Acting Up by Melissa Nathan Page B

to stop picking its nose in public.
    'Not in the great scheme of things, Fiona, no. It doesn't make any difference at all where I leave a poxy fan.'
    Purple Glasses stared at her and then stalked off.
    Jazz also didn't like Sara Hayes, but she couldn't quite put her finger on exactly what annoyed her so much about the woman. There was, of course, her obvious insincerity; that was entertaining, but it was more than that. From the first moment of seeing her in the audition room, it had been obvious to Jazz that Sara's one aim in life was to catch Harry Noble. Everyone else was happy merely to catch a glimpse of the man, Sara was determined to catch the man himself. Jazz didn't know women like her still existed. Jazz was used to women going out and getting their man, but Sara wanted to turn Harry into a man who would want to go out and get her. It was like watching living socio-history at work. What made it more entertaining to watch was that Harry was oblivious to Sara's charms. It made wonderful viewing. Jazz supposed that was why Sara hated her so much; because she was playing Lizzy Bennet she was taking up most of Harry's time. If only Sara knew, thought Jazz with a smile, how little she thought of the great man. The friction between Sara and herself was beginning to add a certain piquancy to the rehearsals that Jazz was almost enjoying.
    'I do like your method of acting,' Sara whispered to her, while they were watching Bingley and Darcy rehearse one afternoon. 'It's so refreshing.'
    Jazz smiled graciously, and did a very good impression of a genuine thank you, pretending not to understand. It was worth the effort, as she saw Sara's eyes shrink in annoyance. She then watched Sara in awe as Harry slowly paced across the room to Sara's right, and Sara, sensing his presence there, moved her head away from Jazz towards him with such concentrated grace that it fell so as to accentuate her beautiful jawline just as he turned to face them. Amazing, thought Jazz. Her timing was so precise it looked as if the two of them were in a choreographed dance. But then, to her great amusement, Jazz saw Harry look straight through Sara to focus, in familiar frustration, on her.
    That was it! thought Jazz. The thing that had been annoying her since she'd first met Sara – it had suddenly clicked! It was that every movement – however minuscule – was completely controlled. Did this woman ever do anything spontaneous? Not a flutter of her eyelashes, not a fractional glint in her eye or a twitch of her perfect mouth was natural. No wonder her acting always seemed so stilted – how could she act natural when she didn't know what natural was? Jazz started wondering if Sara only ever farted in her sleep.
    To hide her smirk at that thought, she looked away from Harry to Brian. And there her smirk froze on her lips. The more she watched Brian the more obvious it became to her that casting him as Darcy had been a complete mental aberration on Harry's part. It didn't matter how many first-night jitters this would save Harry in the future, the man acted like a stick. Harry was having terrible trouble getting Brian to even frown properly, let alone deliver his lines with conviction. What Harry didn't realise was that Brian, the critic feared by all, was absolutely terrified of him and the more Harry shouted, the more constipated Brian looked. It would have been amusing if it wasn't so worrying.
    Jazz had never before even considered that every tiny movement on stage had to be choreographed by the director. And now that she had seen Brian on stage, she marvelled that in most plays, the actors didn't regularly collide with each other.
    At one point while rehearsing a scene with her on the tiny stage at the end of the church hall, Brian had stood at her side, staring into the audience (which consisted of Harry and a few of the other actors who would be needed later in the scene), and addressed a whole speech to her, without looking at her once. Jazz had