On the other hand, sometimes the most improbable such epigraphs turn out to be perfectly accurate.
Those roles which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were nonetheless essential to bring about the Recognition or the dénouement, were called the Fifth Business in drama and opera companies organized according to the old style the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.īut was that a real thing, or invented by Davies? There actually is a book Den danske skueplads by Thomas Overskou, but there appear to be quite a few volumes ( here‘s Volume 6) and I don’t read Danish (nor, presumably, do most of Davies’s intended readers), so he could perfectly well have invented the quote and foisted it on the safely dead Overskou. I’ve known about the book most of my life - seen it in bookstores, heard it mentioned, and so on - and always wondered about the odd title on opening the book I found it immediately explained in a Definition (on a page by itself, where the Dedication would normally go): My wife has been reading Robertson Davies’s Deptford Trilogy, and the things she’s muttered or asked about as she’s read have been so intriguing that I’ve started the first novel in the series, Fifth Business.
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