KEEPING STILL FOR 47 MINUTES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 21 June 1932, Page 5

KEEPING STILL FOR 47 MINUTES

How do you keep still for so long? What do you do when you want to cough or sneeze? Is it very living. These and a dozen other questions like them are put every day to Lady Diana Cooper, who as the Madonna in Max Reinhardt’s production of “The Miracle at the Lyceum Theatre, London, has to remain immobile for 47 minutes. _ “I do not want to cough or sneeze, she said to a reporter of the “Daily Mail.” “I do not find it tiring at the time and it is not so difficult to keep still. Because I have to remain motionless, it does not mean that I do not take a very active part in the play. I follow all that is going on around me very closely. The moment I let my attention wander my body imperceptibly relaxes, and, without knowing it at all, I have changed my whole posture. That is a thing I must avoil at all costs, and 1 have succeeded so well that the congratulations of my friends at my immobility rather embarrass me. It can only be done by concentrating on what is going on around you. In the same way, concentration makes you forget you ever wanted to sneeze or cough. Ordinarily, you do not sneeze or cough when your mind is actively engaged. “It is a long time to remain absolutely motionless. Sometimes it seems like an hour and 47 minutes, at others the time seems to go quickly, but I do not think it has ever seemed like less than half an hour—unless, perhaps, on the first night, when everyone lost all sense of time. The most difficult part of all, 1 think, is coining out of the statuosoue nosition. When the statue of the Madonna comes to life, the movements should, of course, be slow and deliberate. It is difficult to keep them so, for the natural reaction after that period of stillness is to -move actively—almost vivaciously.”