THE AUTHOR: Esteemed audience... (Pause.) No, no "esteemed" audience - just audience. And this doesn’t mean that the author doesn’t consider the audience esteemed. Quite the opposite. Behind this address seems to lie some heartbeat or, let’s say, a plea for the audience to show generosity towards the actors' pretense and the craft of theatrical play.

The poet does not ask for leniency, he asks for focus - since he has long jumped over the thorny fence of fear that separates the author from the spectators. This foolish fear and the decline of Theatre, which sometimes becomes commerce, have caused poetry to withdraw from the stage, seeking other spaces - places where people are not afraid to see a tree turn into a cloud of smoke or just three fish multiply - through the magic of a word, or a gesture - into three million to satisfy a starving crowd.

The author preferred to give to his dramatic parable the lively rhythm of a charming woman from the people. And so throughout the work breathes and sparkles this poetic creature that the author dressed in the garments of Balomatus and sealed with the stamp of folk verse and fairy tale.

And if the audience happens to be puzzled by her, and if she seems a bit wild and not very tidy in manners, it is because she is always fighting against it. She fights, so to speak, with the reality that surrounds her, but also with her imagination, as it becomes reality.

(The cries of Balomatus are heard: I want to go on stage! Do you hear? I am coming!) - Don't be in such a hurry to go out. You are not going to wear a dress with a long train and feathers on your head - but a patched garment, a Balomatus dress. (Voice of Balomatus: I want to go out!) Silence.

(The curtain rises and a dimly lit set is revealed.) Thus every day dawns in the towns and people wake up from their usual world of dreams to go to the market - just as you will now step onto the stage, wonderful Balomatus. (The light intensifies.) We begin at the hour you return home through the cobblestone streets... (Voices arguing are heard. To the audience.) Good evening to you all. (He removes his hat, illuminated from within by a green light, tilts it, and a fountain seems to spring forth. The author looks at the audience a bit bewildered and retreats with a gaze full of irony.) - Please excuse me.