ZAC: Hey!

ROY: And take out that Pontiac fellow’s name too!

LEWIS goes over to ROY who is sitting by himself.

LEWIS: What’s up, Roy?

ROY: I’m down.

LEWIS laughs at the unintended word play but ROY is offended.

LEWIS: Was it the set? Didn’t you like it?

ROY shrugs, he doesn’t feel talkative.

You didn’t like doing the shock treatment?

ROY: It’s not like the real thing, I suppose.

LEWIS: We can change it back to what Mozart wanted.

ROY: Far be it for me to make suggestions, especially when you allow Cherry to make them.

LEWIS: I want the others to contribute, it makes them feel part of the show.

ROY: So I’m beginning to find out. Democracy is foreign to theatre, Jerry. You and I know that, it’s just that you want to pander to the mob.

LEWIS: Some good ideas result.

ROY: Sometimes a vision is destroyed. [A beat.] I had a dream, Jerry, and it is fading. There would be music, music of the spheres, colourful costumes, joie de vivre, a world that was as far removed from this depressing asylum as possible. A world that was like my childhood: tea parties, dances in our ballroom, circus performers coming to perform just for me. My mother in Parisian gowns—she flirting with the men, waving her fan so fast, it was a blur—servants dancing on fingertips, French tutors, lullabies goodnight sung to me by my beautiful mother, summer days and lemonade brought to me by a maid as I sat on the front verandah listening to the piano inside playing Mozart. That’s the world I wanted Così fan Tutte to capture—recapture. But it’s gone, the music too.

LEWIS: I think I have a solution to the music.

ROY: They won’t be ready to sing. It’s hopeless!

LEWIS: Chin up. I think we can have Mozart’s music in a bit of it.

ROY: [optimistically] You think so?

LEWIS: Yes. Leave it to me. Okay?

ROY nods in agreement.

[To the others] Okay, back to work.

CHERRY: [grumbling] What about lunch?

LEWIS: [to everyone] All right, let’s get back to rehearsal. We haven’t got much time. We open on Friday.

ROY: We’ll never do it.

LEWIS: We will. But we’ll also have to rehearse on Friday afternoon.

JULIE: Isn’t that the first day of your moratorium?

LEWIS: This comes first.

CHERRY: Good.

LEWIS: We’ll go on from where we left off this morning. Ferrando seducing Fiordiligi.

CHERRY: It’s easy to see that Fiordiligi’s not like Dorabella, who was a bit of a tart giving in so easily. At least one can say that most women aren’t like her.

RUTH: It wasn’t me, it was the character.

LEWIS: [enjoying getting back at her] You were pretending?

RUTH: [uncomfortable with the admission] Yes.

HENRY: My wife was like Dorabella.

CHERRY: Didn’t even know you were hitched, Henry.

HENRY: She was a tttttemptress.

Everyone looks at him amazed. Pause.

LEWIS: Okay. Let’s take it from your last lines.

ROY joins RUTH, his depression is lifting.