Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

  "No, of course not. I told you, we know they're wrong about that. We all think you're the best director we've worked with. Even Angela said that and she's had the most experience of all of us."

  "Then why are we having this discussion?"

  "Because it's hard for us to be the subject of rumors."

  "I thought I was the subject."

  "We're involved. And they create an atmosphere, you know, of suspicion and mistrust, o{ worry, and we should be concentrating on the play instead of worrying about what people are saying." 1 agree.

  "With what?"

  "That you should be concentrating on the play. That you shouldn't be worrying about what people are saying. You've given yourself excellent advice."

  "Jessica, you're being willful. You know what I'm saying. We don't want to worry, but we can't help it. The atmosphere, you know—"

  "Yes, I heard that. You all agree that I'm the best director you've ever worked with, but you begin to think you're wrong as soon as you hear ignorant people gossip."

  "No, no, that's not what I said."

  "Well, perhaps you'll tell me just what you did say."

  "There's a feeling of insecurity, a miasma of insecurity. I should think you'd understand that; you're very sensitive to people's feelings. Angela asked if she could invite some friends—influential friends—to rehearsals, but Hermione wouldn't allow it. Why not? What harm could it do? It might help ticket sales, you know, and some people are wondering if we'll even get to opening night if this miasma lasts and hurts ticket sales. It shouldn't surprise you that we're worried about the future."

  Jessica was silent. Everyone is worried about the future, she thought, but she could not share her own worries with Edward. "This is what we'll do," she said. "We'll begin publicity and advertising early and if Hermione can arrange it we'll start previews in Melbourne a few days early. That

  308 ~ Judith Michael

  means we'll have early reviews from critics who haven't heard all your dire rumors. I'll have to push up all my schedules, which means I won't have time for anything else until opening night, but that should reassure all of you that I'm giving this play all my attention; that whatever needs to be done will be done. We're going to have a success, Edward. No one has to worry about the future."

  He nodded gloomily. "You're saying you won't have dinner with me again."

  "Oh, for God's sake," she said, her temper snapping. "Have you listened to me? I'm talking about the play, about the future. Didn't you just tell me that's what you're all worried about.^ Pay attention, Edward. I am telling you that there is nothing to worry about. Hermione and I have everything under control. Can you understand that? Can you remember it long enough to repeat it to the others in the cast? If not, I'll write you all a letter. Maybe I will, anyway." She paused. "That's a good idea," she mused, as if he were not there. "Review our progress, talk about the next few weeks . . . Something like a CEO reporting to a board of directors. Yes, that's what I'll do. And I'll do it tonight." She looked up. "I have to go home, Edward. I have work to do."

  Dearest Jessica, what a good idea. What made you think of it? I can think of dozens of difficult situations that might have been avoided if I'd written that kind of letter once or tw^ice during rehearsals. It's amazing how lax we get when we see people every day; after a while we assume they think the "way we do. A very dangerous assumption. Anyway, I like your idea and I hope you find it a form of flattery that I'm going to imitate it in the future. By the way, your letter, short as it was, sounded unhappy. Would that have anything to do with your letter to your cast and crew? Or to a social life I don't know about? Or to Moreton Bay bugs? (I've been reading about Australia and it occurred to me that you might have eaten one ol them in a moment of madness and are suffering from its lingering effects.) Good friends confide in each other; what else are we here for? With all my love, Luke.

  She wondered what she had written in her one-paragraph letter that had given her away. It had been very late when she wrote it, after she had

  Acts of L

  o V E ~ 309

  finished the letter to her cast and crew, and she had been exhausted and worried and feehng very much alone. She longed for someone who had nothing to do with this place or these fears. But as soon as she began to write to Luke, she could not bring herself to tell him what was happening. It was one thing to ask for help in staging a scene; it was another to tell him her personal problems. Anyway, there was nothing he could do about them, and nothing she wanted him to do. She had come here to fight her own battles and make her own way, and nothing had changed that. She would handle this alone.

  Except for Hermione, she thought with a sudden lifting of the heart. Because of course she was not alone; she had a friend. And a powerful one at that.

  "So the bastard told you," Hermione said, holding a copy of Jessica's letter. They were on the couch in her living room, with appetizers and a bottle of wine on the coffee table. "Dinner can be anytime," she had said when Jessica arrived. "Cold soup, cold salad, warm bread. But you're not in a hurry, are you.? Not rushing back home to do more work.?"

  "No. Small breaks for relaxation actually make everything more manageable."

  "Is that so? When did you decide that.?"

  "Advice from a friend. I've been meaning to take it, but I've been too busy."

  They burst out laughing, but when they were seated on the couch and Jessica showed her the letter to the cast, Hermione's eyes were furious. "Son of a bitch. There was no reason to tell you. You have a job to do and you're doing it fantastically—everybody is totally sold on you—"

  "Everybody.?"

  "Almost. You should hear them talk about you. Oh, Whit still has doubts now and then, between rehearsals, but as soon as he's working with you he's yours forever. Your gallant swain Edward is another story. What a squeamish little bastard he is. What's he so scared of?"

  "The world. And right now the world seems to be telling him that his director is a failure."

  "And a director is like a mommy and he wants his mommy to tell him that everything is peachy and she'll take care of him forever."

  "Something like that."

  "And you go out with this . . . person?"

  310 ~ Judith Michael

  "Not right now. I told him I'd be too busy with the play."

  "And he sulked."

  Jessica was silent.

  "Well, okay, let's talk about those things you told him. You were bluffing, of course, but we can do just about all of it. Advertising and publicity actually began last week, but starting today we're doing a blitz. Ads in newspapers here and Melbourne and Canberra, posters everywhere, and a bunch of interviews set up for Edward. 'Drama Teacher Turns Actor,' that sort of thing. Also, I've made a deal with a friend running an AIDS benefit, very social, in two weeks. There's a program of musical numbers right after dinner and, if you approve, Angela and Whit will do a short scene from Journeys End as part of it. It's a very high-class affair and you ought to be there." She saw Jessica's face change. "Yep, you'll have to buy a formal dress. It's high time you did. It's important for successful directors and producers to mingle in society—you know that, Jessie—and that includes going to some of these very dull and very necessary affairs."

  "I'll think about it. Have any theater parties canceled?"

  "A few. Well, actually about half. But this is not a devastation; I consider it a minor nuisance which someone of my forcefulness and incipient fury can resolve in a short time."

  "What does that mean.?"

  "It means I have a considerable presence in this town. A lot of people who think they run things around here respect me, and they owe me for various favors over the years. I don't apply pressure indiscriminately; I wait for truly important occasions, and this is one. Well, I see you're still puzzled. Jessie, dear, you know all about theater parties: mogul types who own banks and run fat corporations buy out whole theaters for clients, friends, whatever. Some of them buy as many as thirty or forty thousan
d tickets a year for various plays and musicals, and every producer I know relies on them because they make a play look like a smash hit before it even opens. My friend Harry Miller says it makes plays critic-proof."

  "And those are the people you're putting pressure on.''"

  "The ones who owe me favors. I guarantee you they didn't make the decision to cancel parties for our play; somebody down the ladder did. Once you go to the top, things change in a hurry. I'll take care of this, Jessie; it may take a while, but we'll pull out of it. Do you really think I'd let a bunch of sniggering bastards ruin my play? You know me better than that."

  A

  1

  CTs of Love ~ 311

  "Maybe we should open the rehearsals."

  "Nope. We're doing fine. You're doing better every day, and I'm not putting out a welcome mat for pricks who've been bad-mouthing you. It wouldn't help, you know; they'd have to find something to back up their lies, and then they'd spread that around town. Trust me, Jessie; we'll keep it the way it is. Now listen to me. I'll tell you what you told Edward. This play is going to be dynamite. We'll have other theaters on their knees— they would be if theaters had knees—begging us to bring Journeys End to them at the end of our two-month run. I'm telling you: do not worry. Just be the best damn director this town has ever seen. I ask nothing more."

  Jessica gave a shaky laugh. She was so tired she could barely move. "Last night everything seemed so awful. . . ."

  "Too many emotions, poor baby, you're worn out. Let's feed you some dinner and send you home to bed." She held out her hand and Jessica took it and felt herself being lifted to her feet. "You need food and sleep. What happens to our play if you collapse on me? There's nobody in town who could take your place. You and I and Donny Torville would be mighty distressed if you ended up in the hospital."

  Jessica thought there was something odd about that sentence, but she was too tired to pursue it. She ate the food Hermione put before her, drank her coffee, and got up to leave. "I love you," she said at the door. "Thank you for being here."

  Hermione held her close and for a moment Jessica felt like a child in her mother's embrace. "Thank you for coming to us," Hermione said. "I love you, too. Go home now. Sleep."

  Dear Luke, I'm sorry it's teen a week since I wrote last, but we compressea our scnedule to allow a rew more days or previews in Mel-Dourne ana I naven't nad a minute to tnink or anytning else. We're in tne Drama Tneater now, ror tnree days or dress renearsals. It's run to he nere, witn a rehearsal next door in the small Playhouse, an opera rehearsing upstairs, and tne sympnony orchestra rehearsing next to the opera; it's like a vast nive with all or us little hees churning out words and music at fever pitch. What a good reeling to he part or it.

  In our own little corner, we have lull sets and real rurniture, at last. I did get the turntables I've been dreaming or, so we have two

  312 ~ Judith Michael

  apartments visiole at tne same time, and eacn turntanle nas tnree rooms. I know you can picture tnis: as eacn turntanle revolves, tne action can take place in a aiirerent room—living room, Dearoom, kitchen—or eacn apartment. It's very exciting to watcn. On Wednes-day we'll go to Melbourne ror ten days, tnen come back bere ror a week or previews. I'm very nervous, so jumpy I'm reeling a little ligbt-beaded. It's a dirrerent kind or nervousness rrom tbe kind I bad ror all tnose years on tne stage, but in a way it is stage rrigbt—bow as-tonisning alter all tbis time to discover tbat directors nave it, too— and it keeps me awake, worrying not about one part, but about all tbe parts, about all tbe people wbo are depending on me. And I keep tbinking I've missed something—or many somethings—done things I shouldn't have done, not done things I should have done . . . and then I wonder how I could have had the arrogance to assume I could just jump in and direct a play, as ir it didn't take years or training and thinking and study. . . . But right now I don't reel arrogant, just scared.

  I shouldn't tell him this, it's too intimate. But there's no one else I can talf^ to about it — everyone here, even Hermione, would thin I'm afraid we're not ready, and I can't have that. Lul{e krwws what it's like. He understands that I'm writing as one director to another. He understands everything.

  The play isn't really where I'd like it, but I think an audience will help. The cast seems to have reached a plateau . . . they're not getting any better (or worse, thank God), and they can't seem to do anything in new ways. Maybe we're overrebearsed; I know tbat can happen.

  My main worry is Angela. She should go through so many moods—anger, guilt, rear or exposure, tbe discovery that she can be compassionate, the greater discovery that she can love—and she can't seem to handle all or them at once. It's as ir she's sorted them into cubbyholes and takes out one at a time when she needs it. There's no rlow in her emotions; she seems more calculating than passionate. Her understudy is younger and seems to have more passion, but we'll probably never know ror sure because I can't imagine Angela allowing herself to get sick; she'd tell a virus or bacterium

  A

  J

  CTS of LOVE ~ 313

  just wnere to get orr . . . and it wouldn't he anywnere near her.

  Nora is trying nard and I'm noping an audience will energize lier. Tne two men are excellent, especially our "rind, " Edward Smith. Ir you recall, he's the one we lirted straight out or his joh at the university, and in the past rew days he's gotten hetter and hetter. Sometimes he almost runs away with the play.

  Ever since I told him I'd be too busy to see him. Since then, he hasn't spol^en a word to me except when absolutely necessary, but what difference does that make, since he's so wonderful on stage? If Angela was that good. . .

  Ir Angela was that good, I wouldn't reel this awrul rrustra-tion and worry. I don't want just a good perrormance; I want a great one. And in my mind I know exactly what that would look lifce and sound like; I just haven't round a way to help Angela bring it to the light or day. You could. That may be the dirrerence between a great natural director and one who s doing it as a substitute ror something else.

  I just read that last sentence over again. I hope it isn t true.

  You haven t said anything about Kent s new play. Are you about to begin staging it? I did get the script, but I haven't had time to loofc at it. Maybe in Melbourne. How odd to be talking about a second strange city in such a short time. This must be called Australian immersion. Jessica.

  Dearest Jessica, this won't make sense to you, but do it anyway. If mail comes to you from Nev^'York, ignore it. Burn it, throw it away, don't read it. Please trust me on this. Something has happened here, not dangerous, but difficult, and it might spill over to you, just at a time when you need to concentrate on your previews. I promise I'll tell you everything later, but please do as I ask now^. Please. Trust me. I'll be thinking of you every minute in Melbourne. I love you. Luke.

  She read the letter over and over that night, between packing and taking telephone calls from Nora and Whit, who had last-minute thoughts about everything from the set design to the timing of the fmal curtain.

  314 ~ Judith Michael

  Trust me.

  For what? What could have happened that would spill over to her?

  Now that she and Luke sent letters by fax, she received no mail. No one else knew where she was. So it would be someone he had told. Who? And why would he do that?

  Trust me.

  I do, she thought. In almost anything. But I should at least see if something is out there.

  And so, sometime after midnight, she went to her front porch and opened her mailbox. The letter was there, gleaming white in the bottom of the black box. She took it out and looked at it in the light spilling from the foyer. Her name. Her address. Typewritten. No return address.

  She carried it inside by one corner, as if it might be poison. Li^^e* wouldn 't have told anyone but a friend. What could there be to worry about?

  He's worried.

  The letter lay on her bureau while she finished packing. At one-thirty she got ready
for bed. At one forty-five she began to open the envelope.

  Trust me.

  I'll think about it, she decided. She laid it on her night table, and went to bed. At three o'clock she turned on her reading lamp and tore open the envelope before she could debate it anymore. Her play was nowhere in her thoughts. She could think of nothing but this. Whatever was going on, it was happening to Luke and, somehow, to her, and she had to know what it was.

  Inside the envelope was a clipping from a newspaper, raggedly torn out.

  Behind Closed Doors

  by Tricia Delacorte

  What oh-so-successful Broadway director has become a virtual recluse because he's smitten with an Australian wallaby? Or is it wannabe, as in aiming to make a comeback on the coattails of a Broadway hot shot who can smooth the way for anybody . . . even a washed-out has-been?

  T

  he Melbourne Centre Stage Theater was sold out for opening night. Edward paced, propelled by anxiety. "They should have left one seat unsold. No one should tempt the gods. The American Indians wove blankets with one mistake to keep them from being perfect. The gods think perfection means we're trying to rival them, and they knock us down."

  "Gods never come to out-of-town openings," Hermione said. "They'll be waiting for us in Sydney." She grinned at Edward's startled look, but a little later, when she found Jessica coming out of the makeup room, she said, "Of all the things I'm worrying about, the gods knocking us down is very low on the list."

  Jessica smiled faintly. "They'll barely notice us, we're so far from perfection."

  "Not that far. We're in good shape, and you know it. What's wrong, Jessie.f^ Something's been bothering you since we left Sydney and I can't believe you're that worried about the play."

  She made an effort to smile and to make her voice confident. "There's just so much to think about; I never knew there were so many loose ends before an opening. But we'll do fme. A lot of problems disappear with an audience."

  "Jessica, the lighting in the third act . . . ," said the lighting director, and they had a brief conference, deciding to lower the lights gradually through the final five minutes, leaving one turntable in darkness and the other with a single lamp holding Helen and Rex within the circle of its light.