In Rehearsal

Abstract

This chapter is a way of concentrating on one aspect of textual analysis: the physicalisation process that has to take place in the imagination of the reader. It can hardly be repeated too often that a play is not a novel in dialogue form, and that it is a critical error to forget about the stage for which it was intended. The Rivals is most definitely a score for performance. Only an expert group of actors can bring all the comic moments to light while allowing the themes to register sufficiently strongly.