Two other actors wheel an enormous, ancient press onto the stage, and the curtain drops.
The duchess says she embarked on her memoirs because she felt her family, and her parents in particular, had been portrayed unfairly in the media, with journalists working from ancient press cuttings.
The future of Cuban graphic arts is found among thick stones and ancient presses down a dead-end street just off the Cathedral Plaza.
The book is full of winning characters, from Ka himself to Blue, a handsome Islamist terrorist with the gift of the gab, an actor-manager and his wife who tour small Anatolian towns staging revolutionary plays and coups de main, and Serdar Bey, the local newspaper editor, who has a habit of writing up events and running them off his ancient presses before they occur.
And it is only by the Herculean efforts of members that we survive, providing facilities not just for professional artists, but for schools and for minority ethnic communities – workshops, etching presses, silk-screen facilities, block-printing on a wonderful ancient Columbian press.
So far, so Escoffier, but Otto recently upped the ante with an even more ancient lobster press.
Set on the island's largest olive grove, the estate also features an ancient olive press that guests are free to explore.
We cruised the back alleys, and came across a fortune cookie factory, where an ancient steel press cranked out hot, flat cookie rounds.
Gathering around an ancient wine press, they toasted the year's harvest with a cheer then retreated to the village hall, where a folk band struck up.
He is currently hand-printing hundreds of limited-edition Bagpuss prints on an ancient printing press in his not-at-all converted barn which is not-at-all warmed by a heater older than Bagpuss.
He's done it ever since 1971, when he bought an ancient lithograph press.
