Act I, scene 1

In the middle of the stage is a long, high table, covered with red cloth. Three chairs with high backs sit at the table. There are also three small tables: one in front of the big table in the proscenium, and two at the sides. A Statue of Themis stands in the background. Her eyes are blindfolded. In one hand, she holds a Kalashnikov; in the other, a pair of scales. On the scales are, in one pan, a hammer, and in the other, a sickle. On Themis’ left is a cage, like those to hold wild beasts. In the cage is the defendant's bench. On the upper stage are wall-poster portraits of six people, for the present unknown to us.

The Bard comes on stage with a guitar. He speaks quietly, in a homely, completely un-theatrical voice, in the empty spaces between playing phrases on the guitar.

Bard: Sometimes I think they’ll never get on with the show. The directors, I mean. The showmen. The producers. The executioners. For these guys, it seems to me, the script is never done. There's always something (he fiddles with his fingers on the fretboard) slightly out of tune. Even The Chairman never gets it right. He's getting old, he groans, he's got stenosis, sclerosis, adenoid troubles, but the doctors still fight for his health, just to keep him alive another day. Oh, all right. I’ll play something for you, while we’re waiting for the show to go on. (He sings.)

• The white river flows from far away

• And spills over field and meadow.

• The white river flows, and storm clouds blow

• This mad, mad world away.

The whole time he's playing, from somewhere offstage, at first far away and then getting closer, comes the frightful, broken sound of sirens, coming either from ambulances or from police-cars or from some other official machinery. As the sirens grow louder, The Bard also plays louder, trying to outcry the sirens.

• The sun beats down as the mad river flows,

• And the winter snows begin to cry.

• That's the way my whole life goes,

• Like a river falling into the sky…