The first person in the audience to enter the theater should find the stage lighted softly. Nothing moves on stage. Every theatergoer should have sufficient time to observe each object and grow sick of it or come to want more of it. Finally, the lights are slowly dimmed as usual, an occurrence that might be accompanied by, for example, a continuous muted violin tone (“The tone of the violin is more ample than that of the guitar”—Kaspar). The theater is dark throughout the play. (While the audience comes in and as they wait for the play to begin, this text might be read softly over the microphones, and repeated over and over.)
I
Behind the backdrop, something stirs. The audience detects this in the movement of the curtain. The movement begins on the left or right of the curtain and continues towards the center, gradually becoming more vehement and more rapid. The closer the person behind the curtain comes to the center, the greater the bulge in the curtain. What at first was only a grazing of the curtain becomes, now that the material is obviously pliable, an attempt to break through. The audience realizes more and more clearly that someone wants to get through the curtain onto the stage but has not discovered the slit in the curtain. After several futile tries at the wrong spots — the audience can hear the curtain being thrashed — the person finds the slit that he had not even been looking for. A hand is all one sees at first; the rest of the body slowly follows. The other hand holds on to a hat, so the curtain won’t knock it off. With a slight movement, the figure comes on stage, the curtain slipping off it and then falling shut behind it. Kaspar stands on stage.
II
The audience has the opportunity to observe Kaspar’s face and makeup: he simply stands there. His makeup is theatrical. For example, he has on a round, wide-brimmed hat with a band; a light-colored shirt with a closed collar; a colorful jacket with many (roughly seven) metal buttons; wide pants; clumsy shoes; on one shoe, for instance, the very long laces have become untied. He looks droll. The colors of his outfit clash with the colors on stage. Only at the second or third glance should the audience realize that his face is a mask; it is a pale color; it is life-like; it may have been fashioned to fit the face of the actor. It expresses astonishment and confusion. The mask-face is round because the expression of astonishment is more theatrical on round, wide faces. Kaspar need not be tall. He stands there and does not move from the spot. He is the incarnation of astonishment.
III
He begins to move. One hand still holds the hat. His way of moving is highly mechanical and artificial. However, he does not move like a puppet. His peculiar way of moving results from his constantly changing from one way of moving to another. For example, he takes the first step with one leg straight out, the other following timorously and “shaking.” He might take the next step in the same manner but reverse the order. With the next step, he throws one leg high in the air and drags the other leg heavily behind him; the next step, he has both feet flat on the ground; the next he takes with the wrong foot first, so that with the subsequent step he must put the other leg far forward to catch up with the first leg; he takes the next two steps (his pace quickens and he comes close to toppling over) by placing the right leg on the left and the left leg on the right, and he almost falls; on the next step, he is unable to get one leg past the other and steps on it; again, he barely avoids falling; the next step he takes is so long he almost slips into a split, consequently he must drag the other leg laboriously after him; in the meantime he has tried to move the right leg further forward, but in another direction, so once more he almost loses his balance; on the next step, which is even more hurried, he places one foot toeforward, the other toe-backwards, whereupon he attempts to align the toe on one foot with the toe on the other, becomes discombobulated, turns on his axis, and, as the audience has feared all along, finally falls to the ground. Before this occurs, however, he has not been walking toward the audience; his walk consists of spirals back and forth across the stage; it is not so much walking as something between an imminent fall and convoluted progress, with one hand holding on to the hat, a hand which remains on his head when he does fall. At the end of his fall, the audience sees Kaspar sitting on the stage floor in something like a disorderly lotus-position. He does not move; only the hand holding the hat becomes autonomous: it gradually lets go of the hat, slips down along his body, dangling awhile before it too stops. Kaspar just sits there.
IV
He begins to speak. He utters a single sentence over and over: I want to be a person like somebody else was once. He utters the sentence so that it is obvious that he has no concept of what it means, without expressing anything but that he lacks awareness of the meaning of the sentence. He repeats the sentence several times at regular intervals.
V
In the same position on the floor, the lotus position, Kaspar repeats the sentence, now giving it almost every possible kind of expression. He utters it with an expression of perseverance, utters it as a question, exclaims it, scans it as though it were verse. He utters it with an expression of happiness, of relief. He hyphenates the sentence. He utters it in anger and with impatience; with extreme fear. He utters it as a greeting, as an invocation in a litany, as an answer to a question, as an order, as an imprecation. Then, in monotone, he sings the sentence. Finally he screams it.
VI
When this does not get him anywhere, he gets up. First he tries getting up all at once. He fails. Halfway up, he falls down again. On the second attempt he gets almost all the way up, only to fall once more. Now he laboriously draws his legs out from under him, during which process, his toes get caught on the back of his knees. Finally he pries his legs apart with his hands. He stretches out his legs. He looks at his legs. At the same time he bends his knees, drawing them toward himself. Suddenly he is squatting. He watches as the floor leaves him. He points with his hand at the floor which is becoming more remote. He utters his sentence with an air of wonderment. Now he is standing upright, turns his head this way and that, toward the objects on stage, and repeats the sentence: I want to be a person like somebody else was once.
VII
He begins to walk again, still in an artificial manner, but now more regularly: for example, the feet are turned inward, the knees stiff; the arms hang slack, as do the fingers. He directs his sentence, not tonelessly yet without expressing anything, at a chair. He directs the sentence, expressing with it that the first chair has not heard him, at the next chair. Walking on, he directs the sentence at the table, expressing with it that neither chair heard him. Still walking, he directs the sentence at the closet, expressing with it that the closet does not hear him. He utters the sentence once more in front of the closet, but without expressing anything: I want to be a person like somebody else was once. As though by accident, he kicks the closet. Once again he kicks the closet, as though intentionally. He kicks the closet once more: whereupon all the closet doors open, gradually. The audience sees that the closet contains several colorful theatrical costumes. Kaspar does not react to the movement of the closet doors. He has only let himself be pushed back a bit. Now he stands still until the closet doors have stopped moving. He reacts to the open doors with the sentence: I want to be a person like somebody else was once.