Most interesting of these are the bhāṇas, which may be monologues in which an actor addresses imaginary persons and is answered by them, as he paints a picture of town life full of personal and social satire.
Yet with equal confidence, both men — who squared their shoulders and seemed to address an imaginary town hall meeting when discussing the issue — embrace a seemingly contradictory conviction about the center: It does not have to be two blocks from the site of the attacks.
The soldier peered forward, and suddenly seemed to be addressing an imaginary person.
Zubaida addresses an imaginary Elijah, recounting how they met and her turmoil on returning to Bangladesh.
"I'm not supposed to have any feelings for you," writes psychotherapist Nina Gaby, addressing an imaginary composite of a career's worth of patients.
Like Ms. Lohse, who joins them later, they sometimes do vivid facial and gestural mime, alternately addressing one imaginary figure stage right (cheerfully) and another stage left (alarmedly).
The underground man (the title, in Russian, literally means "notes from under the floorboards") addresses an imaginary audience whom he refers to as "you" or "ladies and gentlemen" — presumably a representative group of educated, Westernized Russians.
He sometimes addressed an imaginary bird on his shoulder, and he was widely known as Tappy because of his superstitious habit, perhaps a compulsion, of tapping people and things a given number of times on given days.
"What if you asked if you could wrap up the rest of it for tomorrow?" she offered, and then addressed an imaginary mother-in-law: "Because I would love to take it to lunch at work tomorrow".
Variety reports that Eastwood's central idea of addressing an imaginary Obama was prompted by listening to the Neil Diamond song I Am … I Said in his hotel room before taking the stage.
