Actor

by Parnell Hall

  I backtracked, looked in the door.

  One woman sitting at the makeup counter was indeed the older woman whose name I didn’t know, the woman playing Catherine.

  The other was Margie-poo.

  I’m a slow take, and I have to admit it was a few seconds before it hit me.

  Margie-poo was sharing a dressing room with the woman playing Catherine.

  Avery Allington had the star’s dressing room.

  8.

  IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN.

  Maybe it was just that I’d been on an emotional roller coaster ever since I hit this place, being tugged in one direction after another, and it seemed like every time I came around a curve and righted myself the damn thing looped on me again.

  Avery Allington in the star’s dressing room? I mean, I’d just gotten to a point where I could forgive Herbie for putting Margie-poo in the star’s dressing room. She was the lead actress in the show. And he was having an affair with her. Now there’s convoluted logic. I blamed him for that, but at the same time it would have justified the decision, if you know what I mean.

  But Avery Allington?

  What made it worse was the fact I’d been so dense not to realize it before. I mean, I’d seen Margie-poo going into another dressing room. And I’d seen Avery going into that dressing room. And to make it even worse, that was right after Nellie Cheerleader-Tits—damn, I did it anyway, you must forgive me, I’m upset—told me about him being in a TV series and how arrogant he was. And I’d seen how arrogant he was. The lengths he’d gone to, to impress upon me the fact that my role wasn’t that important, that he was the star.

  Which now made perfect sense. A TV actor was doing summer stock. It was something that happened all the time, but when it did, it was the TV actor who got the recognition. Of course, being a late arrival, I had not seen any of the publicity for the show, but I was sure every press release given out was along the lines of Avery Allington starring in Arms and the Man.

  Unless the dear, departed Walter what’s-his-name was a TV actor too. But no, then he’d have been in the star’s dressing room. Unless he was a lesser light than Avery, but how could he have been any less than appearing in six episodes of a cancelled show? Unless Avery had been in another show before that that Nellie hadn’t told me about. Or didn’t know about. Or didn’t care about.

  Why did I care?

  It suddenly flashed on me. Stanislavski. Method acting. Memory of emotion.

  I’d just realized that last thought—Why did I care?—was a perfect model for one of Bluntschli’s lines at the end of Act One. Raina has agreed to grant him sanctuary at her house and is going to tell her mother that he is here. Because he has had no sleep for two days and is utterly exhausted, she is afraid if he sits down for even a moment he will fall asleep, so she makes him promise to stand up until she returns. Left alone, he stumbles around her bedroom, talking to himself trying to keep himself awake, telling himself he mustn’t sleep because of danger. This monologue, of course, only becomes more and more confused until he suddenly stops in the middle of the room and says, “What am I looking for?”

  Which is the line that Why did I care? was the perfect model for. After all, I’d had no sleep, was on the point of exhaustion and was desperately trying to make sense of things that on the surface didn’t make any. And it was the realization that my obsession with Avery Allington having the star’s dressing room was stupid and pointless, and didn’t really amount to a hill of beans in the greater scheme of things, that really blew my mind. Why did I care?

  Because I did care. That was what really blew my mind. For all the rationalization—for all the realization that Avery got the star’s dressing room because he’d been on TV that always happens, what’s the big deal?—I still couldn’t let go of it.

  Maybe it was just the way he treated me at the line rehearsal. Or maybe it was just that I saw it as so blatantly unfair—not that he had the dressing room, just that he could get away with treating me and everyone else the way he did. I mean, Jesus Christ, there had to be a more noble reason for the simple, petty jealousy that seemed to be what was overwhelming me now. I mean, it wasn’t just petty jealousy, was it?

  Why did I care?

  Anyway, as if I didn’t have enough problems just getting through the part, I had all that emotional baggage rattling around during the tech.

  Which might explain what happened.

  Because, you see, I did something in the tech rehearsal of which I am not particularly proud.

  I’m leading up to it.

  Trying to pave the way first.

  If you’re not in the theater, a tech rehearsal is exactly that: a rehearsal of the technical elements of the show when all the various departments—costumes, props, lighting, and so forth—make sure that everything is set. It is not a rehearsal for the actors. They are there, of course, in costume and makeup to be checked out under the lights, but the rehearsal is not really for them. What’s being rehearsed are the set changes, lighting cues and sound effects. The actors are onstage, of course, and play whatever part of the scene the technical cue requires. But the standard procedure is to start a few lines before the technical cue (whatever it might be—usually lighting), run the scene through the cue, then cut and skip to just a few lines before the next cue. So in a tech rehearsal very little of the play itself is actually rehearsed.

  Except for this one. Because, what with me being shoe-horned into the show, Herbie insisted as part of the tech rehearsal that we run every scene I was in. As I’ve said, that’s most of Acts One and Three. Which in itself would have been a colossal strain on everyone. Because by the time a tech rehearsal begins, most of the tech crew has been up for a day and a half straight, they’re all falling on their collective face, and all they want to do is get through it as quickly as possible so they can sack out for a couple of hours before the dress. Having to watch me stumble through my part as well had to be a major kick in the ass.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, having me doing my part created a jurisdictional dispute between Herbie and Goobie Wheatly. See, normally the director doesn’t run a tech rehearsal, the stage manager does. Since the stage manager is in charge of all the technical cues during the show, he naturally has to be the one to rehearse ’em during the tech. Unless the director spots something wrong, something he wants changed, he’s really supposed to keep out of it. If he does change something, once he does change it, it is the stage manager who will run it. But with me on stage running my part, Herbie was of course in charge of things.

  Which I could tell was pissing Goobie Wheatly off. Not that hard to tell, actually—everything seemed to piss Goobie Wheatly off. But this in particular seemed to get under his skin.

  There was no reason for me to take this personally, but I did. Because he made it personal. It was as if the man didn’t like me. Maybe he didn’t. If you asked me, I’d say he didn’t. Because he certainly gave that impression. Ever since our first meeting, when I’d foolishly but innocently invaded his space, I’d somehow become the number-one persona non grata in that theater. And Goobie Wheatly didn’t seem at all inclined to let me off the hook.

  Yeah, I’m leading up to the incident. All this is important because it’s what created the incident. At least, I’d like to think it was.

  But anyway, here’s what happened.

  In the beginning, Herbie and Goobie set the ground rules for the rehearsal, which consisted largely of Herbie being apologetic and Goobie being sarcastic. But in the end they ironed them out and the tech rehearsal began.

  Goobie took his place at the lectern in the downstage-right wing next to the curtain. I’m offstage when the show opens, so I was also in the stage-right wing and making damn sure to keep out of Goobie’s way. But I was there, and I could see everything he did. First he snapped on the small, gelled tenser light on the lectern that illuminated the three-holed notebook that held his script, the pages of which had been cut from a script just like mine and pasted onto larger page
s which allowed him room to write in the lighting cues. Then he put on a headset, through which he would whisper those lighting cues to the faithful Ridley, ensconced in the lighting booth up above. He snapped out the work lights, plunging the wings into darkness, except for his small gelled light and the light from the audience coming through the crack in the front curtain.

  Goobie’s lips moved and I caught the whispered words, “House out.”

  And slowly, through the crack in the curtain, I could see the house lights begin to dim. As they did, Goobie stepped forward from the lectern, took hold of the rope from the curtain and said, “Stand by cue number one.” A beat, then, “Cue number one ... go!” As he said it, Goobie pulled the rope smoothly, hand over hand. The front curtain rose and the lights dimmed up on the set.

  Once again I felt a thrill. Very impressive. Goobie might be a prick, but he was obviously a very good stage manager. Ridley might be a fumble-fingered pothead spaceball, but the kid could run lights. From what I could see, peering out from the wings, the tech director, lighting and set designer whose name escaped me at the moment, had come up with a pretty classy-looking set.

  Being Act One, it was of course Raina’s bedroom, complete with French windows leading to the balcony I was soon to climb. On the balcony, backlit and silhouetted against the night, was Margie-poo/Raina in her nightgown, a young Bulgarian woman caught up in the romantic notions of the night.

  She was gorgeous. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Much as I’d come to dislike the woman in the short time I’d known her, I had to admit that, standing there on that balcony, she sure looked like every young man’s romantic dream.

  The tableau lasted just a moment, as if waiting for the audience’s applause, then the play began. The door opened and Catherine came in to tell Raina that her fiancée, Sergius Sarnoff; had just led a cavalry charge and won a great victory over the Serbian artillery. But she never got to tell her, because as soon as she came in, Goobie stopped the scene and jumped them ahead to the next tech cue. Which, it turned out, was only a couple of pages ahead, with the entrance of my roommate, Nellie/Louka, who says that the Serbs are being chased back through town and that they’ve been told to lock their windows. This leads to a bit of business about fastening the balcony shutter Catherine wants them fastened, Raina wants them open. Of course, mommie wins. But after Catherine exists, Louka points out slyly that one of the bolts on the shutters is missing on the bottom, and if Raina wants them open she need only give them a push. Important plot point? You betcha. That’s how yours truly enters.

  Which happens right after Louka’s exit, and comes accompanied by numerous tech cues. These consisted of gunshots from street—SFX on tape switched on by Goobie at lectern, Raina blowing out candle—light cue—and hopping into bed, followed by more shots, closer and more furious, and the entrance by balcony of our hero.

  Which was by no means smooth. I strike a match and blow it out again. I hold a gun on Raina and make her light a candle. All of which required light cues. Which, of course, had never been rehearsed before and had to be set now. Goobie would stop and say, “Okay, Ridley, cue four is a three count. Let’s check those levels, shall we? I have dimmers one, two and four to seven, dimmers three and five to three, dimmers nine, ten and twelve to five. Okay, let’s back up and run that one again. Take it from ‘Strike a light and let me see you.’”

  Which of course had to be done for every light cue. And with so many of them coming just like that, it took a while for the scene to get going. Of course, after the last one was when the scene would have normally cut. But we were running the scene just for me.

  And you know what? I enjoyed it. I really did. Because after the torture of the line rehearsal that morning, it was a real joy to be doing something where I basically knew the lines and could play the scene. It was a chance to show the other actors I wasn’t so goddamned bad.

  And I wasn’t. Oh yeah, there were a couple of times I forgot my lines and the scene went right in the toilet while we waited for Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise to find his place, but it wasn’t often that I got so stuck so bad I had to wait for him. Other times, if I didn’t have the line exactly right I would paraphrase and bull through, the way I would have to do in performance, if it ever came to that. And, as with the night before, when the scene flowed it wasn’t half bad.

  And it did flow, and what made it flow was I was ignoring the nuances of Walter’s performance that Margie-poo had made me learn the night before. Oh, she stopped me the first time I left one out. But when she did, I turned, looked out over the darkened audience and said, “Herbie, I have neither the time nor the inclination to give the same performance Walter would have given. Broad blocking of course must be the same, but as far as these finer points go, I’m a different actor and I have to do it my way I know that puts an added strain on Margie, but in the long run she’ll be more natural if she plays off me rather than off remembering what someone else used to do.”

  With the house lights off I couldn’t really see Herbie, which was good, because I’d just put the man on the spot. From the look Margie-poo was giving him, she’d just been attacked and she’d like her man to defend her. But to do so, Herbie would have had to take an indefensible stand. What was he supposed to do, tell a replacement actor coming in and helping him out that if he didn’t perform exactly like the actor he was replacing he was out of the show? No, my request was so reasonable and my argument so logically framed, there was nothing Herbie could do but go along.

  And while that really pissed Margie-poo off, as with last night, it really worked well within the context of the play. I was calm, cool, witty and in complete control, while she was exasperated and angry. And, as it never had last night with me forced to be a Walter clone, tonight the scene really started to play.

  Particularly my recounting of the cavalry charge. See, in the play, Sergius Saranoff and I are rivals in more ways than one. I am a Swiss soldier fighting as a mercenary for the Serbs and am in the artillery routed by his cavalry charge. In the beginning of the play, when Raina hears Catherine’s account of the charge, we get a romantic picture of Sergius as a gallant young hero, fearlessly leading his men to victory. Now we get the story from the other side. Bluntschli, not knowing the man who led the charge is her fiancé, describes him as: “an operatic tenor. A regular handsome fellow with flashing eyes and a lovely moustache, shouting his war cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills. We did laugh.” And it turns out Sergius’s charge was actually ill-advised and should have been a disaster for him and his men, and the only reason it succeeded was because the artillery they were charging had been sent the wrong ammunition and couldn’t fire back at them. In Bluntschli’s words, “He and his regiment simply committed suicide. Only the pistol missed fire, that’s all.” Raina, incensed, asks him if he would know the man if he ever saw him again and, when he says he would, hands him a photograph of Sergius and tells him he’s her fiancé.

  What follows is one of my favorite lines in the play, because Bluntschli gets to play so many things. He takes the picture, looks at it and, with a shock, recognizes the man he’s been talking about. He says, “I’m really very sorry.” Looks at her, says, “Was it fair to lead me on?” Then looks back at the picture, says, “Yes, that’s Don Quixote, not a doubt of it,” and has to stifle another laugh.

  Which of course gets a laugh from the audience. Which is one reason I love the line. And the scene was going so well I was really looking forward to playing it, In fact, it flashed on me I might even get a laugh from the other actors and members of the tech crew there. So I was really psyched up and into my part.

  Anyway, we reached that point and Raina handed me the picture and said, “This is a photograph of the patriot and hero to whom I am betrothed.” I took it, looked at it, and reacted to recognizing her fiancé as the man who led the cavalry charge.

  In acting, timing is everything, and when it’s going well, you can feel it. I could feel it now. In th
is instance, I had reacted just right, and I had paused just the right amount of time before delivering the line. I opened my mouth and—

  From the wings came the nasal monotone of Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. “I’m really very sorry.”

  And that’s when I did the thing I’m not proud of. The thing I’ve taken great pains to explain.

  I snapped.

  I exploded.

  I blew up.

  I had a tantrum, like any other temperamental actor. I actually stamped my foot and shouted, “Jesus Christ! I know the fucking line!”

  Of course, shouting embarrassed me and made me feel worse, which made me react to the embarrassment, which only compounded the problem. I turned to the audience and cried, “Herbie, I’m sorry, but I can’t work this way I’ve only got a day left to learn this part and I can’t do it if I have to put up with this. It’s bad enough when I call “line,” I can’t get prompted till the kid finds the right page, but if I gotta start worrying about every time I take a dramatic pause he’s gonna start droning words at me, I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown. This is not a normal situation, this is an extraordinary situation and I cannot work like this. I’m sorry.”

  During my diatribe Goobie Wheatly had emerged from the wings and stood there, hands on hips, waiting for me to finish. When I did, he turned to the audience and said, “Herbie, what do you want done?”

  From the audience Herbie’s voice floated up. “Goobie, I’m sorry. The actors come first. If Stanley can’t work with him, he has to go.”

  “Yes, sir,” Goobie said smartly. He wheeled around, faced the wings. “Captain Kirk. Front and center.”

  There was a pause, then the creak of the folding chair, then the shuffling of feet, and then the chubby, bespectacled, timid face of Captain Kirk appeared around the corner of the flat.