Act One
(June 2000)

The artist’s studio, Hammersmith. A meeting between artist and model. A discussion about how to listen to classical music. Some kind of mutual attraction is hinted at.

This scene represents a dramatisation of the “preparation” element of the creative process as analysed by Graham Wallas.

Between the first two acts, the Model presents a short monologue. This first monologue focuses, albeit somewhat obliquely, on the ‘incubation’ element in the creative process, manifested by the mutual appreciation of music.

Act Two
(February 2004)

A commercial gallery, Cork Street.

A ‘retrospective’ opening: four years’ work. Conversation places scene in time by referring both to the model’s first appearance in the artist’s life, four years ago, and to a trip to Aix-en-Provence, which was somehow very important to them both.

We see the preparation for the opening, with a wide cross-section of characters, and which itself will ‘begin’ as it were, just before the act closes, with a string quartet playing Leos Janácek. (Albeit offstage to make things a little more practicable.)

Lots of dialogue cut across by fuss and business, then.

This scene dramatises the final, “verification” element in the creative process.

Between these two acts, the Artist presents his short monologue. Again, the monologue focuses on the ‘incubation’ element in the creative process, and, again, uses the love of music as a quiet metaphor for the way in which art is born of unfocused reflection.

Act Three
(September 2000)

A hillside house just outside Aix-en-Provence. This is a scene which blurs the artistic and creative libidos of both Artist and Model with their burgeoning personal relationship. It is good-humoured, and the part of the Model dominates, pleasantly, almost as a balance to the relative domination of the Artist in Act One.

They are visited by some of the friends we have seen already, though chronologically “later”, as it were, at the gallery opening.