What do we mean when we speak of an actor playing a part? On the stage, it means that an actor puts on the costume, or utters the words, appropriate to a particular role. But do we want to say that the ‘playing’ follows from the manner in which the actor moves in his costume, or speaks his words, or do we want to say that it follows from the particular words and the particular movements that the actor is required to perform? Do we, in other words, wish to think of the player taking charge of the part, or of the part taking charge of the player? This is the ambiguity that lies at the heart of the theatrical concept of the persona, and it has its roots in the etymology of the term. As both Hobbes and Barker point out, the word persona, which originally denoted just the mask worn on stage, soon came, by what Barker calls ‘natural transference’, to refer also to the actor who wore it. The possession of a persona, therefore, might denote one of two conditions: it might refer to the capacity of an actor to perform, or interpret, certain roles; alternatively, it might refer to the particular role it is given to an actor to perform. In the first instance, we recognise the presence of the persona on stage in the freedom enjoyed by an actor to interpret a part as he sees fit.