The Dysk (theatre)

The Dysk (theatre)
as drawn by Matt Smith
Name	The Dysk
Location	Broad Way
Owner	Olwyn Vitoller
Use	Theater
Appearance
Residents
Built	In Wyrd Sisters
Founded by	Olwyn Vitoller
Demolished
Books	Wyrd Sisters Thief of Time Lords and Ladies
Notes

The Dysk Theatre, owned and operated by Olwyn Vitoller's company of strolling players, when they settled down in Ankh-Morpork. The Dysk can be found just off Lower Broad Way on the Isle of Gods, not far from the big and posh Opera House. The theatre is small with a thatched roof and rather shabby look about it. It acts the kind of usurper-killing-a-king dramas but without the foreign songs, and possibly gets peanuts and vegetables thrown at it. Appears in Wyrd Sisters and is mentioned in Thief of Time and Lords and Ladies.

An interesting point is that The Dysk has the flair of the early days of theatre. On Roundworld its style would be called Elizabethan. Why it could happen that such an anachronism (even by Discworld standards) could be built after the Opera House is also explained in Thief of Time, but for those of little patience, it is here explicated for your pleasure. When History shattered after the Glass Clock of Bad Schüschein, it had to be stitched together however it could be managed by the History Monks of Oi Dong. To have a shabby theatre next to a palatial Opera House with no-one noticing is testament to the human talent for not seeing the bleedin' obvious and glossing over what shouldn't be, not to mention the talents of the monks.

Annotation

On Roundworld, Shakespeare caused to be built a small, Elizabethan, wooden theatre. It was named The Globe, as our world is a globe, you see, and the Discworld is a disc. All the world's a stage, you see, and this represents all the world. Upon which, as you know if you've read Shakespeare's As You Like It, all of us are merely players:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.