Impromptu Protest Theater

Adding this to my top 10

As the denouement of this work of agit-prop the performer looks his antagonist in the eye and demands, “Time me.”

We expect fast action after that gauntlet is thrown. But the climax of this moment is slow - because the protagonist of this piece has only one leg. He gets up out of his chair as slowly as he got into it, leaning on a cane and his partner. Everyone has to shuffle around their seats to make room for him to pass. He has to wait for his partner to grab their things and then open the door.

He is agitated and upset. I think he actually would have liked to go faster. But he can’t. And everyone sitting in the audience is uncomfortably shifting in their chairs for the several minutes it takes for him to fully be out of the room.

Instead of cheers or even the end of that little assembly, the antagonist picks up right where he left off.