Actor

by Parnell Hall

  “I think so.”

  “So you’re onstage for two long stretches in Act Three. At the beginning of the act and at the end. In the middle you’re offstage.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You come offstage in the middle of the act, you didn’t see Goobie Wheatly?”

  “No, I didn’t. He’s downstage right, the door is upstage right. If he’d been at his lectern, I’d have seen him. But he was sitting in the folding chair with the prompt script.”

  “Exactly,” Chief Bob said. “That’s the whole problem. The chair was behind a masking flat. At least from your point of view. Actually it was in front of it. Downstage of it, I mean. Anyway, the point is, with him sitting there, you couldn’t see him from the door. Or from the top of the stairs. Or anywhere else in the wings, for that matter. The only way you could see him was if you walked all the way downstage to the lectern and looked around the corner of the flat. And given Goobie’s personality, who would do that? He wasn’t exactly the type of guy you’d go and schmooze with.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Which is too bad. Anyone else, with so many actors going in and out, someone would have seen him. It bein’ Goobie, no one did.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. So, anyway, you came offstage, didn’t see Goobie, and what did you do?”

  “I came out of the door, went right to the stairwell to get my script. I’d been blowing lines right and left and wanted to cram for the end of the act.”

  “Which you did?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Until just before your cue?”

  “Until my cue. I was actually sitting there and heard it. I throw down the book, jump up and hurry in.”

  “So you went onstage then, were onstage for the rest of the act, came off and found Goobie Wheatly dead?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did he prompt you?”

  I sighed, shook my head. “I saw where this was going, and I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “I don’t think so. I know he prompted me a lot in Act Three. But the only lines I can remember him prompting me were in the beginning.”

  Chief Bob nodded. “That’s right. I can’t find anyone who remembers you being prompted at the end of the act.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah. It would be nice. Real nice. If you’d been prompted, I mean. Particularly if we could pinpoint the line. Because, as I said, after your entrance the actors came onstage one at a time, and with the exception of this servant—what’s his name? Nicola—except for him they all stay onstage until the end of the act. And they’re all standing out there when you find the body. So anyone who was onstage when you got your last prompt couldn’t have done it.”

  “Shit.”

  “Right. If and only if you were prompted at the end of the act. And I can’t find anyone who thinks you were.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Actually, it’s worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not just that you didn’t get a prompt. According to the other actors, there were times you might have needed a prompt, but instead you ad-libbed, paraphrased your lines, and managed to get through without it.”

  “Of course. Because that’s what I’ll have to do in performance. I won’t be letter-perfect. I’ll say the lines the best I can.”

  “Of course. But the fact is, that’s what you did tonight. You paraphrased, invented, covered, whatever you want to call it. You did everything in your power to make sure you wouldn’t need a prompt. Which you would have had to do if you knew Goobie Wheatly couldn’t prompt you, because you knew Goobie Wheatly was dead.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying you did that, I’m just telling you how it looks.”

  “That’s how it looks to you?”

  He put up his hand. “Let’s not get hung up on semantics, shall we? I’d like very much to clear you of this crime. So we can get on to what really happened. I bring all these things up so you know what people are saying and people are thinking. Would you prefer it if I kept all this from you and investigated you in secret?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, there you are. So stop griping and getting all offended when I mention how you could have done it. That’s part of my job. You’re a detective, you ought to know that.”

  “I’m not that kind of detective.”

  “You’re a college graduate. Went to school with Herbie, right? You can think. You can reason. So think and reason. Help me out here. It’s late, we’re tired, we can get through this a lot faster if you don’t fly off the handle and get defensive all the time.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Here I am, sitting here, not taking it personally when you suspect me of murder. What can I do for you next?”

  Chief Bob smiled. “That’s more like it. That’s the attitude that will get you through this. What can you do for me? One thing in particular. You say you can’t recall Goobie Wheatly prompting you in the last half of the act. The next time you sit down and go over your script, I want you to look at Act Three real careful and I want you to remember the last line Goobie Wheatly did prompt you on. If you’re right, it’s in the first part of the act, before you go offstage for the long break in the middle. But whenever it was, I’d like to know that line. Can you recall it offhand?”

  “Not right now.”

  “I didn’t think so. But later, when you go over the script, try to recall which line it was. Neat assignment, huh? Try to remember what you forgot. Maybe you can do it, maybe not. But try to remember all the lines in Act Three he prompted you on. Every one helps, and the later the better. We can pin down the last time this guy was alive.”

  “Didn’t anyone see him after Act Three started?”

  Chief Bob shook his head. “No. A lot of actors saw him during the break. And of course the set crew.”

  “Set crew?”

  He looked at me. “You really were in your own little world, weren’t you? Between Act Two and Act Three is a set change, right? It didn’t happen by itself magically, while you sat there reading your script. A set crew of four apprentices made the change. Goobie Wheatly supervised. And they all saw him, ’cause he was right there holding the clock. The intermission’s ten minutes, they were running the change at speed to see if they could get it done. According to the kids on the crew, they came in under eight minutes. That didn’t please Goobie none, since he was shooting for five.” He shook his head. “I’m amazed you didn’t see them with all that activity going on.”

  “I was aware of it, but not aware of it, you know. I was into my lines. Were these kids backstage when the act started?”

  “No. Tough luck there. Since it was just dress rehearsal they let ’em watch the show. They were out in the audience till just before the set change at the end of Act Two. Actually, your entrance onstage was their cue to go backstage and take their places. When you came on, the four of them got up, went out the back doors to the lobby, then downstairs and through the greenroom to the stage. Two of them went up the stage-right stairs and two of them went up the stage-left stairs, and they were there waiting in the wings when the curtain went down.”

  “Which is when I grabbed my book and went to sit on the top stair.”

  “Right. And went over your lines while the kids changed the set. When they finished, Goobie bawled them out for being too slow and they went back downstairs—must have walked right past you on the step—and were back in the audience when the curtain went up. No help there. But they are, to the best we can determine, the last people to have seen Goobie Wheatly alive.”

  I sighed. “Oh, good lord.”

  “Exactly. So you see how important these lines become.”

  “I’ll try to remember.”

  “Do that. I got a lot more stuff for you to go over, but for now, concentrate on that. Because that’s what you’ll be doing anyway, learning your lines. S
o concentrate on the show. Open the thing tomorrow and let me take a look. With luck, maybe I’ll have cracked the case by then. But if not, come Saturday, the show’s open, you got no rehearsals and we got some time, we’ll sit down and go over it. Okay. Let’s call it a night.”

  We rounded up Herbie, locked up the theater, Chief Bob took off and Herbie drove me home.

  We didn’t talk much on the way It was late, we were tired, and there wasn’t much left to say.

  But I couldn’t help thinking, of all the witnesses Chief Bob had questioned tonight, Herbie included, just how many of them actually thought I’d done it.

  16.

  FRIDAY WAS ROUGH. WE HAD a ten o’clock rehearsal, which meant once again I was operating on insufficient sleep. Really insufficient. Herbie actually had to come and wake me up. Ten-fifteen he’s knocking on my door, wondering where the hell I was. I was sound asleep, thank you, and not at all happy to go to rehearsal. But I rolled out of bed, splashed water on my face—after a trip down the hall, of course, not having running water in my room—pulled on my clothes and let Herbie lead me out to the car.

  When we got to the theater I was still barely conscious. Herbie poured a good deal of coffee down my throat—terribly bad and probably whipped up in the costume room by Mary Anne—and managed to get me through rehearsal.

  You think I was shaky on my lines? Good guess. And I didn’t have Goobie Wheatly to feed ’em to me anymore. They did not, praise the lord, reassign Captain Kirk—I don’t know how I would have dealt with that. But what’s-his-name, the tech director, lighting and set designer, who was now functioning as stage manager, had inherited the prompting job as well.

  He was not good. He was not as bad as Captain Kirk, of course—that would be hard to imagine—but after Goobie Wheatly, anyone would seem bad. Since he was bad, he seemed terrible.

  At first this threw me, but after a while it had the opposite effect. Knowing I was going to be prompted in a heavy-handed and obvious style that would destroy the pace of the scene, I took care not to let that happen. As the caffeine kicked in, I found myself more and more on my toes, tap-dancing away from the offending prompts.

  Not that I was always successful. Sometimes I’d ad-lib myself into a corner from which there was no getting out and be forced to call “line.” But often as not I’d escape and carry on.

  When lunchtime rolled around the actors all broke and went out. All except for me. I didn’t because Amanda Feinstein brought in a cheeseburger and a Coke so I’d be able to stay in and go over my lines. I suppose this was thoughtful, but I must say by this point I was beginning to feel like a social leper, and I would have just as soon said screw it and gone out.

  I don’t know if it was because he sensed this, or if it was entirely coincidental, but Herbie happened to assign the most attractive apprentice in the theater to stick around and cue me. I don’t know how I missed her before—though being desperate about my part and getting mixed up in a murder might have had something to do with it. But the girl was gorgeous. Being an apprentice, she probably wasn’t more than twenty, which made me old enough to be her father, and what a disturbing thought that was. She was a baby-faced blonde with large breasts, long legs and a derriere to die for. That last sounds like a book title, if I ever got back to writing. Anyway, she was dressed in cutoff shorts and a cutoff tank top, the type that stops at the bottom of the breasts and leaves the midriff bare. On a girl with breasts that large the effect was quite something—head-turning if not mind-boggling. All I know is, while having Nellie Knight as a dressing-room partner was pleasant, had this girl been in there pulling the topless routine they’d have had to scrape me off the ceiling.

  At any rate, Beth—as I later found out her name was—made being left behind for lunch bearable.

  Toward the end of the break I excused myself and called Alice, who was understandably shocked. I hadn’t been able to call her last night, and this morning I’d been unceremoniously yanked out of bed and dragged to rehearsal, so that was the first she’d heard of Goobie Wheatly’s death. A somewhat difficult concept not knowing who Goobie Wheatly was. I reminded her of the Captain Kirk incident, but played that down as my motive for the murder. Still, Alice offered to arrange a sleepover for Tommie so she could come up.

  I talked her out of it. In the first place, I was so wrapped up in opening the show I wouldn’t have time to see her. In the second place, I was so nervous about my performance; I didn’t want the added pressure of knowing she was out there in the audience.

  Alice wasn’t happy about it, but she finally agreed to hold off and come up later, once the show was running.

  While I was still on the phone the other actors started dribbling in. Then Herbie showed up and I had to get off and get back to rehearsal.

  Believe it or not, being cued by Beth—every man’s secret fantasy apprentice—had not substantially improved my mastery over my lines. However, dealing with what’s-his-name tech-director-new-stage-manager sure did. I kept ahead of him as best I could and somehow limped through the afternoon.

  When we broke for dinner I would have objected to a brought-in sandwich, any incredibly endowed prompters notwithstanding, but that had never been intended. Instead, Herbie and Amanda took me out.

  It was a small, quiet restaurant in the village, though it occurred to me in that town any restaurant would have been small and quiet. We sat down at a table, a waiter appeared and we ordered drinks—a martini for Amanda, a Scotch for Herbie and a diet Coke for me. When it arrived Herbie lifted his glass, said, “Cheers,” then took a sip as if he needed it. He grimaced as the whiskey went down, then smiled, said, “Well, this is it. Another openin’, another show.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I pulled out my script. “Maybe I should be working lines.”

  Herbie waved his hand. “Ah, take it easy. You know ’em as well as you’re gonna. The opening is inevitable—there’s nothing to do but relax and enjoy it.”

  “That’s an obnoxious, sexist remark,” Amanda said.

  Herbie shrugged. “Yeah. Isn’t everything?”

  “That’s for sure,” Amanda said.

  She smiled, and it suddenly occurred to me the two of them actually liked each other.

  I wondered what Amanda thought of Margie-poo.

  The least of my worries.

  I took a sip of Coke, put the glass down. “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  Herbie and Amanda looked at me. I hadn’t directed the question at either of them in particular.

  “What’s that?” Amanda said.

  “Who do you think killed Goobie Wheatly?”

  Amanda and Herbie looked at each other, then back at me.

  Amanda pursed her lips. “You want an honest answer?” she said.

  “Of course.”

  She shrugged. “Then the answer is, Who gives a shit? I’m sorry, but I’m a producer and I’ve got a show to put on.” She looked at me. “So do you.”

  “I know it.”

  “I know you do. So let’s concentrate on that.”

  Amanda took her martini glass, held it up and looked at Herbie. “Come on, Herbie. A toast for the gentleman. He’s opening tonight.”

  Herbie picked up his glass and clinked it against Amanda’s. They smiled, turned to me and said it together.

  “Break a leg.”

  17.

  I WAS GOOD!

  Don’t get me wrong. I am by no means a great actor. I can’t do accents and character parts at will the way some actors can. If cast in a role like that, it takes me a month to work my way into it. And I find myself talking like that all day long—at home, at work, or whatever. I can’t go in and out of different characters the way stand-up comedians can.

  But my timing is good, I project sympathetically, and in a relatively straight role like Captain Bluntschli I can hold my own perfectly well.

  And I did.

  And they liked me.

  I should start from the beginning. Half hour, I’m in the dressin
g room. Putting on costume. Putting on makeup.

  Having a nervous breakdown.

  Stage fright?

  You bet.

  Butterflies?

  Just count them.

  I was having trouble with my makeup. My hands weren’t shaking. I was just so insecure I was sure I was putting it on wrong. I wasn’t, of course, it was all in my head. At least that’s what I told myself. Only trouble was, I didn’t believe me. I just knew I was going to fuck up my makeup and have to start over. As a result I’d be late and miss curtain. And I swear to god, it actually occurred to me I was damn lucky Goobie Wheatly wouldn’t be there to bawl me out.

  Of course none of that happened. My makeup went on just fine. But I think a pretty good indication of my state of mind would be that, while I was doing this, my roommate Nellie Knight was putting on her makeup too and I barely noticed her at all.

  Barely.

  At any rate, I was all dressed and ready when whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was called, “five minutes”—I’m starting to curse a lot, I must be really nervous. I was out in the greenroom when he called, “Places, please.”

  I had my script in my hand. No, I wasn’t going to take it onstage, I just wanted to hold it. Like Linus’s security blanket. I probably wasn’t even going to look at it. I just wanted to know where it was.

  I went up the stage-right stairs, took my place in the wings. I was all alone. The door to Raina’s bedroom was stage left, so she, Nellie Knight and the woman playing Catherine had gone up the other stairs.

  I stopped at the top of the stairs, took a big breath, exhaled. I took my script, stuffed it where I always had on the shelf over the stairwell. I stepped away from it, a conscious action, then stood there with my arms slightly out, as if free-falling. Then I turned and looked around.

  The work lights were on, so I could see everything backstage perfectly I took a few steps downstage so I could look around the masking flat and see the lectern and prompt script where the stage manager would stand. It occurred to me I’d better learn his damn name. Along with half the cast.