Who repairs when the model gives way: the undeclared operator in a method built on equality

Participatory theatre for young audiences is described in terms of performers and spectators. In the practice examined here a third figure is present throughout: the director, who intervenes during the performance when the work does not resolve itself. This article describes that intervention inside a methodology whose first principle is the functional equality of performer and spectator. Its structure is borrowed, declared as a literary model only, from Asimov's Second Foundation — operators who correct a plan from the shadows, and a recorded prediction that speaks only afterwards because speaking in advance would annul it. The intervention is shown to work in three regimes with different consent statuses, of which only one raises an ethical problem. That problem, and the fact that none of it is recorded, are stated by the author rather than left to be found.