21. Write formal invitations.

1. Invite your business partners to visit your stand at the trade-industrial exhibition.

2. Invite your suppliers and customers for 20^th anniversary party of your company.

21. Improve your pronunciation skills.

Listen to the record and put the words with sounds [ou ], [iə ] into the right column.

[ou ]	[iə ]
no	engineer

Listen to the record and put the words with sounds [ɛə ], [uə ] into the right column.

[ɛə ]	[uə ]
where	insurance

Listen to the record and repeat the poems.

[ou ]

November

By Thomas Hood

No sun – no moon!

No morn – no noon –

No dawn – no dusk –no proper time of day –

No sky –no earthly view –

No distance looking blue.

[iə ]

No, no November

By Alfred Tennyson

Autumn crowns the glowing sphere,

Winter’s grasp is full of cheer,

You between them, sad and dear,

Bind your brows with leafage sere,

Saying, “I remember

When the year was not abler” –

Ah, woe, November.

[iə ] [ɛə ]

Good Night

By Joe Wallace

Here’s a body – There’s a bed!

There’s a pillow – here’s a head!

There’s a curtain – here’s a light!

There’s a puff – and so good night.

27. Pre-reading task

1. Make a presentation about the life and works of W.S. Maugham

2. Read the text.

3. Watch the corresponding episode from the film “The Theatre”

4. Compare your impressions from the film and from the text.

5. Discuss your impressions with your friend.

6. If you haven’t read the novel yet, try to guess why Julia Lambert behaved like that.

28. Reading

1. Read the text again.

Theatre. W.S. Maugham

For hours later it was all over. The play went well from the beginning; the audience, notwithstanding the season, a fashionable one, were pleased after the holidays to find themselves once more in a playhouse, and were ready to be amused. It was an auspicious beginning for the theatrical season. There had been great applause after each act and at the end a dozen curtain calls; Julia took two by herself, and even she was startled by the warmth of her reception. She had made the little halting speech, prepared beforehand, which the occasion demanded. There had been a final call of the entire company and then the orchestra had struck up the National Anthem. Julia, pleased, excited and happy, went to her dressing-room. [ 1 ].The play ended with a long tirade in which Julia, as the retired harlot, castigated the flippancy, the uselessness, the immorality of the idle set into which her marriage had brought her. It was two pages long, and there was not another actress in England who could have held the attention of the audience while she delivered it. With her exquisite timing, with the modulation of her beautiful voice, with her command of the gamut of emotions, she had succeeded by a miracle of technique in making it a thrilling, almost spectacular climax to the play. A violent action could not have been more exciting nor an unexpected denouement more surprising. The whole cast had been excellent with the exception of Avice Crichton. Julia hummed in an undertone as she went into her dressing-room.

Michael followed her in almost at once.

“It looks like a winner all right.” He threw his arms round her and kissed her. “ By Got, what a performance you gave.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself, dear.”

“That’s the sort of part I can play on my head,” he answered carelessly, modest as usual about his own acting. “Did you hear them during your long speech? [ 2 ] “Oh, you know what they are. They’ll give all their attention to the blasted play and then three lines at the end to me.”

“You’re the greatest actress in the world, darling, but by Got, you’re a bitch.”

Julia opened her eyes very wide in an expression of the most naive surprise.

“Michael, what do you mean?”

“Don’t look so innocent. You know perfectly well. Do you think you can cod an old trooper like me?”

He was looking at her with twinkling eyes, and it was very difficult for her not to burst out laughing.

“I am as innocent as a babe unborn.”

“Come off it. If anyone ever deliberately killed a performance you killed Avice’s. I couldn’t be angry with you, it was so beautifully done.”

Now Julia simply could not conceal the little smile that curled her lips. Praise is always grateful to the artist. Avice’s one big scene was in the second act. [ 3 ] This was indeed what the play demanded and Julia, as always, has in rehearsals accepted his direction. To bring out the colour of her blue eyes and to emphasize her fair hair they had dressed Avice in pale blue. To contrast with this Julia had chosen a dress of an agreeable yellow. This she had worn at the dress rehearsal. But she had ordered another dress at the same time, of sparkling silver, and to the surprise of Michael and the consternation of Avice it was in this that she made her entrance in the second act. Its brilliance, the way it look the light, attracted the attention of the audience. Avice’s blue looked drab by comparison. When they reached the important scene they were to have together Julia produced, as a conjurer produces a rabbit from his hat, a large handkerchief of scarlet chiffon and with this she played. She waved it, she spread it out as though to look at it, she screwed it up, she wiped her brow with it, she delicately blew her nose.[ 4 ] And she moved up stage so that Avice to speak to her had to turn her back on the audience, and when they were sitting on a sofa together she took her hand, in an impulsive way that seemed to the public exquisitely natural, and sitting well back herself forced Avice to turn her profile to the house. Julia had noticed early in rehearsals that in profile Avice had a sheep-like look. The author had given Avice lines to say that had so much amused the cast at the first rehearsal that they had all burst out laughing. Before the audience had quite realized how funny they were Julia had cut in with her reply, and the audience anxious to hear it suppressed their laughter. The scene which was devised to be extremely amusing took on a sardonic colour, and the character Avice played acquired a certain odiousness. Avice in her inexperience, not getting the laughs she had expected, was rattled; her voice grew hard and her gestures awkward. Julia took the scene away from her and played it with miraculous virtuosity. [ 5 ] Avice had a long speech to deliver, and Julia nervously screwed her red handkerchief into a ball; the action almost automatically suggested an expression; she looked at Avice with troubled eyes and two heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. You felt the shame with which the girl’s flippancy affected her, and you saw her pain because her poor little ideals of uprightness, her hankering for goodness, were so brutally mocked. The episode lasted no more than a minute, but in that minute, by those tears and by the anguish of her look, Julia laid bare the sordid misery of the woman’s life. That was the end of Avice.

“And I was such a damned fool, I thought of giving her a contract,” said Michael.

“Why don’t you?”

“When you’ve got your knife into her? Not on your life. You’re a naughty little thing to be so jealous. You don’t really think she means anything to me, do you? You ought to know by now that you’re the only women in the world for me.”

2. Fill in the text with the missing phrases.

A. But her final stroke was accidental.

B It was with Julia, and Michael had rehearsed it so as to give it all to the girl.

C. She had never felt more sure of herself. She had never acted with greater brilliance, variety and resource.

D. The audience fascinated could not take their eyes away from the red rag.

E. That ought to knock the critics.”

3. Fill in the table with the words from the text relevant to the topic “Theatre”

nouns	verbs and collocations	adjectives

4. Draw a portrait of Julia Lambert as you see her. Compare it with a portrait of your friend.

Projects

1. Study the repertoire of St Petersburg theatres for the current month. Find the differences.

2. Study the history, aesthetics and performances of an extraordinary modern theatre (drama, ballet, pantomime, circus)

3. Modern theatrical buildings. How do they look like. Compare the most unusual projects.

Now you can

1. book tickets for theatre and cinema

2. invite your friends and relatives

3. discuss films and theatre performances

4. express probability and improbability

5. write formal invitations