Strutting and Fretting

Actors. The Greek word for them was hypocrite, Hitchcock called them cattle, but Hamlet said they were the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time, and, since one man in his time plays many parts, theatre folk have proved a useful literary device over the years when it comes to exploring the darker side of the condition humaine. Vain they are, that is certain, and greedily ambitious; hysterical, for they are artistes; impractical, for they deal in illusion; sentimental, for they are weak; of shallow discourse, deeply bitter, and their wigs are of whatever colour it pleases God.

Both of these novels, Greg Kramer’s third and Trevor Cole’s first, dabble in these predictable clichés of theatrical life, ones periodically revived by authors from Dickens to Priestley to Ferber, Frayn and French. But whereas Cole’s Norman Bray is a straw man, a cartoon figure stuffed with ridiculous preening and self-delusion but no discernibly interesting mind...