She's Always On

The setting is an ordinary indian drawing room with carved furniture and prints on the walls, as classic a middle-class interior as Ozzie and Harriet's was for America in the 1960s. "Thank God you're back," sighs the neighborhood washerwoman. "Your mother-in-law is so ill-tempered, I was going to quit." Privati, the glue of this ordinary family with their very ordinary problems, smiles understandingly. "Don't feel bad," she advises. "She is good at heart, but when people get upset they say bad things."

"Cut!" shouts the director. The lights fade, grips start pulling down reflectors and the two actresses...