Famous

by Stan Charnofsky

  Katy tried to prop him up.

  “Everyone goes through slumps. Novelists have writers’ block. Composers create pieces that bomb. Top directors produce flops. It will turn around. You’re too good not to be wanted.”

  “Thanks, Katy. I believe in myself, but I’m not sure I believe in the profession anymore. It’s dirty, polluted by favor and influence, the way to the top a grungy road, filled with pot-holes and detours that have little to do with talent or its lack.”

  “It will turn around,” Katy said.

  Some part of him, hidden from his full awareness, melted a little at the pure devotion from his best friend. No double agenda there; no driven ego pretending concern; no self-serving motives; a lovely light that shone on him, illuminating his dark corners.

  He decided to visit his college mentor, Garth Benjamin.

  “I appreciate,” Benjamin said, “the clippings you sent. Seems as if your Bay Area stint was a tour de force.”

  “Seemed to be, but since then, nothing.”

  “That’s how the business goes. Is your agent on the ball?”

  “She tells me theater people, all of a sudden, seem leery of me. She doesn’t know why.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not really. Well, it could have something to do with Sydnee Villapane.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The last week up there, she hit on me. I turned her down.” Benjamin broke into laughter. Spontaneously, he reached for Harry and hugged him, Harry surprised and aware of the prickly stubble on his professor’s face.

  Holding him at arms’ length, he said, “My young friend, Sydnee is renowned as a seductress. I believe she played that part once, years ago, and imprinted it onto her persona, a crafty woman, certainly, but shameless in her behavior with her leading men. Your agent needs to send out an APB that Villapane is acting up again, and all must ignore her calumny. Anyway, some dramaturges are well aware of the scene, and you watch, one of them might well want you because you stood up to the madam.”

  Harry felt his heart leap, as if he had breathed in a lungful of fresh mountain air. He smiled broadly.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Flushed by his former professor’s insight, Harry drove along Pico Boulevard, indifferent to the garish corner strip-malls that usually soured his mood, the red and yellow neon—why were they so often those colors?—promoting tacos and burritos as he crossed Alvarado, sushi and sashimi as he reached Westwood Boulevard, the culturally diverse landscape of Los Angeles seeming a neighborly contrast to the cultural friction around the world.

  “Damn!” he said as he checked his voicemail messages, the first from Juliet, canceling their proposed dinner engagement. “Yes!” he shouted as his second message played out: “John Carmona here, from Pasadena Playhouse, the oldest public theater in California. Would like to speak with you about an upcoming production. Your agent told me to call you directly, see if you were interested. Said something about Sydnee Villapane in San Francisco. When you call back, we can talk about her too.”

  Carmona towered over Harry by at least six inches, and while arguably an athlete in his youth, he had not maintained his rugged appearance completely, nor had he let it go beyond redemption. Broad-shouldered, alert in manner, not obese and certainly not slovenly, his paunch the main indication of too much good food and too little activity, the fifty-year-old ex-actor smiled warmly with a demeanor that marked him, at once, as an open and approachable person. Harry trusted him at first glance.

  The Schiff family, during Harry’s teen years, had season tickets to the Pasadena Playhouse, a theater with charm and a welcoming ambience. Harry recalled with fondness the interesting stucco building, the cozy patio waiting-area by the entrances, the art and gift shop off to the left, and the changeable restaurants off to the right, none seeming to make a go of it for too long.

  “A pleasure to meet you, young fellow. I’ve heard many good things about your work.”

  “And probably some bad things too.”

  “You mean from Sydnee? Oh yes, but I know what that’s all about. It means, to me, that you have character.” He spoke with a kind of clinical authority that caused Harry to wonder about his educational history.

  “Thanks. To me, it means that she is a character. No disrespect, because I admire her professional work, but the gossip in our cast was not to get caught alone with her.”

  “A business meeting, okay, but personally? Well, you played it out correctly. Her influence with other venues won’t hurt you.”

  “I hope not.”

  “It won’t. I was a psych student for a while, learned a lot about human motivation. People manage to read an imposter pretty well.”

  Harry took in the casual trappings of Carmona’s small office, the natural wood furniture, oak and walnut, similar to his own tastes—he remembered his mother saying once that all woods go well together—with a parquet floor that looked recently waxed, and a circular throw-rug in front of his desk that could have been a gift from an Asian country.

  “And that’s a good lead-in to our topic here today,” Carmona said. “Authenticity is our métier. Are you familiar with the Playhouse work, our usual productions?”

  “When I was younger, my family came here often.”

  “Good, then you know the quality of what we do—and our thrust as a theater group.”

  “Kind of.”

  “We generally do established pieces, occasionally a musical, rarely a world premiere, though we have done several west coast openings. I remember one of our ‘didn’t work’ offerings was a musical with the book by Ray Bradbury. Great novelist, but not a successful playwright. Anyway, we are casting now for a play that has been acknowledged as a winner, originally opened on Broadway, way back in 1975, and has had a few revivals over the years. It’s Edward Albee’s work, Seascape, which only ran for sixty-three performances when it was first produced—a box-office failure—lost out to Equus for the Tony Award, but then won Albee his second Pulitzer, the first for A Delicate Balance and the third for Three Tall Women.”

  “I’m familiar with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

  “Yes, well the Pulitzer committee was probably stunned by the extreme nature of that one, though today we acknowledge it as Albee’s masterpiece. Seascape originally starred the glamorous Deborah Kerr as the older woman, and an unknown, Frank Langella, as the younger man. It’s a surreal play, about an older human couple living by the beach, and a lizard couple, naïve about the people-world. Leslie, the male lizard, is macho and guarded, and the elderly couple try to explain human behavior to him and his partner, the two inexperienced aliens from the sea.”

  “Pretty bizarre setting.”

  “Typical of Albee. And we would like you to audition for the male lizard’s part. We take care of the costume.”

  Harry laughed. “Leslie has to look like a lizard.”

  “You bet. We have a top-notch costume and make-up department.”

  “When can I read for the part?”

  “Are you okay doing it cold? I mean without looking at the script first?”

  “Any time. Right now is fine.” He had not lost his strong belief in his own talents.

  “You got it. Follow me.”

  He got the part. At one point, he wondered aloud if they needed anyone to play the lizard’s female companion, thinking that Katy would be wonderful for the part, and wouldn’t it be a kick if she and he were together in a professional production, the second time he was recommending her for a gig. Carmona, quite familiar with the deeply competitive nature of theater casting, said to him, simply and directly, “We have a woman in mind for that role. She has already read for the part and we like her. Name of Ophelia Razz, odd name, excellent young actor.”

  He told Katy the whole story. She thanked him for thinking of her. At the time, she was in the last couple of weeks of a run of Simon’s Prisoner of Second Avenue, receiving strong reviews and a mountain of support from her fellow cast members an
d Brian De Genera.

  The positive thing Katy knew was that Harry cared about her, and respected her abilities, but nothing more intimate than that.

  “Crap,” she said aloud that same night, to her empty apartment. “He has fucking tunnel vision.” She was aware, instantly, with a spear of pain, that there was no Gus there to repeat her profanity.

  THREE

  T hey were to have five weeks for rehearsals and a brief preview run before their opening. An eerie event, which occurred in the third week, altered the energy of the cast and threatened to scuttle the production.

  The excellent young actor, Ophelia Razz, showed up one day behaving as if she were the original Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, hair disheveled, blouse torn in the shoulder, eyes wild as the Mad Hatter’s at Alice’s tea party, mumbling something her colleagues could not follow. Had she been attacked? Was she hurt? What could they do for her?

  Carmona took her into his office, and when they emerged after ten minutes, whispered to his aide, “Please call 911. She’s not dangerous, but she is illogical, and I’m afraid she needs psychiatric care at once.”

  When the etiology of the disturbance was finally revealed, it played out that Ophelia had experienced other episodes of irrational behavior, was on antidepressant medication, had been told the day before that her boyfriend loved someone else, and would, the medical people said, have to be hospitalized for at least a couple of weeks.

  Displaying a remarkable agility to recall conversations, Carmona approached Harry. “I wonder if that woman you were promoting, I think you said her name was Katy something, could be available to take Ophelia’s place? I’d have to meet her, of course, and get a feel for her style. We don’t have much time, and our budget is restricted, so I hope she could come in running and be willing to work for a modest compensation.”

  “I’m sure she could, and I’m sure she would be. Give me half an hour to track her down.”

  Katy was ecstatic, her own childhood memories filled with excursions to the Pasadena Playhouse, wonderful dinners along Colorado Boulevard in Old Town, autographs she got from Ed Asner, Peter O’Toole, Annette Benning, and even Julie Andrews, who had been in the audience at one of the productions. She particularly recalled seeing Forever Plaid, the nostalgic musical about a group that died tragically—her first time ever hearing the song Three Coins In The Fountain.

  She needed four evenings to finish off her work at the Odyssey, though her talents were strong enough to allow her to begin learning her part during the day.

  Carmona took to her instantly, had no hesitation in handing her the role, and, in a moment of compassion, decided to give her a third more salary than originally proposed.

  It was a win-win situation.

  Juliet? Harry told her, and her reaction was as enthusiastic as a good friend could make it. “Wonderful for Katy! I’m sure you will like working with her. She has a talent, that girl. Maybe this role will get her going.”

  Harry wasn’t sure what she meant by that. For him, Katy had gotten going a hell of a long time ago.

  Louis and Miriam Schiff made plans to attend opening night. Harry was aware that his father was something of a theater trivia buff—one of the hooks that had pulled the young son into acting, charming little pieces of side information that personalized actors and writers.

  On the phone, Louis said, “Edward Albee: quite a character. Brilliant playwright and an eccentric person.”

  “Tell me,” Harry said.

  “Well, he was born in Washington D.C. in 1928, and was adopted by the Albee family, well known for their vaudeville empire. His early education included military school, which he hated, but his parents prized, since they wanted him to be disciplined. He left home at twenty and moved to Greenwich Village, took on a lot of menial jobs, including a messenger person, to give him time to write.”

  Taking a calculated risk, Harry said, “He went against his parents’ wishes.”

  “He had a hunger, which they didn’t quite understand. He had already written a lot of morbid and bizarre short pieces. He finally wrote Zoo Story in 1959 and it became popular in Europe.”

  He paused, as if waiting for more reactions from his son. Getting none, he tacked on, “A lot of his themes had to do with death. He wrote twenty-five plays and dominated the American theater scene for two decades, the successor to Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill. Not all of his plays were commercial successes, and he was quoted as saying that one must persevere with his art, whether popular or not.”

  Though, to Harry, his father’s itemized report sounded like a press-release, he said, “You know, that info is helpful to me. In playing one of his characters, it’s good to know elements of the writer’s psyche.”

  “As long as it is psyche and not psycho. Well, son, break a leg!”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you and Mom after the show.”

  When his father rang off, Harry pondered the complexity of any given person: he disliked his father’s professional voraciousness and the minimal emotional attention he gave to relationships; he loved the knowledge and ingenuity of the man. He wondered, briefly, about his own complex nature, how much he had been shaped by his parents, what and who attracted him, and what passions seared his soul, fuzzy fears that could torture his quiet moments, loneliness that saturated his life.

  As always, such thoughts were too painful to sustain; he dismissed them in the urgency of his new, compelling venture.

  Juliet and her agent became fast friends. What that involved was something Harry did not want to know. Ashton Carlisle, the handsome ex-actor, loved to be seen, out on the town, with the appealing, young, rising star, Juliet Marsh. While usually agents remain in the shadows, this one preferred a side-by-side connection with his client. Pictures began to appear in magazines and occasionally on the evening news, Juliet in the foreground and “who is that guy?” in the background. Harry knew who he was.

  After his experience with Sydnee Villapane, Harry realized that both genders might be expected to “sleep” their way to fame. He liked, at this escalating point in his career, to think that the rubric did not apply to him or those he cared about.

  When he called Juliet, late in the evening, and got her voice mail, he began to fret that she was at Carlisle’s place, wherever that was. It would be too awkward to ask her about it; it was too painful to ignore.

  Would jealousy trigger enough angst to drive him to spy on Juliet? How lame would that be? How childish. How low. But, his love for her was in jeopardy, their connection frayed. He was sure something was going on.

  After the final dress rehearsal, two nights before the opening preview performance, Harry grabbed Katy and said, “Let’s get supper. I need to talk with you.”

  In her experience, such a preamble often meant talk about Juliet, not Katy’s favorite topic of discussion.

  They drove five minutes to Old Town and sat in a quaint tratoria, the late hour—it was past ten—restricting the number of diners so that they had the place pretty much to themselves. Harry had eaten there a couple of times before and knew the maitre d’, so that, he was assured, they could take their time and not rush, even though the restaurant normally closed at eleven.

  “I think she’s messing around with that Carlisle guy, the hunk who’s her agent.”

  He blurted this out and Katy, deciding to play naïve, asked, “Are you talking about Juliet?”

  “Yeah. She’s not home that much, even late at night. I see shots of her in the news media, and the guy is almost always by her side. Haven’t seen any print yet about them being an item, but my guess is some dirt-seeking hack will soon decide to make such a connection.”

  “Must be painful,” Katy said. “Have you talked to her about it?”

  “I’m afraid to. She can get pretty nasty when cornered. She might get pissed that I’d even raise such a question. Phony outrage, you know.”

  Caution! Katy was urging herself. Don’t be critical. Support is what he needs. �
�Could I help in some way?”

  “I don’t see how. I mean she likes you and all, but she’s not going to tell you her deep, dark secrets.”

  Katy wanted to say, “No, but I could tell her mine.” Instead, she almost whispered, “No, but women can share things that men can’t.”

  “What would you ask her? You wouldn’t bluntly accuse her of cheating on me.”

  “Look, my friend, we both know Juliet’s propensity for flamboyance. She relishes a glitzy life style. Whether that includes more than one man at a time is conjecture. For all I know, she could have been burning the candle at both ends for years. She’s like a female Galen, only with a lot more confidence and talent.”

  The words were painful for Harry to hear, but he stopped short of admonishing Katy for them; in his deeper places, when he was able to divorce himself from his obsession with Juliet, he knew Katy was right.

  “Why,” he began slowly, pausing to swallow a bite of lasagna, “do I love that woman? I don’t get back nearly what I put in. I’m disappointed with her…well, the only word I can use is…indifference. I mean, she’ll say she wants to be with me, she’ll say she loves me—if I say it first—but the follow-through, the action those words deserve, never happens. I must be a masochist. That’s really sick, isn’t it?”

  Katy realized that the piped-in music was playing (too loudly) “That’s Amore,” and smiled at the irony.

  “Love,” she said in her irritated voice, the voice she often used with Harry when she was frustrated with him being so damned oblivious, “is not possible to break down into segments. If you love somebody, you accept her with her different parts, including the annoying ones.” When she stopped, for a brief moment she wondered if her lecture was for Harry’s benefit or her own.

  “But aren’t you supposed to get something for your investment?” He paused, almost aware—but not quite—that this next topic would be difficult for Katy to hear, and said, “Our sex is sporadic, still good, but less often. And the follow-through, the meaning behind the physical part, never happens. I feel, sometimes, like I make love to a well-programmed automaton, primed to display high passion but mindless substance.”