ROY: You direct?

NICK: Yes.

ROY: You any good?

LEWIS: He’s very good.

ROY: Is Jerry any good?

NICK: Jerry?

LEWIS: [to NICK] He’s Dean Martin, I’m Jerry Lewis.

NICK: [making a joke about it] As an actor he’s awful, but I make him look good.

ROY: Just the director we need.

NICK: I’ll just sit over here and watch. [To LEWIS] Do anything you like.

LEWIS: From today I’m also in the play—

ROY: [to NICK] We were desperate—

LEWIS: So it’s my first attempt at the part—

ROY: Don’t worry, Nick will make you look good.

LEWIS: Why don’t we take it from the scene where the men have left, pretending to go to war, and Fiordiligi and Dorabella are talking to Despina about how much they’ll miss their lovers. Say from ‘Ah, without my Guglielmo’, Julie.

JULIE:

Ah, without my Guglielmo I think I’ll die.

RUTH:

Without my Fernando I think I’ll bury myself.

CHERRY:

You might think that no woman ever died for love.
Died for a man? Why?
There’s a lot more where they came from.

RUTH:

Do you believe anyone could ever love another man
if she had Guglielmo and Fernando as a lover?

CHERRY:

Certainly. Think about enjoying yourselves.

JULIE:

Enjoying ourselves?

CHERRY:

Enjoy yourselves. Take lovers.
Your gentlemen will be away
fighting in a war.

RUTH:

Don’t insult those pure men. They’re models of fidelity and perfect love.

CHERRY:

Don’t talk nonsense.

She is about to begin her speech when NICK jumps up.

NICK: Let’s stop it there.

CHERRY: I’ve got my speech.

ROY: Aria!

CHERRY: When I sing it, I’ll call it an aria.

NICK: [to LEWIS] Mind if I say a few things?

LEWIS: Go right ahead.

NICK: [to the women] You’ve got to move. You’re standing there like statues. Where’s your motivation? Your emotions?

ROY: [elated] Finally—a director!

NICK: [pointing to CHERRY] Here’s this woman telling you to go out and fuck any men you can—

There is a shocked intake of breath from everyone at the four letter word.

And you want to remain true to your lovers. It’s an old-fashioned concept, granted. [To RUTH] But you have to be really pissed off when Despina says there’s more where they came from. [To JULIE] What’s your name?

JULIE: Julie.

NICK grabs her by the shoulders, speaking intensely and intimately to her, using all his charm.

NICK: You’re doing really well, Julie, but it has to be a little realer when you say ‘Without my—’ what’s his name? Gug—

JULIE: Guglielmo—

NICK: Without my Guglielmo, I’d cark it. [A beat.] Now, the old girl is so cynical that you girls, although protesting your love and the men’s love for you, move away, while she is almost whispering in your ears, like some tempter, like the very devil himself.

ROY: Brilliant! Couldn’t have put it better myself. Are you listening, Jerry?

LEWIS nods his head reluctantly.

NICK: Okay, let’s do it again.

RUTH: Should I take six or seven steps?