As in Ulysses, the "one day" in Between the Acts does not supply us with the "order" or the "myth" that can control the unstable and inscrutable reality around us, but rather tantalizingly makes fun of us who are always tormented by lack of such fundamental support in our daliy life. In however a dubious way, we cannot but search for the definite meaning of our life or the origin of our being, and in doing so, are swallowed up against our will in a sort of bottomless swamp, aptly symbolized by the uncanny lily pond of Pointz Hall. Of course, many trials are made to avoid this "swamp". For example, nonsensical word plays, including fragmental quotations from Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, are abundant in the work, and parodies or pastiches which mock the authority of the "originals" are adroitly incorporated in the words of main characters, but all in vain. The monstrous and mysterious "swamp" always triumphs over our efforts. Thus, ironically enough, the audacious attempt by Miss La Trobe to break through this predicament sometimes even aggravates the situation. However, her attempt somehow succeeds in digging up the "emptiness" buried deep in the "hollow" of Pointz Hall. This "emptiness" unexpectedly vivifies her powerless parodies and even seems to present us with an utterly new view of the "history", the "past", and the "tradition". But if we ask about the nature of this new "history", or if we try to inquire into the essence of this hidden "past", the answer we get turns maliciously "empty".
