So, are we all here?

SCOTT: Chuck’s late.

JEREMY: Chuck’s late, (looking at his watch) I suppose he’s plugged into his Walkman somewhere listening to some sports spectacular. Are those wonderful Celtics … (he pronounces this Keltics and is corrected). (Chuck enters, with Walkman headphones over his ears) All right, let’s go then. Oh—who’s that roaming in the gloom?

SCOTT: Chuck, five minutes late….

CHUCK: Sorry, everybody. I had to put in a call to Kathy and Jesse.

TOMMY: Why did that take so long?

CHUCK: Rotary, (dialing)

WILL: What are you listening to?

CHUCK: World Cup soccer. What are we doing?

SCOTT: Act 1, Scene 9, the Smeraldina interview. You’ve just exited up left. (Chuck exits up left)

JEREMY: Will, could you get the other way up, please? It’s easier for acting on the whole … or possibly not in your case. Okay, let’s go. As Scott said, we’ve done this old chestnut hundreds of times, so let’s blow off the cobwebs, give it some energy, and GO.

TOMMY: Jeremy, can I cut down the movement in this scene? It’s hard to see with the mask, and it feels dangerous with all that movement.

JEREMY: Don’t talk to me, talk to Andrei Serban. He’s the director, and you can break your bloody neck as far as he’s concerned. It’s his favorite bit. You have to realize you’re not just moving in this scene, you’re representing the spirit of movement. You may not know it, the audience may not know it, the critics may not know it, but Serban knows it. That’s enough, (shouts at Tommy) You’re a metaphor! You have to be symbolic of the thing you’re representing. I don’t know why this theatre always has to be so bloody different. Why can’t we do stuff people like—like A Christmas Carol. No, we’re always expected to screw up the classics and infuriate the audience and irritate the critics. We can’t even do Gozzi straight. Anyhow, in this scene, Deramo is the symbol of innocence and Smeraldina is the symbol of chicanery. Do you understand?

EVERYBODY: NO.

JEREMY: Nor do I. Let’s go.

SCOTT: Okay. Stand by onstage … and GO.

(Tommy and Karen take their places. After Tommy jokingly calls “Line,” they begin to do a scene from King Stag.)

KAREN: My lionhearted lord, in Lombardy we were a family of consequence. Then catastrophes and calamities fell upon us. Dishonest servants stole our wealth, our lands, my jewels. But they could not steal my—hee, hee, hee, modesty. And poverty cannot pollute a noble mind, can it?

TOMMY: So, lady from Lombardy. You love me?

KAREN: Ah, cruel tyrant, can you ask such a question? When already I am utterly yours?

TOMMY: Tell me, Smeraldina, what if I chose you for my wife … and then I died, leaving you a widow? Would that make you sad?

(The drop begins to billow as if in a wind. Chuck, who has been awaiting a cue offstage, comes from behind the drop to whisper in Scott’s ear.