Thought about theater disasters tonight, of fires urgently disturbing our most civilized sanctuary, the stage. Was watching the decorous performance scenes in "Topsy-Turvy," where things are in fact in their place; it seemed unconscionable that anything should disrupt the pristine suspension of reality among the crowd. There goes the bellowing Mikado, there's the Lord High Executioner. Why yes.

And if there were a fire? There'd be an awful moment when the actor abandoned the line. Fans clattered to the floor and the baton was stilled, and fell.

The human drama supersedes.