What kind of actor? Well let's just say you'd almost certainly know my face, but might not know my name. One evening, for example, on the way home from a performance (I'm walking back to my flat), a young man stops me. He's wearing the kind of hat whose earflaps fasten at the crown. He blocks the path. I don't know your name, he says, but I saw the show and I've been thinking about it. Tell me, he says, that moment, that moment when you kiss the girl, is your tongue in her mouth? And what about hers? What does she do with hers?

LRB 26 July 1990 | PDF Download