Letter home from prep-school boy, c. 1949: ‘Dear Mummy and Daddy, last night was the school play. It was Hamlet. A lot of the parents had seen it before, but they laughed all the same.’
Guffaws from the audience at lines that are not supposed to be funny; total absence of laughter at lines that are: these are what actors and directors dread.
Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it
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