"The Darfsteller" is a 1955

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novelette by American writer

Walter M. Miller, Jr. Walter Michael Miller Jr. (January 23, 1923 – January 9, 1996) was an American science fiction writer. His fix-up novel, ''A Canticle for Leibowitz'' (1959), the only novel published in his lifetime, won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Pr ...

, which won the first

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

. It was originally published in '' Astounding Science Fiction'' of January 1955. It is the 21st century story of an old stage

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

who has become a

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

janitor A janitor (American English, Scottish English), also known as a custodian, porter, cleanser, cleaner or caretaker, is a person who cleans and maintains buildings. In some cases, they will also carry out maintenance and security duties. A simil ...

in order to remain near " show biz". The theater has been overtaken by

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

actors, made to look like humans, which act out plays under the direction of each venue's central computer. This "Maestro" runs the show, accommodating the kinds of factors which real actors would contend with:

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

reactions, failing mechanical actors (when they are broken or one of the tapes that they get their programming from is worn), and other inconstant factors. The old

dreams up a scheme to get himself back on stage, despite the

prejudice Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's per ...

against real acting. He destroys one of the robot's tapes, and since he knows the part from his previous career, he is the only way the show can go on. The old actor's problem is that he has always been a ''darfsteller'' (likely a portmanteau of "Darsteller", German for "actor/actress", with "darf", inflected form of "dürfen", "to be at liberty to do something") which the narrator explains was a "self-directed actor... the undirectable portrayer whose acting welled from unconscious sources with no external strings", generally hated by directors even when they performed excellently. The meaning of the story comes from the point that he cannot just walk onto the stage and deliver lines; as a "Darfsteller", he must live them, and transform himself into his role, and once that process begins, it is difficult to stop it.

References

External links

* 1955 short stories Science fiction short stories Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works History of theatre Robots in literature {{1950s-sf-story-stub