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By Root 1550 0

this demonstration with wondering distaste. That a man should speak in his own voice one minute and someone else’s the next, that he should slip so easily into mime and alien gesture, struck him as bordering on the obscene. There were other things too about the new director that he disliked, quite a number: the exaggerated cut of his coat, the tightness of his trousers, the rouge on his cheeks, the pimple painted black to make a beauty spot, the languid manner, the airs of a town man among provincials, the less than pristine cleanliness of the lace at his cuffs. But these were minor irritants, which under normal circumstances would have done no more than confirm Erasmus in his prejudices. What roused his rage was Adam’s freedom with his hands. A man of the theatre to his fingertips, Charles Wolpert had called him. These, along with the fingers that went with them, were all too frequently laid on the persons of the female players – particularly Miranda’s, or so it seemed to Erasmus. And – most distressing of all – Miranda showed little sign of resenting the freedom. She was there now, beautiful in pale blue taffeta, but she had no eyes for him – she was waiting for her scene.

‘Exeunt Prospero and Caliban, shoo, shoo, off you go, don’t overdo that over-the-shoulder snarling, Mr Parker, if you please. Caliban is daunted, he should cower more. Now we have the scene with the sisters. Come forward, Dorinda. Could I prevail upon you to abandon the window for a while, my dear young sir? They must look out that way while they talk of the ship. Thank you. Now, Dorinda.’

Dorinda was being played by the daughter of a neighbouring squire. She was a rather heavy-faced girl but of good complexion, enhanced now by the excitement of performance. ‘Oh, sister!’ she exclaimed, moving towards Miranda with a rustle of skirts, ‘what have I beheld?’

‘What is it moves you so?’ Miranda asked, and Erasmus felt his heart lurch at the sweet enquiry of her voice.

Dorinda gathered herself, gestured towards the window, took a breath and began:

From yonder rock

As I my eyes cast down upon the seas,

The whistling winds blew rudely on my face,

And the waves roared; at first I thought the war

Had been between themselves, but strait I spy’d

A huge great creature.

Miranda waited a moment or two then uttered the short line Erasmus knew she hated most in the play and found most difficult: ‘Oh, you mean the ship.’ It always sounded so flat, coming after Dorinda’s vivacious description.

‘Is’t not a creature, then?’ Dorinda widened her eyes. ‘It seemed alive –’

‘No, ladies, no.’ Adams minced forward between them. ‘I swear,’ he said, ‘one might suppose you were talking in your sleep. Rot me if I tell a lie, you will cease altogether from petrifaction if you do not impassion your good selves more. There is Mr Bulstrode who gallops too much and you two sisters who are far too stately, my dears.’

He took Dorinda by the hand and led her back into the centre of the room. ‘Dorinda should look raptly towards the sea while she is making her speech. She has never beheld a ship before, she has no idea what it is. She is lost in amazement. On the word ’creature’, Miranda counts three to herself, one-two-three, then turns. So.’ Here he set a hand at either side of Miranda’s waist and half turned her. ‘You know it is a ship, my dear, because Prospero has told you so. This is a little moment of triumph for you, and that is cosmic, is it not? It is a ludicrous descent from Dorinda’s high-flown description. That is the way to save the line, point up the comedy of it.’

With rising fury Erasmus saw that Adams kept his hands on the slender stem of Miranda’s waist for an appreciable time after she was in the right position and that he moved them just a fraction up and down. Her face looked absorbed but there was a small flame of consciousness in her cheeks.

‘Of course,’ Adams said to the cast at large, ‘they are also talking about men. Neither of them has seen a man before, other than Prospero. Caliban does not count as a man, being a creature