I. Answer
the following questions:
1. What seemed
the most scaring for Julia in the talk with her son on the first day of his
arrival?
That was his suggestion that if she went into an empty room
and someone suddenly opened the door there would be nobody there.
2. How did Julia prepare for the play?
Julia did not deliberately create the character she was
going to act by observation; she had a knack of getting into the shoes of the
woman she had to portray so that she thought with her mind and felt with her
senses. Her intuition suggested to her a hundred small touches that afterwards
amazed people by their verisimilitude.
3. How did
she act at the dress-rehearsal? Why?
Julia spared herself. She had no intention of giving all she
had to give till the first night. It was enough if her performance was
adequate.
4. What
advice did Julia give Michael about Avice Crichton? Why did she need it? Was
that carefully planned?
Michael wanted to give her a contract, while his wife said
it would be better to wait for the first night. “You can never really tell
how a performance is going to pan out till you've got an audience”. It was
planned to take revenge for her.
5. Who did
Julia talk to about her conversation with Roger? Why? What did she need to get
from the conversation?
Julia
talked to Charles about her conversation with Roger, as she expected him to be more
sympathetic.
6. Describe
the state Julia was in before a first night? Compare her attitude towards
first-night acting with the bygone years?
In bygone years she had been intolerably nervous before a
first night. She had felt slightly sick all day and as the hours passed got into
such a state that she almost thought she would have to leave the stage. But by
now she had acquired a certain nonchalance. Throughout the early part of the
day she felt only happy and mildly excited; it was not till late in the
afternoon that she began to feel ill at ease. She grew silent and wanted to be
left alone. She also grew irritable. Her hands and feet got cold and by the
time she reached the theatre they were like lumps of ice. But still the
apprehension that filled her was not unpleasant.
7. Who did
she meet while wandering the streets of London at noon, 6 hours before the
first night? Where did they go?
Julia met Tom, who offered her to have tea with him.
8. What
thoughts accompanied Julia when she visited Tom's place?
The love that had consumed her then, the jealousy she had
stifled, the ecstasy of surrender, it had no more reality than one of the
innumerable parts she had played in the past. She relished her indifference.
9. Why did
Julia change her attitude to Tom? What phrase does Julia pronounce to herself
at the end of chapter 28? Comment on it.
Julia understood that she no longer cared two straws for him
she.
“Love isn't
worth all the fuss they make about it”. I think, sometimes people too dramatize
whole speaking and thinking about love in the momets (and with people) where it’s
impossible, where it doesn’t exist.
10. Was the
first night a success for Julia? For Avice? Why?
The first
night was success for Julia, as she deliberately killed Avice’s performance.
11. What
was Tom's attitude towards Avice's acting? How does the scene in Julia's
dressing-room characterize him?
Tom thought Alice’s acting was rotten. I think it means that
he wanted to be only with people who could only introduce him to the high society,
who he could use for his purposes.
12. Why do
you think Julia refused to supper with Tom that night?
Julia
refused to supper with Tom that night, as that was the end with him and Avice.
13. How did
Julia spend that night? Was it typical of her? Why did she prefer this?
That night
Julia wanted to be alone and enjoy herself. But it wasn’t typical for
her. The woman understood that she would never have another moment like this in her life, and she wasn’t going to share it with anyone.
14. What
was peculiar about Julia's appearance and order at the Berkeley? Do you feel
that night was somehow significant to her? Why?
When Julia had got her face clean she left it. She neither
painted her lips nor rouged her cheeks. She put on again the brown coat and
skirt in which she had come to the theatre and the same hat. Thus her simple disguise was evidently
adequate, for when she came into the little room at the Berkeley of which she
was peculiarly fond, the head waiter did not immediately know her.
15. How
does she reflect about the day passed? Does she feel satisfied? Why? Prove your
point of view.
It was wonderful to think that he meant no more to her than
a stage-hand. It gave one a grand feeling of confidence to be heart-whole.
16.
Describe the place in a restaurant where Julia was having supper? What was
special about it? Why had she chosen to be seated there?
The room in which she sat was connected by three archways
with the big dining-room where they supped and danced; amid the crowd doubtless
were a certain number who had been to the play. How surprised they would be if
they knew that the quiet little woman in the corner of the adjoining room, her
face half hidden by a felt hat, was Julia Lambert. It gave her a pleasant sense
of independence to sit there unknown and unnoticed. They were acting a play for
her and she was the audience.
17. What
conclusion did Julia come to while sitting at the Berkeley and
"throwing prudence to the winds?"
“People are
our raw material. We are the meaning of their lives. We take their silly
little emotions and turn them into art, out of them we create beauty, and their
significance is that they form the audience we must have to fulfil ourselves. They are the instruments on which we
play, and what is an instrument without somebody to play on it?”