The Role Players

by Dorien Grey

  I made a note to try to spend some time alone with Joe Kenyon.

  *

  We got back to the apartment around five o’clock. I don’t think I’d walked that far in years, as the muscles in my legs and feet made that eminently clear, so it was good just to sit and rest for a while before going to dinner. We talked about any other potential suspects among the cast and crew, and while a good number of them probably had ample reason to take Rod off their Christmas card list, I didn’t sense anything to make me want to zero in on any of them…except Joe Kenyon. Still, I’d get a better idea when I actually met them.

  “And how well do you know Gene Morrison?” I asked.

  Chris shrugged. “Not very. He was here during the casting and the first couple of read-throughs of the script, then he went back to California and didn’t come back until the morning after Rod was killed.”

  “Did Rod ever talk about his relationship with Morrison?”

  Max gave a wry smile. “No. Tait, Rod, and Gene preferred not to call attention to their relationship. They—and especially Rod—didn’t want anyone to think the only reason Rod got the lead was because of Gene, or that he was just riding on Gene’s coattails. But everyone knew, of course. And besides, if Rod made a big issue of it, some people might think twice about sleeping with him and possibly pissing off the author of the play.”

  “So you think Morrison was aware of what was going on?”

  Chris grinned. “He’d have to be deaf and blind not to.”

  “So how about him as a suspect?” Jonathan asked.

  “I definitely want to talk with him,” I said.

  “Except that he didn’t get back into town until the morning after Rod was killed,” Max said.

  So everyone says, I thought. I’d check it out, just to be sure.

  *

  While we were getting ready to go out to dinner, I remembered the envelope in my pocket. I took it out and opened it.

  “What’s that?” Jonathan asked, trying to figure out which shirt to wear.

  “Tait’s retainer check,” I said, glancing at it and then taking another look. If I’d thought Glen O’Banyon paid well…. I handed it to Jonathan.

  His eyebrows raised and he said, “Wow!”

  Dinner was on me.

  *

  Monday we targeted for Coney Island and the New York Aquarium just across the street from the park. I thought we’d never get there, since we took two buses and transferred subways I don’t know how many times.

  We decided to go to the Aquarium first, on the grounds that anticipation of Coney Island would be an incentive for Jonathan not to want to spend the entire day looking at the fish. It was still an effort, and on the way out we stopped at the gift shop where Jonathan picked out a really nice coffee-table book of exotic tropical fish as a gift for Tim and Phil back home. It was they who had given Jonathan his first pair of goldfish and sparked his interest in fish.

  I’ve always loved amusement parks, and Coney Island had established itself in the national psyche as the Mecca of all parks. It wasn’t quite that, of course…the whole place had a definite run-down feeling to it…but it was still a lot of fun. I suggested we hold off on eating anything until we’d gone on the more wild rides, after which we gorged ourselves on Nathan’s hot dogs and fries and pizza slices and popcorn and sodas, all of which Jonathan topped off with a candy apple and a gigantic ball of cotton candy.

  Dark clouds began to roll in and we decided we’d better head back. It was about time, anyway, if we wanted to have dinner before the rehearsal…not that I thought anyone other than Jonathan would be overly hungry.

  It was pouring by the time we reached the subway, but luckily the rain had let up for our last leg of the trip back to the apartment. We were just damp enough from the rain to want to change clothes before considering dinner.

  As I’d guessed, with everything we’d had to eat at the park, none of us—with one notable exception—wanted much. Max suggested a little Chinese restaurant about two blocks from the theater, and since it had started to rain again, we took a cab. I realized that while we’d called out for Chinese a couple of times, Jonathan and I had never eaten in a Chinese restaurant back home. And we’d never asked for chopsticks from the take-out places. So when our food arrived at our table, which was set with both regular silverware and chopsticks, I was more than a little surprised to see Jonathan casually pick up his chopsticks and begin wielding them as naturally as if he’d been born in Shanghai. The guy never ceases to amaze me. As usual, it took me about five minutes of fumbling before I had even the basics down right.

  The rain had once again let up when we left the restaurant, so we walked to the theater. Out of deference to Jonathan, Max opened the front doors to let us in rather than use the side entrance, then locked them behind us. The lobby was dark except for the light from the ticket booth, but I could see light from the crack between the closed doors to the auditorium. When Max pushed the doors open, just about every light in the auditorium was on. But other than a tall, gangly kid I’d seen the first time doing something with the table and chairs, no one else was evident. Then a voice, obviously on the God mic said, “Checking the strobe and sound, Russ,” and the kid looked toward the back of the theater, seeing us for the first time and giving a small wave of greeting. “Go ahead,” he said to whoever was in the sound booth.

  The entire theater went dark and then a very dim light appeared over the table and chairs, just below the level of the proscenium. It was accompanied by a very low thrumming sound, which matched the slow pulsating of the light, both becoming gradually stronger with each surge, until it lit most of the center of the stage and revealed the light’s source…the cube-shaped fixture Chris had described earlier. The thrumming stopped, the fixture went dark, and the houselights came back on.

  Jonathan turned to Chris and whispered, “Neat!”

  The kid who’d been on stage—Russ—had disappeared backstage and Max led us to the door opposite Tait’s office and opened it, revealing a short stairway leading up.

  “Joe, you got a minute?” Max called. He turned to us and said, “It’s not exactly the Aragon Ballroom in there. I’ll show it to you later.”

  A pair of feet appeared on the stairs and Joe Kenyon came down to meet us. Tall, ruggedly butch with a pockmarked but rather handsome face, he stood at the foot of the stairs, not coming out into the vestibule.

  “Joe,” Max said, “I’d like you to meet our friends Dick and Jonathan.” Joe didn’t smile as we shook hands, but there was no hint of hostility, either; just very businesslike.

  He took Jonathan’s hand first, then mine. “Nice to meet you, Joe,” I said.

  “Likewise,” he said with no change of expression, then glanced back over his shoulder toward the booth. “If you’ll excuse me, I was going over the cues, and I’d better get back to it.”

  “Sure,” we all chorused, and he turned and went back up the stairs. Max closed the door behind him.

  Jonathan and I looked at one another, then at Chris and Max. Chris grinned and shrugged. “Joe,” he said.

  The side door opened to admit a distinguished-looking gentleman in his late sixties, bald, with a Van Dyke beard, and wearing a sport coat and tie. He looked like he might be on the faculty of a prestigious private school. I gathered from Max’s earlier description that this must be Arthur McHam, the director. I was right. Max waved him over and introduced us. When McHam excused himself to go backstage, Max nodded and said, “And I’d better get into the booth and get busy. Chris can introduce you to the others.”

  Just as he turned toward the booth, the side door opened again and two extremely hot-looking guys came in. Both were in their mid-twenties—one blond, one dark haired—yet with an uncanny resemblance to each other. Chris ushered us over to them, and they stopped and smiled as we approached.

  Nice, nice, nice, nice! one of my mind-voices whispered.

  Yeah, but watch it, another chimed in, somewhat unnecessarily, I
thought.

  “Dick, Jonathan,” Chris said indicating the dark-haired one, “this is our second lead, Brent Freeman, and our lead, Cam Roberts.”

  We exchanged handshakes and Cam, formerly Rod Pearce’s understudy, said, “We heard you were coming. Enjoying your visit so far?”

  “Oh, yes!” Jonathan said. “It’s great! You’re so lucky to live here!”

  “I guess we are,” Brent agreed. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay…and the show.”

  “We will!”

  “See you later then,” Cam said, and they moved off toward the stage.

  “Are they a couple?” I asked, and Chris grinned.

  “Beginning to look that way, I’d say.”

  Over the next several minutes, more people came in, including Doris, the costume mistress, and her young son, Carl, who was the only nonadult in the cast.

  Last in was Tait, who was accompanied by a rather short, grey-haired gentleman I assumed, again correctly, to be Gene Morrison. Tait greeted us, introduced Jonathan and me to Morrison, then they excused themselves and went to join Arthur McHam, now sitting in the second row.

  We followed Chris down the center aisle to the next-to-the-last aisle and took a seat. The entire cast and crew, with the exception of Max and Joe, filtered down to the first two rows as McHam rose and moved to stand in front of the stage to address the group.

  It was a combination pep talk and exhortation for maximum effort during this last week of rehearsal. Tuesday would be the first full run-through in full costume and makeup. When he had finished he looked toward the lighting booth and nodded.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen, let’s go. Full run-through…. Places!”

  Everyone got up and moved backstage except for Cam, two other men, and a woman, who took their positions on the stage. Max’s voice came over the God mic, “We’re in stand-by please…to house...to half…and house out. Light 101 up...Sound!”

  As he gave the order, the houselights dimmed, then went out, followed by the dim pulsating light from the fixture over the center stage, and the soft thrumming. The light stopped pulsating but grew in intensity as did the thrumming until the light fully revealed the table and four people, creating an island of medium light surrounded by darkness. The thrumming stopped. Cam sat on one side of the table facing two seated men and a standing woman on the other side. The play began.

  *

  I don’t think I’d ever appreciated just how hard a stage manager’s job was. There must have been a half dozen minor interruptions in the first act alone, either from the director or from Max about blocking or missed cues or out-of-sequence dialogue.

  In a nutshell, the play was about a future time where society had eliminated crime, war, disease, hunger, and poverty—but also emotions. Time travel has been discovered, but to avoid the risk of a change to the past changing the future, all time travel is done under strict supervision of “The Board,” and only for the purpose of “intellectual research.” There are two cardinal rules, which must not be violated: only one person is allowed to travel to any given time period, and that traveler is forbidden to do anything that might change the future.

  Cam’s character, The Student, is sent back in time to observe certain major disasters of the 20th century: the sinking of the Titanic, the sinking of the Lusitania, and the explosion of the Hindenburg from the moment of the ships’ departures up to and through the disasters themselves. The Student’s duty was to absorb as much of the experiences as he could. Should people he had met and befriended prior to the disasters become separated and, searching for each other, ask The Student if he knew where they were, he had to deny knowing, even if he did. If someone was about to die in front of him, he was forbidden to try to save them or do anything at all that might prevent or alter the inevitable. At the instant where he himself would have perished, he is brought back to his own time, where he must report to The Board and share everything he’d seen and felt.

  On the Titanic he meets and is oddly attracted to a handsome young man (Brent) with whom he spends much of his time. They are together when the ship hits the iceberg, and the young man excuses himself to get something from his cabin—the last The Student sees of him. In his report to The Board he does not mention his attraction to the young man.

  When he travels back to the Lusitania, some four years after the Titanic’s sinking, he is startled to run into the same young man! This immediately strikes The Student as either an extreme coincidence, or perhaps evidence that someone else was time traveling in the same period in violation of the rules. However, with only four years between the two disasters, and given the young man’s convincing explanation of how he’d managed to survive, he decides it is merely a tragic coincidence and sets aside his concern. The two renew their friendship and, when the torpedo strikes, they are once again separated.

  But when he encounters the same young man on the Hindenburg, his suspicions are confirmed. They studiously avoid one another during the trip; The Student is anxious to return to his own time to report the young man.

  After making his report to The Board, he goes out into the street to find the young man waiting for him. The Student confronts him, demanding to know how he could risk the future by being in the same time as The Student, the only one authorized to be there. The young man asks what is so special about the Student’s world? Devoid of hunger and fear and pain, it is also devoid of joy and exuberance and spontaneity and compassion. As they talk, they are passed by expressionless people in all-grey clothing, who stop and look at The Student, their faces gradually reflecting puzzlement.

  The young man continues talking, saying that he does not travel in time, but with it, and is present at all disasters, not because he wants to be but because he has to be. Slowly, The Student realizes that the young man is Death.

  As they talk, The Student becomes more agitated and the people around him glance at one another, their faces openly reflect their confusion.

  The young man reaches out and takes The Student’s hand, and leads him off stage. The moment he takes The Student’s hand, the onlookers rapidly drop their gaze from The Student’s face to the floor in front of them. One man kneels down and reaches out to the space they all are watching.

  “Why, he’s dead!” one onlooker says.

  The young boy turns to his mother and asks, “What’s dead?”

  Everyone remains motionless while the light fixture comes to almost blinding intensity, then goes off, plunging the stage and the auditorium into darkness.

  *

  Granted, the interruptions (the director’s, “Marsha, a little less emotion, please. Take it from the start of your speech,” and Max’s “Brent, you’re not on your mark; your face is in shadow. About a foot farther stage left.”) took a little getting used to, but it was fascinating to watch. The Titanic’s sinking scene, where almost everyone in the cast is milling around as the hydraulic lift begins to raise the side of the stage from stage left, gradually sending deck chairs sliding and making walking difficult, was extremely effective, and Chris’s realistic fixed backdrop of the ship’s exterior deck-level doors and windows added to the realism. As the lift raised the angle of the stage ever more steeply, some of the cast clung to the fixed railings, trying to climb higher, while others slid down the deck to disappear stage right. Loud, deep blasts of the ship’s foghorn reverberated through the auditorium, calling for help that would never come.

  While it was pretty damned impressive to Jonathan and me sitting there, McHam had them repeat the scene three times. “Let me remind you again, people,” he said calmly, “you are real people on a real ship that is really sinking, and you’re beginning to realize that you are most likely going to die. Don’t be afraid to let it show. We want the audience to see the chaos, but for us, it must be orchestrated chaos.”

  All in all, it went surprisingly smoothly as far as Jonathan and I were concerned. When the house lights came back up, Jonathan, I, Chris, and a couple other people seated behind us�
��who must have come in after we sat down—applauded loudly, and Jonathan wiped his eyes with the palm of one hand.

  “That was wonderful, Chris!” he said. “I’m so proud of you and Max! That platform and those backdrops and the sound effects and the lighting were all terrific!”

  I voiced my agreement, and Chris seemed pleased.

  “Well,” he said, “tomorrow I have to get back on the horse, helping Doris with the costumes and probably doing some of the makeup.”

  “Do you think we could see it one more time before opening night?” Jonathan asked.

  “Sure,” Chris said with a grin.

  By the time Max was ready to leave, almost everyone else had gone, and it was just shy of eleven o’clock.

  “So, what did you think?” he asked as we left the theater.

  “I loved it!” Jonathan volunteered

  “I was really impressed,” I said. “I don’t think Cam made a single mistake.”

  Max grinned. “He never does. I think he’s surprised just about everyone. He had tried out for the part when casting first started, but of course he didn’t stand a chance with Rod and Gene there. I think he and Brent were neck-and-neck for the second lead, and the only thing that tipped the scale in Brent’s favor was that he’d worked with the Whitman before, whereas Cam hadn’t.

  We were walking four abreast down the sidewalk, taking our time in the warm, clear night.

  “You were at the auditions?” I asked.

  “Yeah. They had them on a Saturday, and Tait had a couple of the crew there to sort of start getting a feel for the play and the possible cast. Chris and I both went. We sat in the back row so as not to throw anybody off.”

  “Funny,” Chris said, “but during a break I was talking with Cam, who I’d never met before. He really wanted Rod’s part. ‘I’d kill for that part,’ he said.” He shook his head. “Ironic that he’d end up getting the part because Rod was killed.”

  “That was an odd thing to say,” Jonathan observed.