Balancing the characters

The meeting with John Hardie was compelling ... more Alice less Mary .... in fact anticipating audience curiosity about Alice perhaps she needs a second scene ... well this proved difficult because the first meeting was a random one ... so we I decided to expand the second scene ... draw out the process of the two women getting more intimate ... and divide the scene into two parts by having Alice leave in the middle (to take a phone call) providing Mary with an opportunity to opine directly to the audience.