Delivered by one person, it would be powerful, and personal; delivered by two, speaking as one, it was shattering, universal.
Set in a Victorian theatre, it has only two speaking actors, one of them shifting with the twist of a cap from one character to another.
Choruses and crowd scenes have been dropped, the cast has been trimmed to four singing and two speaking parts, and the libretto has been reworked to give the characters stronger personalities.
Thus, it was sufficient for the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus to have only two speaking male actors who wore various masks, typed for sex, age, class, and facial expression.
"But the idea that she is the enforcer is based on, one, her having concerns about things, two, speaking her mind, three, having people call and ask her opinion about things.
Two speaking actors (Zachary Linnert and Caroline Burrow) inhabit the scenes as unobtrusive extras — at a back table in restaurant scenes, for instance — and speak the lines that the main actors are signing.
