This represents A crossing to up-stage, left of the small table. In this way, when the actor is studying his lines, he cannot help studying the "business", and vice versa; and since lines and "business" almost always go hand in hand, he will run no danger of having first learned the one without the other.
Considerable confusion is likely to arise when an overzealous director insists that his actors be "letter perfect" before the "business" is well formulated and worked out and thoroughly learned.
In the first chapter on Rehearsing, the blocking-out process was discussed, but the order in which each act was to be rehearsed, the time to be spent on it, etc.—these matters were deferred, and will now be taken up.
At the next rehearsal—that is, after the blocking-out of the first act—the second is treated in the same way. And after the last act has been blocked out, the first should be rehearsed with greater care. Details of "business", grouping, the delivery of lines—especially the correction of errors in interpretation—must be carefully considered. Probably some of the "business" blocked out in the first rehearsal will have to be changed, or at least amplified. Entrances and exits must be repeatedly rehearsed until they go smoothly. The crossings and recrossing of one, two, or more characters, can scarcely be rehearsed too often.
Let us take a few examples of this sort of detail work. A man comes home late, tired and hungry. Outside the sitting room through an open door, is seen the hatrack. How can this simple incident be made to appear true and interesting? Here is at least one manner of accomplishing it: a door is heard closing off-stage; footsteps resound in the hall. A, the man, appears, wearing a hat, overcoat, and gloves, at the Center door, looks into the room to see whether any one is present, seems surprised, utters a short exclamation, and then turns to the hatrack. His back to the audience, he takes off his hat, hangs it carelessly on a hook, then slowly draws off his gloves, allows his coat to fall from his shoulders, looks at himself in the glass for an instant, and then, with a sigh, comes into the room again.
The incident, of course, is capable of a hundred variations, depending upon the character of the man, the circumstances under which he comes home, and so forth.
Or, a little more complicated instance: A, B, and C, three men, are seated, talking after dinner. They are stationed as follows:
A sits on the arm of the davenport, B on the davenport itself, and C in a chair at the lower right-hand side of the table.