LEWIS: We don’t have to have cappuccino.

RUTH: Good, I don’t like them.

ROY: [to LEWIS] We should get Occupational Therapy onto making the costumes straight away.

RUTH: [to LEWIS] So we’ll pretend?

He looks at her quizzically.

To drink coffee.

LEWIS: If we do it—yes.

RUTH: But what if I want to stir the froth into the coffee?

LEWIS: Maybe we’ll have instant coffee.

RUTH: Did they have instant coffee in Mozart’s day?

Both ROY and LEWIS are becoming exasperated.

ROY: It doesn’t matter, Ruth.

RUTH: But I don’t like instant coffee.

ROY: Jerry, tell her, you’re the director.

LEWIS is out of his depth with RUTH.

[To RUTH] You’re not in the scene. Only the men are in the coffee house scene. [To DOUG, referring to LEWIS] He couldn’t direct a poofter to a man’s dunny.

ZAC enters looking soporific. ROY is pleased to see him.

Ah, the orchestra! Zac, this is the director of the show. Jerry, this is Zac.

LEWIS: It’s Lewis.

ROY: To you maybe, but not to Dean Martin.

ZAC: [looking for the piano] Piano?

ROY: Not here yet.

The words are trying to pierce the drug fog of ZAC’s brain.

ZAC: Piano?

ROY: The piano is coming tomorrow.

ZAC abruptly turns around and heads back to his ward.

[Shouting after him] Tomorrow. It’ll definitely be here tomorrow.

DOUG: [half to himself] How much Lithium is the poor bugger on?

ROY: [explaining ZAC’s behaviour to LEWIS] Without a piano Zac is only a threepence.

CHERRY: This Così Tutti—

ROY: Così fan Tutte.

CHERRY:—thing is just another thing about the battle of the sexes?

ROY: I suppose so, if you could describe the Crusades as a sightseeing lark on the way to Jerusalem. Look, everyone, show some enthusiasm. This is a masterpiece. Ever since I was a child I’ve adored it. My mother played the music to me over and over. You can count the productions of it on one finger in Australia. Well, none probably. I haven’t seen any. We’ll be making history. Australian history. We’ll bring culture to this place. You know what culture is for most Australians, Jerry? It’s the stuff that grows on stale cheddar.

DOUG: I wish he were on Lithium.

CHERRY: Let me get this right. There’s a bit of singing in the show?

ROY: It’s all singing.

Everyone is stunned.

CHERRY: But I can’t sing.

ROY: When I put the notice up on the board I said it was an opera.

CHERRY: It said ‘Who wants to have fun in the theatre?’

ROY: That was the heading, but didn’t you read anything under it? [A beat.] You can’t sing at all?

CHERRY: Not opera.

ROY: Lewis will train you.

LEWIS: Roy—

DOUG: I can’t sing a note, and, as for Henry here, to get him to speak a word is a miracle.

ROY: I heard him humming the other day. He’s a natural. My instinct for this is always right. [Noticing LEWIS’s downcast expression] Chin up, Jerry, she’ll be apples. Now one more thing. [A beat.] Who speaks Italian?