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pose that Nicole says to you that Lanier is ill. What do you
do in life? What does anyone do? They ACT—face, voice,
words—the face shows sorrow, the voice shows shock, the
words show sympathy.’
‘Yes—I understand.’
‘But in the theatre, No. In the theatre all the best come-
diennes have built up their reputations by burlesquing the
correct emotional responses—fear and love and sympathy.’
‘I see.’ Yet she did not quite see.
Losing the thread of it, Nicole’s impatience increased as
Dick continued:
‘The danger to an actress is in responding. Again, let’s
suppose that somebody told you, ‘Your lover is dead.’ In life
you’d probably go to pieces. But on the stage you’re trying to
entertain—the audience can do the ‘responding’ for them-
selves. First the actress has lines to follow, then she has to
get the audience’s attention back on herself, away from the
murdered Chinese or whatever the thing is. So she must do
something unexpected. If the audience thinks the character
is hard she goes soft on them—if they think she’s soft she
goes hard. You go all OUT of character—you understand?’
‘I don’t quite,’ admitted Rosemary. ‘How do you mean
out of character?’
‘You do the unexpected thing until you’ve manoeuvred
the audience back from the objective fact to yourself. THEN
you slide into character again.’
Nicole could stand no more. She stood up sharply, mak-
ing no attempt to conceal her impatience. Rosemary, who
had been for a few minutes half-conscious of this, turned in

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