Libretto: Introduction

What brings people to an unknown Empire, at once distant and eerily familiar? The Emperor is the sovereign of his territories, yet lacks perspective and casts a sceptical, resigned glance over his realm, aware of its disintegration, unable to seize its essence. 

He seeks meaning in the words of four mysterious visionary travellers. Separately or together, as a Gestalt, they regale the Emperor with tales of their voyage. They have been everywhere and seen all the cities in the Empire, or they have never set off from home. 

Describing the imaginary cities they have wandered through, the travellers journey through their own minds and that of the Emperor. Their frustration at the Emperor's incomprehension mirrors his incredulity and inability to find solace in their stories. 

Their battle of ideas is the connecting thread for a tapestry woven with the fabrics of philosophy and metaphysics. In this exhausting dance through space and time, we are preventing from understanding only by the limits of our imagination. What separates the objects of perception from perception itself? How strictly can we separate internal and external realities? 

Cities are the physical manifestations of our imagination, a dream in concrete, and it is there that our play looks for answers to questions of ours. With language we have the power to construct, but how much can we rely on words not to betray our intentions? Our relationship with them is unreliable. Can a play ever be just a work of fiction on stage or does it seep out through cracks in the fourth wall? 

In the end you will realise where you recognise this Empire.

A penguin is standing on a ice floe,

when he is approached and questioned by another penguin

            - You look like you're wearing a tuxedo.

Calmly, he replies – What makes you think I'm not?