Short story. Lady with amnesia and agoraphobia is helped by the performers in a theatre. We later find out the theatre travels through time

Question

I remember reading this short story at about the same time, that I read this other story I asked about recently.

Short Story. Every time a child is born, the oldest person in the world dies

So it is possible they were both in the same anthology, but maybe not. I often am partway through several books at the same time.

I read this pretty recently, after 2020. It was difficult to judge when it was likely written, though it was probably after 1955. I may have read it online.

The lady suspects some traumatic event has caused her to suffer both amnesia and agoraphobia. She stays backstage in a theatre. The players treat her well, they let her stay and bring her food and other necessities. She decorates the place where she sleeps with things labelled New York. She believes the theatre to be in New York.

I believe the name of the theatre manager begins with S. He gives her lots of advice and support. She gets on well with all the players. She does odd jobs for them such as repairing damaged costumes.

During one performance, she glances out at the audiences and sees many strange creatures, some with two heads. When she asks the theatre manager about this, he tells her it was a special performance for a group of people on their way to a costume party. They perform a lot of Shakespeare, but also plays based on SF novels. One play wad based on a Heinlein novel, I think Methuselah's Children.

They put on a special performance of Macbeth, performing it the way it would have been done in Shakespeare's day. This includes young men playing the women's roles. Out in the audience sits what the protagonist believes to be an actress dressed as Queen Elizabeth I and actors playing her courtiers. She mentions to the players that this is an anachronism. Elizabeth I died before Macbeth was ever performed, but they do not seem.troubled by this.

They are struggling without really enough actors to play at the parts in Macbeth. The protagonist performs one of the parts, the first time she has done so.

They exchange the Queen Elizabeth I in the audience for one of their actresses dressed up as her. The theatre managers explains that the theatre travels through time. They are competing in a time war, trying to correct damage done to their timeline by their opponents. The protagonist says she wants nothing to do with them if they go around doing damage to history, such as kidnapping Queen Elizabeth I in the middle of her reign.

The manager.explains that the woman they kidnapped was not the real Queen, it was one of their opponents who wanted to damage history. Once she understands this, the lady joins with them to help with their missions.

Answer 1

No Great Magic by Fritz Leiber.

It's a long short story - more of a novella. You can read it on Gutenberg here. It's one of his Change War stories about a war between factions called the Snakes and the Spiders, and follows on from his novel The Big Time. I don't think the story was ever published in the same anthology as Population Implosion though they were published in the same decade.

For example the scene you remember with Queen Elizabeth is:

"Martin," I said with difficulty, "I don't think I'm going to like what we're doing."

He turned on me, his short hair elfed, his fists planted high on his hips at the edge of his black tights, which now were all his clothes.

"You knew!" he said impatiently. "You knew you were signing up for more than acting when you said, 'Count me in the company.'"

Like a legged sapphire the blue fly walked across her upper lip and stopped by the thread of foam.

"But Martin ... changing the past ... dipping back and killing the real queen ... replacing her with a double—"

His dark brows shot up. "The real—You think this is the real Queen Elizabeth?" He grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the nearest table, gushed some on a towel stained with grease-paint and, holding the dead head by its red hair (no, wig—the real one wore a wig too) scrubbed the forehead.

The white cosmetic came away, showing sallow skin and on it a faint tattoo in the form of an "S" styled like a yin-yang symbol left a little open.

"Snake!" he hissed. "Destroyer! The arch-enemy, the eternal opponent! God knows how many times people like Queen Elizabeth have been dug out of the past, first by Snakes, then by Spiders, and kidnapped or killed and replaced in the course of our war. This is the first big operation I've been on, Greta. But I know that much."

My head began to ache. I asked, "If she's an enemy double, why didn't she know a performance of Macbeth in her lifetime was an anachronism?"

"Foxholed in the past, only trying to hold a position, they get dulled. They turn half zombie. Even the Snakes. Even our people. Besides, she almost did catch on, twice when she spoke to Leicester."

"Martin," I said dully, "if there've been all these replacements, first by them, then by us, what's happened to the real Elizabeth?"

He shrugged. "God knows."