NICK: What do you think?

RUTH: Seven.

NICK: Seven it is.

LEWIS is astounded that she agreed so quickly.

ROY: [to LEWIS] He’s brilliant, isn’t he?

NICK: From the beginning.

JULIE:

Without my Guglielmo I think I’ll die.

RUTH:

Without my Ferrando I think I’ll bury myself.

NICK: Good, good, keep on going—

CHERRY:

You might think that no woman ever died for love.
Die for a man? Why?
there’s a lot more where he came from.

RUTH:

Do you believe anyone could ever love another man if she had Guglielmo or Ferrando as her lover?

CHERRY:

Certainly. Enjoy yourselves,
take lovers,
your men 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.

Pause.

Will I do my speech?

NICK: Go for it.

CHERRY:

You look for fidelity in a man fidelity in soldiers?
Don’t make me laugh.
They have as much resolve as water.
Their tricks are all the same.
Lies, deceptions, crocodile tears.
All they want is to get into your pants.
Once they’ve got their pleasure
they despise us
and turn their backs on us.
They become tyrants—
and don’t expect mercy from tyrants.
We women should pay them back in kind.

[Pause. To LEWIS] I don’t agree with what Despina is saying, of course.

The women’s performances have been so much better and quicker as everyone realises, including the women.

ROY: [ecstatic] Brilliant!

[To NICK] So that’s how a real director works his magic.

LEWIS is irritated.

Are you watching this, Jerry?

NICK: We’ll go on with the rest of the scene.

LEWIS: It’s the end of the scene.

NICK: [taking up the script] What’s the next one?

LEWIS: Don Alfonso introduces the two lovers who haven’t really gone off to war but return in disguise.

NICK looks puzzled, not knowing the story very well, something that has never stopped a director before, and will not stop NICK.

They’re taking Don Alfonso’s bet that their women won’t be seduced by them and prove their fidelity.

ROY: Nick, sorry to interrupt here.

LEWIS is astonished by ROY’s servility towards NICK.

NICK: That’s all right.

ROY: There’s six of us, right? And there’s supposed to be hundreds of chorus members offstage, crowds, troops: all going off to war in ships.

NICK: Offstage? Easy. Play a record of the opera at this section and put it through the amps. It’s offstage, no one will know the difference and they’ll think you’ve got hundreds backstage.

NICK returns to reading the script.

ROY: Brilliant! Everything is coming alive. Everything matches my vision.

CHERRY: [noticing LEWIS’s irritation] Don’t cream your pants, Roy.

ROY: No more sleepless nights wondering who can replace Jerry.

CHERRY: He gets like this when he goes off medication.

NICK: What’s this?

LEWIS: What’s what?

NICK: The lovers are disguised as Albanians.

LEWIS: Yes. I thought I’d put them in contemporary Albanian uniforms.

NICK: Contemporary?

LEWIS: They’re the easiest. They have no ranks or colours on them.