and a prince’s love, by allowing a common girl, who due to her kind nature gained the assistance of a witch, be able to to win the prince’s favor. As the Cinderella of this performance, the part where the character gathered up her courage to resist the oppression she had to face her whole life, would be the actress greatest highlight of the performance.
So Irene had never imagined that May would give the leading position to her.
Irene was already euphoric enough that the star of the Western Territory was willing to share the stage with her. Moreover, as the pillar of the stronghold’s theater, May had enough pride and confidence to play the leading role in all kinds of theater stages, yet in “Cinderella” she took the initiative to play the supportive character of the half-sister.
This was somewhat hard to believe for Irene, until the other side repeatedly emphasized that this was a performance of new kind of character, and that Irene had the talent needed to play Cinderella.
In the next rehearsal, she gathered all of her strength, not only to repeatedly practice every scene, but also when lying in her bed, even after the candles had gone out, she would still be going through the acting skills taught to her by May.So as not to fail to live up to the other side’s good intentions.