518
DORIS LESSING
him.
As
she said in a television interview, when she was emotionally
involved in a part, she had no time for anything else.
As
for him,
since he hates films as much as he hates the theatre, he will probably
never see this film at all.
But
she was observed, while taking a fence, by a local country
squire. She married him, briefly - but as she said when it was all
over, for long enough. She changed her style, on her way to becom–
ing what every leading actress is doomed to become, a
grande dame
of the British theatre.
Which reminds me of the
grande dame
who was acting in what
she critically described as a kitchen sink play - there were few
of the other kind available at that time. Through the rehearsals she
complained of the disgusting immorality of the words she was
forced to speak. At lunchtimes in the pub she described at the top
of a voice trained to carry her views about current morality. At the
top of the same voice she told the following story. She was on tour
somewhere in the North. To her dressing-room came a man she did
feel she had known. This feeling was so strong that she could not
bring herself to say she had no idea who he was, and she agreed to
go to dinner with him. Dinner over, she was still in the dark although
she hadn't been able to enjoy a mouthful for racking her brains for
some clue. She at last confessed her predicament. He was rather
put out, she said.
She didn't remember the restaurant, at least?
Well, there was something about it. . . .
"You don't remember that we came here every night for that
marvellous week before I robbed you of your ever-so precious vir–
ginity, darling?"
"They must have redecorated it! Besides, that must have been
1935 - I haven't been here since - I think. And besides, you must
know that was
before
I became a Roman Catholic.. .."
Which reminds me of that actress who, playing a nun in a
stormily religious play, used to take the habit home with her - with
the connivance of the dresser, who understood her feelings. The play,
she explained, lacked a true Christian insight. She wore the habit to
do ironing, washing up, rinsing out her underclothes - tasks which
she called "my little hair shirts".
I
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