[leeanne]

Hi! We're having auditions for Anything Goes at my school, and I have to read for Mrs Harcourt in one scene next week. Our director gave us copies of the scene we need to do, but I'm not sure what the characters are talking about in the first few lines. It starts:

Hope: But, Mother. It's ridiculous, chasing around the boat this way. He may not be the man you think he is at all.
Mrs Harcourt: If the captain wants me to --

So what does Hope mean when she says "chasing around the boat this way"? I assume she's talking about something that was explained before the scene, but I think it would help to know what it was.
Thanks so much! =D

[leeanne]

I thought of a few more things I might ask...

In this scene (it's when she meets Billy, who's "Chinchilean"), what is Mrs Harcourt referring to when she says, "Really? You have to take your hat off to the French."? What point is she trying to make there?
And also, in her line, "The Duke of Hanover? Oh, yes. I met him in Paris...", is she trying to make sure he knows she's been to Paris? Or something else?

Any input on her thinking behind these lines would be great!

[Casser]

I was in the chorus of Anything Goes last year, and only vaguely remember seeing these scenes be rehearsed.
I'm pretty sure with the "I met him in Paris..." line, Mrs. Harcourt is just showing that she knows who Billy's talking about, and putting his disguise in jeapordy a little bit because she's actually met the Duke and he hasn't. She might also be trying to name-drop and prove that she's just as socially high up as the "chinchinlean".
I could be wrong though.

[filmphan821]

I agree with the last poster...I think Mrs. Harcourt was just trying to prove her status. She in reality is not as wealthy as she seems, because her husband was wealthy but then he died. This is why she wants Hope to marry Evelyn because he is rich. With the "chasing around the boat this way" line, Hope is referring to a previous scene. Billy dressed up as a woman and sat in Mrs. Harcourt's deck chair next to Hope and Evelyn, he wore the disguise to be closer to Hope without anyone knowing who he was. When Mrs. Harcourt comes into the scene and demands her deck chair, she rips off his blanket and realizes that it isn't an old woman, but a man, but Billy runs off. So they then leave to search the boat for him, and hope knows full well who this man was, so she says "why do we have to chase around the boat this way" because she doesn't want people looking for the man, she doesn't want Billy to get in trouble. The "you have to take your hat off to the French line" is a set up for the punch line which Billy says..."that's not all you take off to the French". Hope this helps!