W.S. Maugham "Theater"

Tasks for Chapters 28-29

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What seemed the most scaring for Julia in the talk with her son on the first day of his arrival? This was his suggestion that if she went into an empty room and someone suddenly opened the door there would be nobody there. It made her feel very uncomfortable.

2. How did Julia prepare for the play? She studied her part. Julia did not deliberately create the character she was going to act by observation; she had a knack of getting into the shoes of the woman she had to portray so that she thought with her mind and felt with her senses. Her intuition suggested to her a hundred small touches that afterwards amazed people by their verisimilitude; but when they asked her where she had got them she could not say. Now she wanted to show the courageous yet uneasy breeziness of the Mrs. Marten who played golf and could talk to a man like one good chap to another and yet, essentially a respectable, middle-class woman, hankered for the security of the marriage state.

 3. How did she act at the dress-rehearsal? Why? Julia spared herself. She had no intention of giving all she had to give till the first night.

4. What advice did Julia give Michael about Avice Crichton? Why did she need it? Was that carefully planned? Michael, having taken Julia's advice, had gone to a good deal of trouble with Avice. He had rehearsed her by herself upstairs in his private room and had given her every intonation and every gesture. He had also, Julia had good reason to believe, lunched with her several times and taken her out to supper. The result of all this was that she was playing the part uncommonly well. Julia also told Michael not to rely on Avice until the first night.

5. Who did Julia talk to about her conversation with Roger? Why? What did she need to get from the conversation? She talked to Charles because she wanted his sympathy and advice.

6. Describe the state Julia was in before a first night? Compare her attitude towards first-night acting with the bygone years? In bygone years she had been intolerably nervous before a first night. She had felt slightly sick all day and as the hours passed got into such a state that she almost thought she would have to leave the stage. But by now, after having passed through the ordeal so many times, she had acquired a certain nonchalance. Throughout the early part of the day she felt only happy and mildly excited; it was not till late in the afternoon that she began to feel ill at ease. She grew silent and wanted to be left alone. She also grew irritable, and Michael, having learnt from experience, took care to keep out of her way. Her hands and feet got cold and by the time she reached the theatre they were like lumps of ice. But still the apprehension that filled her was not unpleasant.

7. Who did she meet while wandering the streets of London at noon, 6 hours before the first night? Where did they go? She met Tom and they went to his flat for a cup of tea.

8. What thoughts accompanied Julia when she visited Tom's place? She looked round the room that had been the scene of so many emotions for her. Nothing was changed. Her photograph stood in its old place, but on the chimney piece was a large photograph also of Avice Crichton. On it was written for Tom from Avice. Julia took everything in. The room might have been a set in which she had once acted; it was vaguely familiar, but no longer meant anything to her. The love that had consumed her then, the jealousy she had stifled, the ecstasy of surrender, it had no more reality than one of the innumerable parts she had played in the past.

9. Why did Julia change her attitude to Tom? What phrase does Julia pronounce to herself at the end of chapter 28? Comment on it. Julia became indifferent to Tom and the phrase "I dare say there's something in what Roger said. Love isn't worth all the fuss they make about it" proves it.

10. Was the first night a success for Julia? For Avice? Why? The first night was a success for Julia and a disaster for Avice. Julia literally outshined her.

 11. What was Tom's attitude towards Avice's acting? How does the scene in Julia's dressing-room characterize him? Tom found Avice’s acting a rotten one. And the scene in Juluia’s dressing room characterizes him as an easy-rider.

 12. Why do you think Julia refused to supper with Tom that night? It was her revenge to him? And moreover she did not want him anymore.

13. How did Julia spend that night? Was it typical of her? Why did she prefer this? She spent that night alone in her favourite restaurant. She felt herself on the top of the world and wanted to be alone and enjoy herself. She did not want to share such a moment with anybody.

14. What was peculiar about Julia's appearance and order at the Berkeley? Do you feel that night was somehow significant to her? Why? She neither painted her lips nor rouged her cheeks. She put on again the brown coat and skirt in which she had come to the theatre and the same hat. It was a felt hat with a brim, and this she pulled down over one eye so that it should hide as much of her face as possible. When she was ready she looked at herself in the glass. She did it to analyze her life and everything that happened to her. So that was a very important moment.

15. How does she reflect about the day passed? Does she feel satisfied? Why? Prove your point of view. It was enchanting to be alone and allow her mind to wander. She thought once more of Tom and spiritually shrugged a humorous shoulder. "It was an amusing experience."

16. Describe the place in a restaurant where Julia was having supper? What was special about it? Why had she chosen to be seated there? The room in which she sat was connected by three archways with the big dining-room where they supped and danced; amid the crowd doubtless were a certain number who had been to the play. How surprised they would be if they knew that the quiet little woman in the corner of the adjoining room, her face half hidden by a felt hat, was Julia Lambert. It gave her a pleasant sense of independence to sit there unknown and unnoticed. They were acting a play for her and she was the audience. She caught brief glimpses of them as they passed the archway, young men and young women, young men and women not so young, men with bald heads and men with fat bellies, old harridans clinging desperately to their painted semblance of youth. Some were in love, and some were jealous, and some were indifferent.

17. What conclusion did Julia come to while sitting at the Berkeley and "throwing prudence to the winds?" 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.' But there's the illusion, through that archway; it's we, the actors, who are the reality.

That's the answer to Roger. They are our raw material. We are the meaning of their lives. We take their silly little emotions and turn them into art, out of them we create beauty, and their significance is that they form the audience we must have to fulfil ourselves. They are the instruments on which we play, and what is an instrument without somebody to play on it?"

The notion exhilarated her, and for a moment or two she savoured it with satisfaction. Her brain seemed miraculously lucid.

"Roger says we don't exist. Why, it's only we who do exist. They are the shadows and we give them substance. We are the symbols of all this confused, aimless struggling that they call life, and it's only the symbol which is real. They say acting is only make-believe. That make-believe is the only reality."

Thus Julia out of her own head framed anew the platonic theory of ideas. It filled her with exultation. She felt a sudden wave of friendliness for that immense anonymous public, who had being only to give her opportunity to express herself.