Lotto’s career is based in the theater and all about performance. He gains confidence through pursuing acting and though he moves on to become a successful playwright he is merely playing the part as he sees fit, writing pieces merely to receive acclaim rather than further art. He is unable to be dishonest in his personal life while creating fiction for the stage. Contrarily, Mathilde’s life is a performance and filled with lies; there is the role she plays, and then there is who she really is.

Despite Lotto’s experience with acting, he’s unable to gauge the inauthentic and the false due to his trusting personality and needs Mathilde to perform the role of keeping bad people out of his life. In order to keep herself in Lotto’s life, Mathilde plays the part of his supportive wife, even though if he really knew her, both Mathilde and Chollie feel Lotto would not choose to stay in the relationship. Chollie waits in the wings for decades in order to bring down his best friend’s marriage. These lies by omission are performances done out of care for another. This extends to Aunt Sallie and Rachel pretending to cooperate in Antoinette’s plan to expose Mathilde while also supporting Mathilde and keeping her marriage safe.