entirely feminine. Louise, Helen, Blythe, Bonnie June, Marie, Jean, and Cissie—seven ladies. Johnny Snyder is the only gentleman. Christopher and Buzzy, of course, are behind the scenes. The audience sits on cushions on the floor. The small phonograph plays a nursery rhyme record as overture. The light clicks on, the curtains open. The play perhaps is The Three Bears. There is the favourite back-scene, the gloomy forest brightened with slices of sunset. Goldilocks, descending gracefully at the end of her string, teeters gaily toward the little cottage. Even Bonnie June, who is thirteen and getting so long-legged that she takes up a lot of room on the floor, is not yet too old to be thrilled.
So you can imagine what fun it is to be a marionette actor. To enjoy the attentive silence of the Perfect Audience, to feel the strong supporting threads that hold you up and guide your gestures, to hear the voice above you that says your lines, to know that through all the play everything has been planned for you beforehand and you need not worry. Your hands, your feet, your head, all have that comfortable sense of the string holding them up, telling them what to do. It is a fine feeling. No wonder the marionettes,
