by John Gardner
‘That’s all I need, Moir and a posse of militant Shakespeare-only-done-as-art-and-beauty people littering up the lawn and throwing stones.’
‘You want me to get a riot squad?’
‘Only to control Joe Thomas.’
Douglas eventually got to bed at two-thirty, Jennifer still awake, looking frightened and ill.
‘Come on, Jen, love, we’ve got a great deal on our plates, I can’t have you cracking up. I need you, baby, not just as an actress either.’
She gave him a small smile. Conrad’s death had obliterated any of the other realities which surrounded them. ‘I know. He must have been a very lonely man, Doug.’
‘There’s loneliness and loneliness. He had a great talent which, maybe, called for that odd aloofness he seemed to wrap around him.’ He sensed her emotion rising again. ‘Let’s stop talking about it, Jen. I’ve been doing nothing else with the press since I left you. Sorry, but I need sleep to tackle tomorrow.’
She reached up to kiss him and they entwined for some two minutes.
‘I love you, Doug.’
Together, close in bed, they clung to each other, not speaking, but understanding in the last moments before sleep. Jennifer told herself that they had now ridden out the storm which had once threatened to swamp them. The future was safe within reason and, more to the point, in some strange way the respect she held for Douglas had been restored to its old high proportion. Her mind slipped on to the immense task which Asher Grey had undertaken and, in the darkness, she crossed her fingers.
‘Was ever woman in this humour woo’ d? Was ever woman in the humour won?...’
Asher, with good sense, had purposely underplayed during the morning run-through, but, at the matinee and, now, the evening performance of Richard it was clear to all the company what he was doing: a sustained and brilliantly dignified imitation of Conrad Catellier’s Richard III; every line, word, action, facial movement copied in meticulous detail as the actor had noted it in rehearsal. Much later in the season, Asher admitted to Douglas that the early performances were basically instinctive, relying completely upon what his memory had retained, including the vocal trick habits which were entirely Conrad’s. The play and production appeared perfectly married to the actor; Asher took it so far that, when he went forward for his call after the evening performance, he did not even smile at the warmth of the reception, his whole being so taken up with the idea of ultimate evil swathed in elegant charm. Nor was it simply the audience who were doing the applauding, the company rose to Asher’s performance and their praise rang out long after the audience had started to leave.
It was a different matter with Romeo and Juliet; here, Asher was concerned with his own creation of character, just as Douglas was anxious with the complexity of his production, made technically difficult by Tony’s settings, the streets worked out in up to four different levels, houses and balconies overhanging cobbles, the interiors wide with huge archways and, supporting columns: they were a nightmare for Archie Swimmer who had to completely clear the grid for Romeo.
With Romeo and Juliet Douglas had been concerned with classicism, poetry of colour and movement as well as the tragic poetry of the play, and was excited from the start by working within the somewhat operatic sets, not allowing them to dominate him, but using them to their full stretch, filling them with people, yet letting attention be focused only on the two or three people playing the scene. It had been a challenge and all these things had caused initial problems, now dealt with and resolved so that the production had become tightly worked, full of movement and action. He told the company, ‘I want to prove that you can play this piece classically and still come up with something as box office as Love Story which says twice as much about where it’s at; to show people you don’t necessarily have to do West Side Story to make this play sing, dance, snap its fingers and shout its message.’
At another time he said, ‘The human condition doesn’t change all that much. What was true of the youth of fourteenth century Italy is still true today. They experience the same basic emotions, they hold in and then explode with the same frustrated violence.’
True, the director had argued that he was not in any way going to up-point the racial theme, but he had not been in rehearsal long before discovering that by the very action of giving the play a black Juliet (with black relations, and only the odd white retainer, Felicity Durrant’s Nurse, for instance) he had automatically thrown the play into the passionate, violent arena of racist politics, the whole theme taking on a different tone: not just a romantic tragedy of great beauty which spoke of the ageless ferment of youth, but the added dimensions of love and hate between the races; the finale becoming a damning condemnation against all who thrive on racial discord.
Asher and Carol were both most conscious of this last point; on stage in performance, they both related to the one experience they had lovingly shared together, their warmth towards one another being clear for all to see. In the back of his mind Douglas half wondered what the outcome would be once Julia Philips saw the production on the first night.
Together they worked, through the Richard performances, the technical dress and the stopping dress of Romeo. On Friday morning the press gave its glowing verdict on Richard: all except the Shireston Gazette from which blurted the disgruntled headline — OUR CRITIC IS BARRED FROM FESTIVAL, followed by a long and wordy diatribe against the festival as a whole, under its current management, and Douglas Silver’s directorship in particular.
Adrian pointed to the short obituary they had printed for Conrad at the bottom of the front page. ‘You can see how well they’ve got their priorities sorted.’
Douglas shrugged, he had neither the time nor energy to worry about the trivial protest of a biased editor. They had to get through the dress rehearsal of Romeo and at three o’clock he was to be present at Conrad’s inquest, while the first performance of Romeo was scheduled, as usual, for seven-thirty; there might, he reflected, be a moment for breath when it was all over.
***
Asher was in the midst of battle, the clash, clamour and screams aching on his head.
‘Fight, gentlemen of England! fight bold yeoman!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!’
But why were they fighting in front of Shylock’s house? It was the wrong play and now Edward Crispin was giving him a cue—
‘Will you hear ‘t again?’
What was the line? They were in the drinking scene and now it was Cassio’s line—
‘No; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that does
those things—’
No, wrong again, for he was in bed—
‘It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks...’
But this was not Carol’s supple body beside him. Slowly Asher came to consciousness, dragging his senses into the day. Friday; he had been correct the last time: today he had to be, stay being, Romeo. He eased his body, stretching and rubbing his back into the mattress, testing his muscles, aching from the unaccustomed Richard. He was erect, that consciousness he could not avoid, and for a second he turned, his arm beginning to stretch out towards the still sleeping Julia; but he sank back again, fondling himself, it was not Julia he wanted; as Asher Grey and Romeo his need was for the dark Carol Evans, his Juliet; the urge so deep, the desire so specific that he even had a mild attack of guilt for being so close to the naked Julia. Asher did not try to analyse his emotions. On waking he desired Juliet, Carol Evans; it was plain and simple, the manner in which his mind and body reached out for her, shrinking from Julia Philips, who, throughout the frenzied activity which followed Conrad’s death, had never for a moment, when they were alone, stopped demanding, like a child who is not getting attention.
Asher slipped quietly out of bed; it was eight-thirty and he had to be in
the theatre by nine-fifteen at the latest if they were going up at ten. He showered, shaved, dressed and swallowed a cup of coffee, pleased that Julia had not awakened, so that he could steal from the flat without being engaged in some barrage of words.
The tensions had returned, the company concentrating on the vast production, but they got through the dress rehearsal with a minimum number of problems (Archie’s stage crew taking half-a-minute too long over a crucial change, throwing the lighting plot a fraction; Felicity Durrant missing one cue, and Joe Thomas, as Capulet, drying during the last moments of the play). It was enough to fray some tempers and set moods on edge. Douglas gave his notes on stage afterwards, conscious that he had to imbue all of them with a sense of calm.
They broke at one-forty-five, Asher finding himself walking off with Carol; they had been together during Douglas’s notes, Carol’s hand lying gently on his. Now she stopped, turning to him.
‘I suppose this is where I wish you all the luck in the world for tonight. I’ll give you all I can, love, you know that.’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about; you’re going to be great.’ He paused to allow Liz Column, who played Lady Montague, and Murry Fleet (Paris) to pass. ‘I think we should be together before tonight.’
She looked at him eagerly, a slight inclination of the head. ‘My dressing-room at six?’ he raised his eyebrows.
Her brow furrowed. ‘Is that safe for you? There’ll be people around.’
‘I’m only concerned for us, and for tonight.’
‘Please, Ash,’ a hand on his arm. ‘I want to, you don’t know how much; I’m not trying to find excuses, but, well, physically won’t it bush you?’
‘It’ll be the same for you. Under normal circumstances the answer would be yes. But I don’t know, won’t the performance benefit from the performance, so to speak?’
She gave him a smile, lighting up the whole of her face. ‘Six o’clock.’
The Coroner’s Court returned a verdict of death from natural causes on Conrad Catellier, the post-mortem proving, without doubt, that the actor had suffered a massive coronary thrombosis. Douglas got back to the house around four, depressed at having to listen to the evidence, and give his own small contribution. The funeral was to take place on Monday in London, and there would be a memorial service next month.
Jennifer was in high spirits, she had no part in Romeo so would be with her husband all evening. By five o’clock she had started to prepare for the evening, lying in a hot bath before the statutory hour in front of the mirror at the dressing-table, her long white evening gown laid out on the bed.
Douglas, stripped and in his bath robe, waiting to use the bathroom, watched her as she came through wearing only her pretty white underclothes.
‘I suppose it’ll be all go in the bedroom after tonight?’ She laughed, catching his eyes on her.
‘You know me,’ he grinned. ‘Once I’ve stopped creating in theatre the urge has to come out in other ways.’
She pursed her lips, blowing him a kiss. ‘About bloody time.’
She held up a hand as he moved towards her. ‘And don’t start now or we’ll be late for your opera.’
Asher sat quietly in his dressing-room at six o’clock. It was early and there were not many members of the company in yet, but he had taken the precaution of seeing his dresser, telling him that his services would not be required until seven o’clock, and hanging a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. All day he had managed to avoid Julia, knowing that, for him, it was essential to get the first night over before being plunged into her harassment again. He felt perfectly at ease, with only the normally light mixture of excitement and nervousness about the night.
A quiet tapping on the door and Carol slipped into the room, wearing a turquoise silky robe which clung to her body as she moved.
Asher rose, extending his arms to her. ‘We’re going to slay them stupid tonight.’
She kissed him quickly on the mouth. ‘There won’t be a dry eye in the house.’ Then, as he pulled her closer she whispered, ‘Get the tension out of me, Ash. Take me like before.’
She wore nothing under the robe, and the couch, though a narrow bed, was big enough to take both of them. There was nothing quick about it, in spite of Carol’s urgency: a steady and slow, tender, loving experience, sliding into each other, and then up among those indescribable shapes and colours which gloss the mental images, the landscape of minds mounting the sexual plane together.
Half-an-hour later they wished each other well for the night, kissing at parting, knowing that when they met again it would be as Shakespeare’s star-cross’d lovers, and, by their intimate knowledge, they might convey to the audience the same passions which they had just engendered.
Douglas and Jennifer were about to leave the apartment, at almost twenty minutes to seven, when the telephone rang. It was Adrian for Douglas, unexcited but with a cold fire in his voice. Douglas took the telephone and greeted him cheerfully.
‘Our friend Moir’s out for revenge,’ said Adrian.
‘He’s here? On the premises?’
‘I don’t know if he’s here, but all his pals from the bloody Shireston Festival Society are. We have a demonstration on our hands, Doug.’
‘What sort of a demonstration?’
‘Peaceful, I think, but there are a dozen or so protesting in front of the theatre.’
‘How protesting?’
‘Marching up and down with banners.’
‘Are they out for trouble?’
‘Difficult to say. Looks untidy though. The press have been taking pictures.’
‘Put someone on to it: Frank or Robin. If it gets out of hand send for the police to clear them out, but don’t let any of our people go near.’
As it turned out, the protest did little immediate harm. Douglas and Jennifer saw them as they made their way over the crowded lawns to the theatre: a group of mainly middle-aged, shabby-looking men and women parading up and down carrying banners which read — WE DEMAND SHAKESPEARE AS RICHARD LONGWELL INTENDED - THE GOLD OF POETRY NOT THE TARNISHED WORK OF SILVER - OUT WITH SILVER’S PAPERBACK CHEAP PRODUCTIONS - HANDS OFF SHAKESPEARE: GIVE US THE TRUTH.
‘They look just what they are,’ Douglas muttered. ‘People locked inside tiny, unimaginative minds. Out-dated pseudo-intellectuals, fallen behind.’
If any of the protesting Shireston Festival Society had bothered to go into the theatre that night they would have been able to hear the pure gold of Shakespeare. True they would also have been appalled by the racist theme which resulted from a black Juliet, the opening moments lit strongly, so that the heat of an Italian summer glanced from the walls of Tony Holt’s streets, and from the thinly dressed, sultry bodies of the company, the girls lingering on balconies to watch the black Capulets tangle with white Montagues in tumbling, strenuous, frightening violence.
The ball: with Raymond Leggat’s updated beat music heavy, yet blending with the colour and glitter of the renaissance costumes, making the scene instantly classic, yet as modem as tomorrow’s pop song.
The outstanding moments, as expected, came from Asher and Carol, the distinctive beauty of Shakespeare’s love scenes given a full naturalistic glow so that the poetry shone through against the urgent impetuosity which is the final undoing of the lovers.
To Douglas it was as though he had not seen the production before; together, Asher and Carol gave everything a new lift making moments authentically moving. At the balcony scene (Tony had created a single, large and solid white stone balcony which seemed to hang in darkness supported only by a slim pillar, rising some eight feet from the stage floor) Asher leaped down for his exit speech, radiant, not bearing to leave Juliet, yet with all the sexy puppy love which is essential to both roles—
‘Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!’
Seeing Carol, as Juliet, still on the balcony, he did not turn away for the last three lines, as they had consistently rehearsed, but climbed swiftly back up the pillar for
another fast embrace, getting down to the stage floor again just in time to shout the words about going to Friar Lawrence’s cell as the lighting plot slowly dimmed.
Later, the audience watched, attentive, charged with emotional static as dawn came up on Juliet’s bedroom and the discordant dawn chorus screeched out before the lovers slipped stark naked from their bed to stand, clasped in each other’s arms at the great window.
So, while there was beauty, splendour and richness about the night, there was also the edge of danger as black clashed with white. By turns one could sense the audience being outraged and deeply moved as the events of the tale took their inevitable toll: the romantic Mercutio (Edward Crispin giving a memorable Queen Mab speech) killed; the Nurse fussing over her charge, alternately tender and ribald; the death of Tybalt; the baulked plot which sends Romeo to the Tomb not knowing that his Juliet is only feigning death; the slaying of Paris; Romeo’s final speech over the sleeping Juliet (for a second, Douglas’s mind went back to his first meeting with Asher Grey and the audition in the shabby rehearsal room; he little thought then that Asher would be the saviour of the festival); Juliet’s waking to the terrible truth, her suicide and the forging of new bonds between the rival families, black hands clasping white in a sustained moment of high emotion.
Everything that followed was an anti-climax. Not only Asher, but also the whole company, felt drained, as though they had been through some highly strung period of unbearable pressure, when minds and bodies were subjected to the ultimate strain. The aftermath of gloom, from Catellier’s death, still hung, like a pocket of foul air, over them, and in that climate nobody had taken any steps to arrange celebrations after the first night of the season’s final production. For the leading members of the company there was relief in this, as most of them wanted a brief respite.
Asher was not destined to get immediate mental peace. When the dressing-room cleared, he showered, changed, looked in on Carol, who was only just beginning to unwind, and told her that he would see her at the nine o’clock work out, which was to be followed by Douglas’s notes from tonight’s performance; he then, unwillingly, made his way back to the house, his head full of the things he felt had not been quite right about tonight’s work, the dissatisfaction of any professional.