Between The Acts

Content Warning: This section of the guide depicts characters with colonial, racist, patriarchal, and anti-gay attitudes, and contains references to rape.

The novel opens in an English village on an evening in June 1939; it is the day before the annual pageant, which is a village tradition, is to take place. Bartholomew “Bart” Oliver, an elderly man who is retired from the Indian Civil Service, is at the Olivers’ family estate, Pointz Hall, speaking with Mrs. Haines, a woman who is married to a gentleman farmer. Bart is discussing the village cesspool and the lack of running water, but Mrs. Haines finds the topic inappropriate. Bart’s daughter-in-law, Isabella “Isa” Oliver, enters the room and thinks about how she is in love with Rupert Haines, Mrs. Haines’s husband. Isa knows they cannot be together because they are married to other people. Isa’s husband, Giles Oliver, is a stockbroker who works in London.

The following morning, Bart’s eccentric, widowed sister, Mrs. Lucy Swithin, who is also at Pointz Hall, wakes for breakfast. Mrs. Swithin is a devout Christian. She is reading a book about prehistoric England, which states that Piccadilly was filled with rhododendron forests. She ponders this history and imagines what it would have been like to live in that time and what life was like for her ancestors.

After breakfast, Giles and Isa’s children—a toddler son George and infant daughter Caro—are out in the garden with their nannies. Bart surprises George with his dog, which makes the boy cry. Bart disparages his grandson as a “cry-baby.”

In her room, Isa brushes her hair and thinks about Rupert Haines, though she also loves her husband as her children’s father. She ponders these two loves as she watches the nannies with her children. She goes to the kitchen, where Bart tells her that George is cowardly and soft, but Isa disagrees. She thinks about the library at Pointz Hall, and though she does not read much, she is fond of the different books in it. She then reads the newspaper and is deeply affected by a story of a girl who has recently been raped by troopers.

Soon after, Mrs. Swithin enters the room. She reminds Bart that the village pageant will take place in the barn if it rains and in the field if it does not. Some villagers are getting the barn ready for the pageant just in case the weather turns. Mrs. Swithin then reminisces about eating fish and lobster when she and Bart lived by the sea as children. Talking about Pointz Hall’s distance from the sea, Mrs. Swithin says England once had no sea and that the inhabitants of the prehistoric forests in England were their ancestors.

Just then, they are surprised by visitors: Mrs. Manresa and her friend William Dodge who chanced upon Pointz Hall while they were searching for a picnic spot. Isa and Mrs. Swithin invite them to lunch. The narrator reveals that Mrs. Manresa is rumored to have been born in Tasmania after her grandfather was sent there following a scandal. She also supposedly had a wealthy first husband from whom she received precious jewels. Her second husband, Ralph Manresa, is a wealthy Jewish man. She is a flirtatious woman, and Bart finds her charming. Mrs. Swithin reminds Mrs. Manresa that the pageant will take place that day, inviting her and William to join them as they watch it. The butler Candish then informs the group that Giles has arrived from London.

Giles enters the house and goes to change before the pageant. He is irritated, having read about the violence in the continent and feeling frustrated that Mrs. Swithin insists upon the pageant at such a time. Giles also thinks of how he used to love his wife and wishes he could have been a farmer instead of a stockbroker. He then greets the guests and takes an immediate dislike to William. Mrs. Manresa is attracted to Giles. Isa recalls meeting and falling in love with Giles while fishing in Scotland. As Giles helps set out the chairs for the pageant, he feels disdain for Mrs. Swithin and the older villagers’ domesticity and quiet living, especially with the impending war. He, however, exempts his father from this criticism. Bart, Mrs. Manresa, and William discuss Shakespeare as they wait for the pageant to start. As Mrs. Manresa and Giles keep looking at one another, Isa begins to feel jealous.

The pageant’s director, Miss La Trobe, has the actors use the bushes near the lily pond as a dressing room and a spot between the trees as a stage. Because of her last name, the villagers believe that Miss La Trobe has come from the Channel Islands and might have some Russian heritage because of her “deep-set eyes” and “very square jaw” (33). She supposedly also had unsuccessful jobs as a teashop owner and as an actor. The Olivers and Mrs. Swithin tell Mrs. Manresa that Miss La Trobe has the villagers act, sing, and dance, and she expects the villagers who are not in the pageant to observe and participate as audience members. Giles secretly reviles sitting passively as an audience member. Noticing his anger, Isa knocks her coffee cup over and William catches it. This makes Giles angrier, and he suspects that William is gay.

Mrs. Manresa finds the idea of the pageant delightful and asks Isa if she has written the play. Isa says she has not, and Mrs. Manresa states that although she is talkative, she struggles to write due to her poor handwriting and lack of ideas. She then boasts that William is a great writer. Isa notices Giles’s silence and, like him, thinks William might be gay. However, she has no problem with this and sees no reason to judge him for it. They then prepare to watch the pageant.

As the actors get ready, Miss La Trobe waits for Mr. Streatfield, the village reverend, to arrive.