Me and Orson Welles

by Robert Kaplow

  Cotten called down after me. “Don’t! Richard, you’re going to make it worse. Let me—”

  Vakhtangov was standing guard by Welles’s dressing room. “He’s gone. They’re all gone.”

  “Oh, fuck you.” I tried the door. It was locked.

  I tore back up the stairs to get my hat and coat. Cotten was dressed and ready to leave.

  “Wait for me!”

  “Richard! For Christ’s sake! Listen to me! He won’t back down tonight. I’m telling you; don’t go to the party! You will only make it worse.”

  I stopped running. “He can’t dismiss people like this! People’s lives just don’t exist on the whim of Orson Welles! Don’t I count, Joe? Don’t I count at all?”

  He looked at me with compassion.

  “You mean to tell me that no one in this company would stand up for me? Would argue for me?”

  “You’re asking them to walk away from a hit show for you? In the middle of a Depression?”

  I opened my mouth, but there were no more words.

  “I’ll argue for you, Richard. That’s all I can do.”

  “If I were there—in front of people—at the party—”

  “So Welles is going to back down in front of the whole company? With you standing there? That’s what you’re expecting?”

  I held my head. “I don’t know what I’m expecting.”

  “Go home, Richard.”

  “This is home!”

  The theatre was nearly empty. I stood by the open third-floor window. The air felt rainy.

  Next to the window, outside, a ladder led up to the roof. I wiped my eyes and stepped onto the fire escape.

  Stefan and Skelly had gone home. Everyone had gone home.

  I climbed the ladder.

  On the roof, New York was lit like an enormous stage set: a thicket of supporting cables, ventilator shafts, streetlights—all silhouetted in the fog. It reminded me of the night I’d slept with Sonja.

  I sat on a tar-paper-covered abutment. Its wetness soaked through my pants. The rain was a fine mist now.

  In my head I still argued my part back from Welles.

  Maybe tomorrow he’d listen . . . .

  I removed my hat and rubbed my temples. Then I took my scarf and tied it as tightly as I could, like a headband, around my forehead. It seemed to ease the ache that was spreading behind my eyes.

  My ears rang with Caesar.

  Poor knave, I blame thee not,

  Thou art o’erwatched.

  This is how it ends, I thought. And there you are, unsure of everything but your own headache—tumbling back to some old sense of belonging nowhere.

  I tried to shake the self-pity, but I felt as if I were growing physically smaller.

  And I said to myself: This is too small a loss to feel this kind of despair, Richard. You haven’t made the theatre your life. This has been just one lucky week for you—one week that came and sparkled and passed.

  And still part of me argued with Welles. It pleaded: What did I do that was so wrong?

  Maybe I could call Tony’s—say I was somebody else—maybe he’d get the phone—or I’d just show up there and force my way in and—

  I walked to the edge of the roof and looked out over the city—its immensity in the night. The buildings rose like the massive hulls of ships. A fire engine howled below. A bus passed. And the illuminated headlines wrapped around the Times Building. And the rain fell on every brick and stone of the city.

  From my pocket I took out the small card Welles had given me. Two hearts joined by an arrow. Orson.

  “Kiss my ass, Orson Welles,” I said, and flicked the card over the side of the roof.

  I heard myself breathing, and I watched my breath steam into the fog. The tension in my neck was loosening a little.

  I walked along the edge of the roof. I studied the city rising in its towers and wires—and I thought: What if I closed my eyes? What if I counted to five, and then opened my eyes again, and the whole city would be made perfect—and everything under the face of God would be exactly where it was supposed to be, and everyone would be doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing, and every speck of dust would be exactly in its right place? I shut my eyes and imagined the world turning to such a paradise, and I counted to five—and I opened my eyes and saw the city exactly as it had been before. Unaltered. Traffic passed. Somewhere below a neon light blinked.

  And I thought: Could this be paradise? Maybe every particle of dust is exactly where it’s supposed to be. Every turning, every heartache, every atom—exactly where it’s supposed to be—exactly where it could only be? There is nothing lifeless in the universe, no chaos, no disorder, though this may not be immediately clear to us. If only I could believe that. And the darkness and the skyscrapers and the fog and every water droplet—a kind of life: complex, connected—a kind of paradise, at least the only kind of paradise I would ever know. This crazy, beautiful web of light and stone.

  Footsteps on the roof; it was Sonja in her raincoat. “Richard, I’m sorry,” she began. “Orson is intractable. Do you believe me that I tried? I gave it everything I had . . . .”

  I was still thinking about paradise.

  “Richard?”

  “Oh, I believe you,” I said.

  “Orson’s playing the Tyrannical Director again. I’m sorry. I tried to talk to him. Joe Cotten tried to talk to him. John tried. Maybe in a day or two he’ll change his mind. What am I saying? He’s not going to change his mind.” She stood there, a silhouette with her hands in her pockets.

  “Sonja, what did I do that was so wrong?”

  “You told the boss the truth.”

  “And what are you supposed to tell the boss?”

  “ ‘You’re great, boss.’ ”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “So everybody lies . . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Richard.”

  “Can you arrange it so I can talk to him for five minutes? That’s all I want. O.K.? He doesn’t have to change his mind. I just want five minutes.”

  She had nothing to say—and even as I’d asked the question, its meaninglessness pained me.

  “You know,” I said, “a couple of days ago I was thinking that it would be the greatest thing in the world to be Orson Welles—to think like him, see the world through his eyes. You know, to have that static charge you were talking about? But I was just thinking: even if I was exactly like Orson Welles, even if I woke up tomorrow with all his talents, an exact copy of Orson Welles—who would I be? I’d be the guy-who-sounds-like-Orson-Welles. Wouldn’t I? I’d be the guy-who-directs-like-Orson Welles. I’d be the world’s greatest Orson Welles impersonator. And I would always be that. Always the second-rate Orson Welles.”

  “Whoever said you had to be Orson Welles?”

  “I did. I mean, I want to accomplish things, you know? As much as you do. I’m filled with dreams, too. Art. Music. Theatre. Enormous, absurd dreams.”

  “So who’s stopping you?”

  “What I mean is, I can never be a first-rate Orson Welles. Do you know what I’m saying? That job is already taken. I seem to be the last person on earth who’s figured this out. I’m Richard Kenneth Samuels. God, what a lousy name. But that’s who I am. Nothing more or less. Does any of this make sense to you?”

  “Not really,” she said gently.

  “It’s just something I’m feeling . . . ,” I said. “You going to the party?”

  She checked her watch. “My date’s picking me up downstairs. He told me he was going to be late.”

  “Not Welles, Sonja. At least tell me it’s not Welles.”

  “It’s David O. Selznick.”

  “You’re going to the party with David O. Selznick?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re amazing.”

  “You want to hear my prediction?” she said. “I’ll be working for him within two weeks, and within two months I’ll be a production assistant on Gone with the Wind.
And can I make a little prediction about you?”

  “Right now I couldn’t handle a bad one.”

  “It’s a good one. Possibly a great one. It’s that you’re not an actor, Richard. You’re a writer. I told you that before. You’re an observer. That’s your gift. Look at you, Richard—you sit and you take it all in.”

  “I don’t want to be an observer.”

  “But that’s who you are. Actors need to be loved, Richard. You don’t need to be loved like that.”

  “. . . and what do production assistants need?”

  “Power,” she said. “They need to be in a position where no one can ever relegate them to insignificance. Or dismiss them. Not ever. And that’s who I am.”

  “I want so much to be angry with you, Sonja—but when you’re actually here it all seems to dissolve away. I wish you luck, I guess.”

  “I won’t need luck. I don’t believe in luck.”

  I looked out at the city. “I don’t think I believe in luck anymore either,” I said. “It’s kind of a relief not to believe in luck, isn’t it? But I think I believe in something . . . I don’t know if I could even articulate what it is. The improbable beauty of the world?”

  “Of this world?”

  “Even this world,” I said. “Though this may not be immediately clear to us.”

  She shrugged, uncomprehendingly. “Well, you’ve got an interesting belief. Whatever it means.” She adjusted her collar. “But, hey, I don’t want to keep Mr. Selznick waiting, do I? How do I look?”

  “Like a girl who’s going to give one blindingly beautiful parting kiss to her cavaliere.”

  She walked over and gave me a light kiss on the side of my head.

  “Your hair smells like black licorice,” I said.

  I thought about showing up at the party.

  I didn’t.

  I just didn’t have the stomach to fight anymore that night.

  Maybe I’d call the theatre tomorrow. Maybe with time he’d change his—

  I walked toward Penn Station through the fog, and New York looked like a painting. Perfect and inexpressibly fragile. And even Orson Welles couldn’t take that away from me.

  “Sherlock Holmes weather!” somebody in a doorway announced as I passed Macy’s. Then I stood for a moment and tried to force myself to remember the streetlight and the mist and the adhesive sound of the tires on the wet street. And I thought: Someday I’ll use all this.

  Friday, November 12 Twenty-One

  I woke from a restless sleep filled with dreams of a party: Orson Welles standing behind a circular bar, and one by one he pointed a finger at his friends to join him in the center. They were all laughing and celebrating, and still I waited for him to point to me.

  The room was airless, and I felt a headache smeared across the left side of my face.

  It was five-thirty in the morning. I switched on the lamp and looked at my Playbill from last night—a simple white cover with printed in the center in dark brown.

  THE MERCURY THEATRE

  There on the inside under the “Call for Philip Morris” boy it read:LUCIUS...........PLAYED BY...........RICHARD SAMUELS

  I touched my name with my finger.

  Who’s Who in the Cast. Orson Welles (Brutus) was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin and came to the American theatre by way of Dublin, Ireland. In this country he has played Marchbanks with Katharine Cornell, and Mercutio and Tybalt in her production of “Romeo and Juliet.” Last season he played the title part of his own production of “Doctor Faustus.” He also has directed the Negro “Macbeth,” and has directed and appeared in such programs on the radio as—

  I tossed the Playbill on the floor.

  I sat in the back of Dr. Mewling’s Shakespeare class. Kristina Stakuna arrived late. She was dressed in her blue-and-white cheerleading uniform. I smiled at her—just Richard: the old friend who talked to her yesterday when she stole a smoke under the pine trees. Today she didn’t even see me.

  “Now where were we?” Mewling sat down and took the paper clip off his sheaf of yellow legal paper. “Now don’t all overwhelm me. Where were we? We were talking about Shakespeare’s chief source for Julius Caesar, which was—don’t all shout it at once now—Plutarch’s Lives, that’s correct. Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives.”

  I stared out the window in misery. It was really getting to be winter out there. The trees in the courtyard were black etchings against a wash of gray.

  And I suddenly realized how tired I was. So much had happened—the train rides, the rehearsals, the arguments, Joe Cotten on the stairs telling me I was fired, Sonja in her raincoat on the roof. My arms ached. My feet hurt. I wondered how anybody could keep up that pace? Who could live like that—day after day?

  Orson Welles could.

  Mewling placed a page of his notes on the bottom of the pile and continued talking to himself. “Perhaps if I read an extract from Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives aloud it will make this all clear. Plutarch writes that, quote, when it was told to him that Antony and Dolabella were in a plot against him, he said he did not fear such fat, luxurious men, but rather pale, lean fellows, meaning Cassius and Brutus, unquote. Now does this Plutarchian passage parallel any important lines in the text we were discussing yesterday? Come on, not everybody at once; we discussed this yesterday. Not one single person in this class can tell me the lines which parallel that passage? It occurs in act one, scene two; take out your books, ladies and gentlemen. Act one, scene two. We read this yesterday. Mr. Samuels, do you really expect to find the answer out the window?”

  “It parallels Caesar’s speech to Antony,” I said without taking my eyes from the window, “which goes: ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.’ ”

  “Excellent,” said Mewling.

  I could hear Joe Holland’s voice perfectly in my ear, and I went on reciting. “ ‘He is a great observer, and he looks quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays as thou dost, Antony; he hears no music. Seldom he smiles and smiles in such a sort as if he mocked himself and scorned his spirit that could be moved to smile at anything.’ ”

  “Impressive,” said Mewling.

  And still I went on. “ ‘Such men as he are never at heart’s ease whiles they behold a greater than themselves, and therefore are they very dangerous.’ ”

  “May I ask how you know the text so well?” asked Mewling.

  I looked at him. “I was in the play once.”

  “Oh, really? And when was that?”

  “Last night.”

  Caroline was now sitting at the Black Crow lunch table. She and Stefan weren’t even hiding anything now. I sat at the far end of the table, and I listened.

  The final performance of Growing Pains was taking place that night in the auditorium. Caroline was excited; everybody was talking about the huge party they were going to have afterwards at Kristina Stakuna’s.

  Then Stefan tried to pull me in by telling everybody at the table that he and Skelly had seen me on Broadway last night—but before he could even finish, he had turned the story into how they had yelled “Black Crow!” during the show. This immediately steered the conversation into an earnest discussion of who was buying beer that night. Then somebody farted, and Stefan cried out: “He who smelt it, dealt it!” And Caroline laughed so hard the milk ran out her nose.

  I walked toward home, then changed my mind and walked to the library. I read all the daily reviews for Julius Caesar.

  Something deathless and dangerous in the world sweeps past you down the darkened aisles at the Mercury Theatre . . .

  Shakespeare himself would have honored and relished it . . .

  Here, splendidly acted and thrillingly produced, is what must certainly be the great Julius Caesar of our time . . .

  Move over and make room for the Mercury Theatre . . . Brooks Atkinson began, and there followed a nearly unqualified rave.

  I didn’t know what to feel.


  Nobody mentioned my performance. I hadn’t really expected they would.

  Maybe I should call the theatre, I thought. Right now. Maybe there was still time. Maybe Welles had changed his mind . . . .

  I headed home. I imagined Cotten pleading with Welles. “Come on, Orson, you have to give him the part back. I’m begging you, Orson.”

  “For you, Joe, and only for you . . . .”

  When I got home I picked up the phone, but the vital energy to actually dial it seemed to have evaporated. I only stared out the window. A beat-up looking robin was walking carefully along the lawn. Then I dialed Mr. Goldberg at the Rialto Theatre, and I asked if I could come back to work on Saturday.

  “Richard,” he said, then turned from the phone and sneezed violently. “I’m so glad you called.”

  Hello, little life.

  I sat on my bed and traced my finger along the wings of the eagles printed on the wallpaper. The radio was tuned to Martha Deane. Woolcott Gibbs was the guest. “I’ve discovered there are two ways of doing Shakespeare,” he said. “The old way and the good way. By the old way, I refer to what Tallulah Bankhead is doing over at the Mansfield. By the good way I mean what Orson Welles is doing over at the Mercury.”

  I switched it off.

  “I quit,” I told my mother.

  “Good.”

  “I took your advice. I mean, they weren’t paying me.

  They weren’t even giving me train money. What did I need that for?”

  “You finally made a smart decision. Your father will be proud of you.”

  Simply to get out of the house that night, I walked to the high school.

  I sat in the audience, surrounded by somebody else’s parents, and watched Growing Pains. Somebody yelled “Black Crow!” from the audience. Somebody wolf-whistled at Kristina Stakuna. I felt stuck in an old place, filled with an old sadness.