The chairs were not what they seemed

Text: an original contemporary theatre-review-style practice extract.

The first chair fell before the play had properly begun. The actor caught it with one foot, bowed to it, and carried on as if this were the evening’s most ordinary event. A row of plain wooden chairs stood behind him, looking more like borrowed furniture than the start of a performance.

Soon the chairs were a train, then a kitchen table, then the edge of a shore. The actors moved them quickly, with a scrape and a thump for every change of scene. At first, their briskness made the transformations funny: one chair was still rocking when somebody tried to sit down for supper. Later, the changes took longer. The actors stopped joking. They held the chairs apart, leaving a narrow gap between them, and spoke across it without raising their voices.

I expected the last chair to be used for another joke. Instead, the actor placed it alone beneath a small light and stepped away. Nothing followed. The silence lasted long enough for the earlier bustle to seem very far away. When the lights came up, the chairs looked ordinary again, but the play had made their emptiness difficult to ignore.

Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to interest and engage the reader.

In your answer, consider:

• language features and techniques
• structural techniques
• the effect on the reader.

Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.