Caricature
The entire production was ridiculous. At least half the information was incorrect. The performances were over the top and the dialogue melodramatic almost to the point of being funny. Zuko looked on in disbelief as the Ember Island Players portrayed significant moments of his life, terrible moments all of them; embarrassing, painful and guilt inspiring.
Huddled at the back of the theatre with his new friends and allies, he was with his countrymen but never had he been so far apart from them. He couldn't be seen, couldn't speak with them all for fear of being recognized and captured, returned to his father and sister, who would both gladly tear him into tiny pieces. Or maybe they would rather burn him alive. Yes, that was more likely. Fire was the noble method of killing after all. Neither Fire Lord nor princess would taint themselves with anything else.
Zuko's thoughts were all over the place, zigzagging forward and backward, recalling the past and then speculating about the future. He had no control over them. The play had opened up something in his mind, some doorway or porthole. He wished that he could close it again. Maybe if he left. But he couldn't. Terrible though the play was Zuko was somehow compelled to see it through.
When 'Mai' glided onto the stage, with her exaggerated hair, twin knives sticking out from the buns, and the face of neutrality on her chest, everything around the prince grew misty, fading almost from sight. There she was, the love of his life, or some bizarre version of her; Mai yet not Mai, perhaps the closest he would ever get to her for the rest of his days. That thought shook him to the core.
His Mai, but not his Mai, impossibly far but so tantalizingly close; it wasn't fair and it hurt. He closed his eyes and thought of his girl. He prayed that Azula showed mercy. 'Let her be all right; even if I can never see her again, let her be all right.'
"Did you say something, Zuko?" Katara nudged him in the ribs, a little harder than was necessary.
"No, nothing at all," he responded jerkily.
He closed his eyes again and recalled holding Mai, placing tender kisses everywhere. When he opened them again, 'Mai' was gone.