Havergal acted professionally for a little over a year, and occasionally plays parts in Glasgow. His movements are lithe, and his gestures expansive without being overwhelmingly "theatrical;" occasionally he will demonstrate what he means by reading a line himself, but not very often and always advancing the reading as a "suggestion." Most directors bark out orders, confusing their actors and exhausting their stage-managers. Some, the nice ones, may preface their demands with a "please," or end them with a "thank-you." Havergal always asks. "Is that okay?" he will say, and you get the feeling he means it. "He's very charming, and very polite. More polite than any student director," Aquino says. His speech is peppered with words like "smashing," and "marvelous," and, according to Hamlin, "his sense of humor is tremendous."

"It's particularly fun watching Giles deal with new American expressions or traditions," Zito says, adding, "Nothing fazes him except eating a double hamburger with your hands." Zito relates an "amusing" story about the time Havergal watched some members of the cast dribble ketchup over themselves. You had to be there.

Following him around before the open dress rehearsal is like accompanying a particularly jolly doctor on morning rounds. He greets each person warmly, inquires how they are, and adds, "Had a shout?"

"A what?" someone asks.

"A shout, a yell, some sort of physical or vocal exercise."

He inspects the set, a marvelous concoction by Joan Ferenchak, draped with a Brechtian-type banner reading "Figaro," and helps to roll out a rug. "These are two remarkable plays," Havergal says of Beaumarchais' The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, "and the playwright was a wild, extraordinary man, a pamphleteer and a music teacher. But very soon after he wrote them, one was taken over by Rossini and the other by Mozart, and the operas effectively put a smokescreen over the originals. Cutting and combining the two plays gives the whole show a fascinating irony. The first play was lighter-hearted, and ended happily with the Count marrying the girl, Rosina. But in the second play, the situation changes--the Count, the hero of the first part, is trying to make off with his servant Figaro's intended bride. In the first play the servant had an alliance with the master; here he plots against his master. That was a revolutionary thing to do in France in 1784. And the audience's attitude during the first play is that we love the Count as a young buck chasing after the girls, but he becomes a villain in the second half because of the same qualities that made him a hero in the first--only now he's married. The play ends with a pithy interchange on the nature of love and marriage. It's quite fascinating."

Adaptor MacDonald directed the world-premiere of Figaro in Glasgow; this is the American premiere. Is Havergal at all dissatisfied with the relative inexperience of college actors? "I don't really see much of a difference," he says, adding "Actors are actors, and these people are absolutely committed. At no point have I ever had to think: They're only students." Is he completely satisfied, then? "You're never completely satisfied, and that's nothing against these actors," Havergal says.

Havergal will fly back to Scotland tomorrow, but the play will run until May 6. "A few of the actors were a little upset at first about that," a member of the stage crew, who wishes to be unidentified, says, adding, "Because, really, they're not professionals."

"A moment comes when the actors take over the play," Havergal says. "Anything a director has planted grows in their shape. No director has total control, or needs to stay in total control, and I don't think a director should want to--unless it's a film, where ultimately he does have the final say. The actors expand your concept in many ways; they make a production richer and more personal. And then when the audience comes, and the actor gains the actual experience of performing for them, then the director's work is through."

And he leaves behind--gulp--one of the smoothest, most enjoyable, and most professional Harvard shows this year, proving that great directors need not be distant, tyrannical or tempermental. If Havergal can't explain what a director should be, it may be because he embodies it. "He's got a lot of class," Aquino says. "He brings those good, British-style cookies to rehearsals--none of this pretzels and Coke shit."

Smashing.