Today Molly lays out the challenge of the scene in which Vita has come to the basement of Virginia’s London house, to the small writing studio. She’s ostensibly on an afternoon social visit, which will include tea, small sandwiches, and London gossip. Virginia’s husband, Leonard, may be around. So they make an arrangement, a letter inside a letter (“You’ll be nice to me, won’t you? And I’ll be nice to you.”) to meet half an hour early so they can make out a little in the basement. This is the scene for which Cate bought the old fuse box.

Molly delineates the action for the two of them. “This is a subtle sex scene. Virginia is often portrayed as fragile, but in this relationship she is also slightly the aggressor. She’s forty. She’s had very little romance in her life. Vita’s offering her that opportunity and Virginia’s interest is piqued.” Molly pushes and pulls Gladys and Ruby into an embrace in one corner of the room. She steps back to see how they look, then comes in for a little rearranging. “Okay, so Virginia’s brilliant as a writer, but she faces a steep learning curve in flirtation and seduction. You know what? I think I need you to reverse your positions. Vita should be against the wall of the corner stage left; she’s the catcher. Ruby, I want you to stand with your right foot between Gladys’s feet. Gentle but pointedly invasive.” She turns to Cate. “I need you to make sure these walls, onstage, are firmly buttressed, sturdy enough to have some passion pressed against them.”

Both actors are straight. Ruby is professional, Gladys is tiresome. She needs to put her heterosexual watermark on the scene, giggling into and out of the first practice kisses. Asking Molly, “Is this right?” As if kisses between women operate on a different mechanism, like a language with a glottal stop.

“Perfect.” Molly brushes the stupidity aside.

Cate goes off to take measurements on a chaise Gladys says is too short for her to stretch out on seductively. She wants to be out of earshot when Gladys says, “Oh this feels so weird!” Or whatever.

While this run-up has the usual urgency of every play ever mounted, its machinery is more oiled than Cate is accustomed to. The Babes, as Cate thinks of Molly and Lauren, are totally in control of the production. Also, because one of them wrote the play, it’s a living organism, adapted as it goes. Underlines and italics can be added and removed, weak lines cut, new ones added.