Upstaged

by Jacques Jouet

  Jacques Jouet

  Upstaged

  ~ ~ ~

  On Tuesday March 9th our eighth performance of Going Out to the People, written and directed by Marcel Flavy, was disrupted. Even now, it’s extremely difficult to say whether this was unfortunate — either for us or for the audience. In any event, this disturbance was so artfully concealed from the public eye that the hallowed reputation of our national theater suffered no injury. Were it not for the professionalism of all involved — including, to be fair, the source of the disturbance himself — this would never have been possible.

  There is something misleading in what I just wrote. What March 9th’s audience saw was not actually Going Out to the People. Although they did not know it, although they could not know it, although there was no way for us to tell them, what they saw was far stranger.

  For this to make any sense I need to begin at the beginning. Before I do, it is imperative that I stress that the following — indeed, somewhat contradictory — account was not written with the aim of assigning blame to any of the players in that night’s drama. It should be remembered that these were professional artists violently shaken from their usual routines. There can be no doubt that for the duration of the crisis they performed to the best of their abilities. Taking sides for or against any of them would be not only inappropriate, it would be unfair. So as to be as absolutely explicit as possible: this document is offered with no other aim than the edification of a noble profession.

  On the evening in question, the theater was filled to three-quarters of its full capacity (of eight hundred and fifty seats). In addition to the tickets sold, four complimentary press passes had been issued, two of which were redeemed. Alexandre Botsinas of The Morning Republic was to be found in his customary front-row seat, a notepad in his lap, the text of the play in hand. (I note these details as they were to prove not without importance.) Of the other journalist present nothing much need be said. Famed for his long critical naps, he was, in point of fact, actually asleep for the better part of the performance.

  Act One proceeded as planned. Jean-François Ernu and Sylvestre Pascal-Bram breezed through its forty-five minutes in a mere forty-two — an acceleration that Marcel Flavy, the play’s author and director, had demanded after a lethargic Sunday matinee performance. This picking up of the play’s pace was made without notable cuts to the text, although a number of not-so-pregnant silences were filled. At this quickened rate, the dialogue between the head of state and his principal advisor was filled with new energy. When the President of the Republican Council decides to disguise himself as a common citizen for a night — to leave his palace incognito so as to take the pulse of his people, as it were — we sensed, for the first time, a genuine curiosity move through the theater. This seemed to bode well for what was to come. I made a note to myself: “Pacing! Watch over it! It is the production’s most vulnerable child!” People who don’t work in the theater tend not to to realize how the daily rhythm of performance works imperceptibly — and perniciously! — to slow delivery. Keeping watch over a play’s tempo is therefore absolutely essential. For this reason it is as exciting as it is important to find ways to counter the eroding effects of performance.

  During a brief pause between the first two acts (three minutes of soundtrack — not so much an intermission as a break for us to change the set), the two actors exchanged their favorable impressions of the performance with one of their colleagues, Annie Soulemenov, who does not go on until the beginning of Act Two — in the role of a prostitute. Annie shared their sense that things were going well and declared that she would do everything in her power to build upon this auspicious beginning.

  The events this chronicle was undertaken to relate began in the second minute of the second act. Nicolas Boehlmer, preparing to smoke his last cigarette before going onstage, heard a knock at his dressing-room door. “Come in,” he called out. He was to note later how difficult it was to deliver this unexpected line at a moment when he had already entered the imaginative universe of his character. In response to his invitation, a stranger entered — one wearing the same wig, makeup, and clothes as Boehlmer (the outfit — according to costume-designer Sylvie Plumkett — of “a careless intellectual”). As he watched this mirror of himself advance, he sensed that the catastrophe was already underway.

  “What do you think you’re doing he—?” Boehlmer exclaimed to his (significantly taller) double. He was not to have time to finish pronouncing the word “here,” short though that word is. The stranger radiated a natural authority. He forced Boehlmer into a low chair with remarkable rapidity and agility, then gagged him, removed his threadbare jacket, suspenders, and pants, and tied him up. Boehlmer’s wrists were forced beneath the chair and looped around his ankles, leaving him in a thoroughly uncomfortable position. He was in his underpants, bent forward, his head between his knees, one with his chair. Boehlmer said later that he had lacked the energy to put up even minimal resistance — a curious phenomena he attributed to the perfectly unthreatening authority of the intruder. Without wasting a moment, the man we came to call “the Usurper” tucked Boehlmer’s jacket and pants under his arm, and, with surprising civility, apologized for his roughness. Boehlmer recalls the following phrase: “I am indeed taking a part of you, but you will soon find it returned unharmed. You have my word.” The Usurper added: “In case this does not go without saying, I very much admire your work.”

  A moment later the stage manager called through the door that Boehlmer was due on stage in four minutes. The Usurper sipped from a bottle of mineral water, taking care to choose an unopened one, and left without further ceremony. Nicolas tried to call for help, but was able to produce no more than a muffled groan, impossible as it was for him to spit out the plastic bag held in his mouth by a red, white, and blue scarf — not red, white, and blue by chance.

  It seems that the Usurper chose to take Boehlmer’s costume with him when he left the dressing room in order to ensure that — in case the actor was freed too soon — Nicolas wouldn’t be able to rush right out on stage. However, as it appears that the Usurper did not intend to extend his usurpation into Act Three, he let the costume fall in a darkened corner, leaving Boehlmer a small but real chance of finding it and finishing the role for which he had been cast.

  Exactly as if he had been doing so for weeks, or, rather, as if he had actually become Boehlmer — the Usurper walked over and sat down next to Pauline Bensmaïla, the actress playing the role of the second prostitute — a role, it should be said, that is somewhat more developed than that of the first prostitute, played by Annie Soulemenov. Pauline was waiting for her entrance on a bench at the rear of the stage, next to the fire extinguisher. The blaze of red set against Pauline’s dark dress was an arrestingly beautiful sight — one that, while not intended for the public, caught the sensitive eye of our house photographer, Gilbert Décoinçon. Gilbert was so struck by the image that, for once, he set aside his scruples and abandoned his cherished black-and-white so as to capture it in color. The result is a remarkable photograph, much sought after. But I digress. Back to Pauline. On her bench. Next to the fire extinguisher. And now the Usurper. She didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, though she did experience a moment of mild surprise when Boehlmer — that is, he who she believed to be Boehlmer — did not pat her shoulder as he had done during every performance since the dress rehearsal.

  The moment she heard the phrase “loss of affection,” pronounced in a loud voice by the President’s counselor, Pauline was supposed to count off five Nebuchadnezzar’s, “Nebuchadnezzar 1,” “Nebuchadnezzar 2,” “Nebuchadnezzar 3,” “Nebuchadnezzar 4,” “Nebuchadnezzar 5,” and then storm onto the stage. Each Nebuchadnezzar was to represent approximately one second. During rehearsals Pauline had obs
erved that this particular name, if pronounced anywhere near correctly, and then followed by a number, took significantly longer than one second. She said she preferred Nabucco—“Nabucco 1,” “Nabucco 2,” and so on. Not wanting to give up his Babylonian sovereign for Giuseppe Verdi’s, Flavy closed discussion of the matter by declaring that he did not care whether it was five chronometrically precise seconds or not. He wanted five Nebuchadnezzars and not one less. Changing tack, he went on to explain that the name should become “something like a mantra, the actress’s mantra, a narrow path leading to her character.”

  Distracted by Boehlmer’s absent gesture, Pauline got tripped up in her Nebuchadnezzars and made an uneven entry, out of step with the evening’s accelerated pace. Flavy noticed, Flavy grimaced. He thought of going up to the (impersonated) Boehlmer to offer a final bit of advice. As you might imagine, this is not the sort of thing that actors, as a rule, welcome. Strangely enough, however, they almost seem to welcome it from Marcel, “the debonair dictator,” as Pacal-Bram calls him. Flavy is on record stating that it was at this moment he noticed that it was not Boehlmer who was waiting in the wings. He was so startled by this realization that he did not even try to prevent the Usurper from taking the stage. (And, after all, what good would it have done?) The entrance thus took place thirty seconds in advance, and quite jauntily — something we’ve chosen to adopt in subsequent performances.

  Boehlmer’s character is a rebel leader who had formerly been a brother-in-arms of the President of the Republican Council. Once in power, the President, ingratitude incarnate, stripped him of all rights and honors. Then he exiled him (“Be wary of he who crowns you”). But, unbeknownst to the President, the rebel (Boehlmer’s character) disguised himself and remained in the capital — a flickering flame, the clandestine conscience of a dishonored Republic.

  As soon as Flavy realized what had happened, what was happening, he reached for his walkie-talkie and issued an order, which it was my job to carry out. I was to find out what had happened to Boehlmer and whether he was in need of assistance — medical or otherwise. At that moment I was under the stage, having just released a fake rat that was made to traverse the boards by means of an invisible nylon string. I am the director’s assistant — and, by that virtue, his factotum. I am even sometimes called the Factota, which, linguistically speaking, is idiotic, but, well, there you go. I rushed backstage more than a little confused by the assignment I’d been given. I found Boehlmer’s door locked. I knocked. There was no response. I pounded. Still no response. Pressing my ear to the keyhole, I finally made out something, something faint — a groan that was immediately drowned out by a fierce argument coming from onstage. At this point in Flavy’s drama, the potentate and the pseudovagabond have not yet recognized one another, and are exchanging unpleasantries concerning the prostitute played by Soulemenov. (To be more precise, the President of the Council has not yet recognized his opponent, but the rebel may already have recognized his President. Although Flavy’s text doesn’t make this point clear, it would help explain the vehemence with which this man of the people counsels the prostitute against having anything to do with such a “dubious” personage as the disguised president.)

  After some hesitation, and a few unsuccessful attempts at further communication via walkie-talkie, I rushed off to find Flavy. I was getting more and more anxious as I ran through one worst-case scenario after another. Once I located Flavy, a new problem presented itself. He was standing in the wings and didn’t want to come with me. To watch an actor in profile is a special pleasure for the connoisseur, all the more so when that actor is unknown, unexpected — and perhaps acting for the first and last time. Such an actor is, as Flavy would later remark, a hapax of the stage. (A typical Flavian remark. Hapax means unicum.) I too, however, soon fell under the Usurper’s spell. I stood rooted to the spot, fascinated by how he seemed instinctively to find the perfect intonations for every line, and yet through certain professional shortcomings botched several passages. In doing so, he completely inverted the hierarchy of values that six weeks of rehearsal had firmly established. The stranger had evidently seen our first performances — and, who knows, maybe even our rehearsals — as he not only knew his lines by heart, but every gesture, no matter how slight.

  As the Usurper called out, “In virtue of my powers stripped,” he reminded me of a gifted student of Léna Gomborska, or even of the early Léprant; one of the ones who didn’t follow the former to Latin America or the latter to Pernand-Vergelesses. Though shaken from habits laboriously acquired, Jean-François Ernu and Sylvestre Pascal-Bram both adapted relatively well, mutatis mutandis. At moments, they even seemed concerned that they might not be holding their own against the newcomer. Think of all the things that must pass through an actor’s mind when he or she is confronting something unprecedented onstage, and to which he or she must react in the unseen blink of an eye. Question after question. Has there been an accident? Was this planned? Is it a test? A destabilization exercise? An initiation ritual? A waking nightmare? But there’s little time to wonder, and none to be shocked. You have to deal with what’s before you, relying on your reflexes, and without the luxury of crossing your fingers.

  In other words, the moment was filled to bursting with an extraordinary intensity. Compared with the preceding performances, this new incarnation of the fallen rebel was at once more touching and more fervent. What’s more, he was both of these things earlier in the play. It was fascinating to observe. This is not meant as a criticism of Boehlmer’s performance. He had only been following orders, after all — ones that reflected, from the very beginning, a conception of the role which he shared with the author and director of the play as little, apparently, as did his talented Usurper.

  I was the first to emerge from this hypnotic state. I told Flavy that it was imperative he come to Boehlmer’s aid, stressing that the man’s life might be at stake. At last, and unwillingly, Marcel made for the spiral staircase. I let him go first. He has authorized me to report that he was furious—furious with Boehlmer for putting the performance at risk on precisely the evening when the feared critic Botsinas had chosen to come, armed, as ever, with his inflexible expectations. We entered Boehlmer’s dressing room by force: Flavy kicked in the door, shattering the wood of its frame.

  Boehlmer was doubled over, drooling a little. Flavy took hold of the front legs of the chair, lifting them roughly so as to raise the head of the still-confined man. No sooner had he done so than he began assailing the gagged actor with questions. I thought it prudent to intervene at this moment and undid, not without difficulty, the patriotic scarf tied around Boehlmer’s head. He spit out the plastic bag that had been stuffed into his mouth and then vomited, making inarticulate noises as he did so. Flavy grabbed a largish nail clipper from a nearby makeup kit and began slashing furiously at Boehlmer’s bound wrists. Flavy is a far cry from agile and I feared that he would only succeed in wounding the forearms of the man whom he hadn’t ceased berating as I’d never seen him berate anyone before. He called the — at last liberated — Boehlmer an idiot and an imbecile. If anything, however, Boehlmer was even more infuriated than his abusive rescuer. Gradually straightening his bent spine, he called Flavy inept, incompetent, a twit, a scumbag, a loser, and, finally, a traitor to his class — the last of these a surprisingly dated slur. He charged Flavy with being so incapable that he couldn’t even guarantee the security of his actors. Both men were to regret this violent exchange, untempered by the least self-control and in no way reflecting the excellent working conditions to which the entire company had grown accustomed. I tried, at first without great success, to calm the two men.

  Flavy continued to thunder away: “For example? You want to know what, for example, you could have done? You could have defended yourself! For example! Taken a swing at him! For example! That is, you could have, if you had the…” Flavy paused dramatically.

  “The what? Go ahead! Say it!”

  “You want me to say it?”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, I want you to say it! Go ahead! Say it!”

  “If you had the balls!”

  “The balls? You want to see what I have the balls for? I’ll show you what I have the balls for!”

  Things were getting out of control.

  “Okay, okay—” said Flavy with a placating gesture.

  A distracted look came over Boehlmer’s face. “The stage!” he cried. “What’s happening on stage?”

  “On stage? You want to know what’s happening on stage?” Flavy regained the full force of his anger. “What’s happening on stage is that you’re fired! More than fired, you’ve been replaced! Favorably replaced!”

  “What?” But Boehlmer didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed the tricolor scarf from me — I still don’t know why — and charged out of the dressing room. It didn’t take long for us to realize the catastrophe that would result from a near-naked Boehlmer rushing out onstage to attack his own character. We took off after him. Successive stampedes down the metal staircase that leads to the stage set it shaking. We heard the authoritarian “shh!” of the stage manager Jean-Pierre Capelier who, working the stage lights, looked more than a little unsettling in his black clothes, black facemask, and black gloves. Flavy managed to trip Boehlmer just as he was about to run out on stage. He then completed his maneuver by hitting Boehlmer on the head with a wooden doorstop that happened to be within reach. I can bear witness to the fact that he apologized as he struck. The stage’s side curtain reacted with a silent shudder.

  The sounds of pursuit and capture had been heard by the actors but not the spectators — except perhaps those in the first rows. On stage the actors showed remarkable professionalism, discipline, and presence of mind in refraining from looking over at us. No sooner was Boehlmer unconscious than Flavy had me call a doctor. And then, within moments, he was back under the spell cast by the Usurper and the originality of what was transpiring on stage. The newest member of our troupe displayed a freshness and skill that calmed us in the face of disaster (though this was a calm mixed with cowardice). Given our other options, it seemed best to let things take their course, to continue our quiet study. Transfixed, as it were, by the silver lining of his misfortune, Flavy was rapidly taking notes, finding himself almost convinced — as he was to confess later — of the superiority of the Usurper’s dramaturgical ideas. He even went so far as to consider offering him a place in the troupe, effective immediately.