The Mechanical Theater

by Brooke Johnson

  “Nineteen, sir.”

  “And what do you do for work?”

  Solomon frowned. “I shovel coal in the boilers, down in the subcity.”

  “A Guild employee.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Niles nodded thoughtfully. “If you don’t mind me asking, what do they pay you?”

  Solomon ground the toe of his boot into the carpet, his eyes on the polished silver ring on the man’s finger, the unfrayed cuff of his shirtsleeve. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “Three pence an hour, sir.”

  “That’s good money.”

  He glanced up at the director’s face and nodded. “It is for me and mine, sir.”

  “But it’s not what you want, is it? That’s why you’re here.” The man stared at him over the rims of his glasses. “You want more than a life shoveling coal into a boiler furnace.”

  Solomon swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Niles inhaled a deep breath and sat down in his chair. He arranged a few sheets of paper into stacks and rubbed his chin. He nodded slowly. “You have potential, boy. That I can see.” He leaned back and adjusted his glasses. “What you need is the opportunity to improve. Now, I can’t pay you better than the Guild, but I have a proposition for you: work for me here as caretaker, when time allows, and I can pay you a single penny for every hour you’re here.”

  Solomon frowned. “I appreciate the offer, sir, but I can’t leave my job at the boilers for—­”

  “My boy, do you want to be an actor someday?”

  He swallowed. “I do, sir.”

  “Work for me, and you’ll learn how.” He straightened his glasses. “No one is born with the ability to enrapture an audience with their words. None of us got here without working for it.” He leaned on the arm of his chair. “I know you can’t leave your job at the boilers, and if I could pay you more than a penny an hour to get you out of there, I would.” He removed his glasses and scratched the side of his nose. “All I’m asking is that you come here an hour or two a day, when you can spare it, and you study how the others command the stage. Listen to the nuances of their voices and watch their movements as they deliver their lines. Study them. And when you have the time, you practice.”

  Solomon frowned. “Why, sir? Why would you offer me this?”

  Mr. Niles settled into his chair and clasped his fingers together in front of him. “I think you could be something if you had the right opportunity. I’d like to give you that chance.”

  “You mean it, sir?”

  Mr. Niles nodded. “I do.”

  Solomon swallowed the lump in his throat. “Then I’ll do it. I’ll come to the theater during my off hours. I’ll pay attention, learn, practice. I’ll work to get better.”

  “Good.” Mr. Niles rose from his chair and stretched his hand across the desk. “Then you start tomorrow, if you can. The actors use the stage every night, and I’m here most of the day. Just come when you’re able.”

  Solomon shook his hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  The director regarded him seriously, his eyes stern. “Show me you deserve this. Show me that my generosity isn’t wasted on you, that you will work to become the actor you have the potential to be, and you’ll make far more than three pence an hour. I can guarantee you that.”

  He nodded firmly. “I will.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Mr. Niles adjusted his glasses. “Come in.”

  The door creaked open and a blonde girl stepped into the office, her hair pulled back into a loose bun at her neck. She wore mascara and dark rosewood lipstick. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Niles, but—­” She glanced at Solomon. “Oh—­I didn’t know you were with anyone.” She bit her lip. “Sorry, sir.”

  “That’s quite all right, Miss Appleton.” He gestured to Solomon. “This is Mr. Wade. He’ll be working at the theater as caretaker for a while.”

  Miss Appleton raised her eyebrows and smiled, a small gap between her two front teeth. “Oh, is that so?” She offered her hand. “Then, welcome to Le Theatre Mecanique, Mr. Wade.”

  Solomon slapped the two shillings and sixpence he’d earned from Mr. Allen onto the kitchen table.

  Matron Etta furrowed her thin brows and grazed her fingers over the silver coins. “I thought you didn’t get paid until Saturday.”

  “Stumbled into a job when I was out.” He suppressed a grin and pointed to the money on the table. “That plus the leftover from last week’s wages should pay for another bottle of medicine, shouldn’t it?”

  She tapped her fingertips on her lips and nodded absentmindedly.

  “And I found something that will let me bring a bit extra in, when I’m not working the boilers. It doesn’t pay what the Guild does, but it’s honest money.”

  Emily coughed in the bedroom.

  Matron forced a smile through the wrinkled concern on her face and placed a hand on Solomon’s shoulder. “Thank you, Sol.” She swallowed. “Without you and Petra . . .” Tears shined in her eyes, and she blinked them back. “We would have sunk low long ago without you two.” She glanced at Constance, sitting across the table with a book in her lap. “And you too, dear. You three hold this family together.”

  Solomon gently squeezed her hand. “It’ll get better. Emily will recover, and we’ll be better off than before. You’ll see.”

  Another cough wracked through Emily’s chest, and Matron’s face tightened. She patted Solomon once more on the shoulder and then disappeared into the bedroom.

  Constance set her book on the table and pulled her frizzy blonde hair into a ponytail. “It’s getting worse.”

  Solomon tightened his hand into a fist. “She’ll get better, though, won’t she?”

  Constance stared at the door to the bedroom. “I don’t know, Sol.” She shook her head slightly. “I really don’t know.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Solomon rose before sunrise the next morning. He dressed in silence, careful not to wake the others, but as he took his hat and coat from the rack next to the door, the floorboards of the spare room creaked, and Matron Etta stepped into the living room, a blanket wrapped around her thin frame. Her dark hair lay in a tangled braid over her shoulder.

  “Are you off to work?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

  Solomon nodded.

  “Can you stop by the doctor’s house and leave a note with his wife? Emily’s cough is getting worse.”

  He pressed his lips together. “Is she going to be all right?”

  Matron glanced back into the room and sighed. “I hope so. For now, it’s only a cough, nothing to worry about yet.” She tugged the blanket snuggly around her shoulders.

  One of the boys stirred in the middle of the living room floor.

  “Go on,” Etta whispered. “Don’t be late for work.”

  He adjusted his hat and slipped out the door.

  The morning was icy and grim. The gas lamps flickered in a feeble effort against the frosty wind, and thick clouds of black woodstove smoke hovered above the city in a haze. Solomon bundled his coat closer to his body, trying to trap the warmth against his skin, but the heat escaped through the worn, holey tweed as if he wore nothing more than a plain shirt. He shivered and stomped off the cold before heading toward Andover, to Dr. Handley’s.

  Solomon reached the doctor’s house as the courthouse bell tower rang out the hour and a bleak sunrise lightened the gray sky. He raised his hand to the knocker and rapped the iron handle against the door.

  After a moment the maid answered. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I need to leave Mrs. Handley a note,” he told her. Etta, not wanting to concern the doctor—­and also unable to afford it—­directed her requests to Dr. Handley’s wife. “I’m one of Etta Wade’s,” he added in explanation.

  “I can go get her if it’s urgent,” the maid replied.


  Solomon shook his head. “No, that’s all right. If I could just write it down . . .”

  The maid nodded. “I’ll get a pen and paper. Just a moment.” She closed the door but quickly returned. “Here’s Mrs. Handley now, if you would rather speak to her in person.”

  He straightened. “All right.”

  The maid disappeared back into the house, and Mrs. Handley appeared in the doorway. “Why, Solomon Wade . . .” She smiled and rested her hands on her hips, looking him up and down. “It’s been a while. You’ve grown.”

  “I have, ma’am.”

  “Would you like to come in?” She opened the door wider and gestured inside. “It’s awfully cold out. Beatrice can make you some tea and biscuits if you’re hungry.”

  His stomach rumbled at the thought of a warm breakfast, but he shook his head. “No thank you, ma’am. I have to go to work. I needed to leave you a message is all.”

  Her smile faded. “Is everything all right? How’s Emily?”

  “Worse,” he admitted. “Etta sent me. She said you would know what Emily needs. I don’t have any money with me now, but—­”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” she said dismissively. “I’ll get the payment from Etta later.” Mrs. Handley pursed her lips, and her thin eyebrows scrunched together. “How much worse has she gotten? Is she expelling phlegm? Does it have a color?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe. She hacks a lot, especially at night.”

  “Hmm.” She raised her hand to her mouth and chewed on her thumbnail with a frown. “She’s not getting any better at all with the treatment I provided?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I would have thought the medicine would have worked. It’s been how long now?”

  “Two weeks, I think,” he said.

  Mrs. Handley inhaled a deep breath and nodded. “All right. I will try to have something else to Etta by the end of the day. Thank you for coming by. It was nice seeing you again,” she said with a warm smile. “Be well.”

  She waved goodbye and closed the door, and Solomon turned toward the boilers.

  Solomon reached the theater that evening as the gas lamps sprung to life, illuminating the streets with a flickering glow, and as he walked through the brass-­gilded doors into the theater foyer, he actually felt some sense of belonging, even though he wasn’t there as an actor. Mr. Niles wasn’t in his office, so he strode into the theater hall, where the others were already practicing.

  Miss Appleton was on the stage, reading her lines to the dark-­haired girl opposite her. “Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?” she asked.

  “Not in my husband’s nose,” said the other girl with a smirk.

  “Our worser thoughts heavens mend!” Miss Appleton giggled. “Alexas—­come, his fortune, his fortune! O let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee!” she wailed. “And let her die too, and give him a worse! And let—­” She huffed and dropped her arm to her side, the script in hand. She rubbed her temples. “Sorry, let me try again.”

  The director nodded.

  She straightened and inhaled a deep breath. “ . . . sweet Isis, I beseech thee!” she continued more fervently. “And let her die too, and give him a worse! And let worst follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold!” She expended the last of her single breath on the final word, breathed in deeply and continued, “Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!”

  “Much better,” said Mr. Niles. “And now you, Iras.”

  The other girl read her lines, and the scene continued until Mr. Niles called out the entrance of Cleopatra.

  Marion Kozlowski strode onto the stage, her chin held high and eyebrow arched with regal authority. “Saw you my lord?” she asked.

  “No, lady,” the director responded from the script, the actor for that character absent.

  “Was he not here?”

  “No, madam,” said Miss Appleton.

  Marion frowned. “He was disposed to mirth; but on the sudden

  A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!”

  “Madam?” answered Mr. Niles.

  “Seek him, and bring him hither.

  Where’s Alexas?”

  “Here, at your ser­vice,” said another young man, standing at the edge of the stage. “My lord approaches.”

  Marion raised her chin. “We will not look upon him: go with us.”

  “Exeunt,” said Mr. Niles. “We’ll stop there and retry. Miss Appleton, you need to add more pettiness to your performance, and Miss Lachance, you are the more pragmatic of the two in this scene. Show your disdain of Charmian’s behavior.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the other girl.

  “And is there anything I need to improve?” asked Marion.

  Miss Appleton whispered something to Miss Lachance, and they descended into a fit of giggles. Mr. Niles glanced at them with a raised eyebrow, quickly silencing their laughter with a stern glare, and then he turned back to Marion.

  “Perhaps if you flourished your movements more,” said Mr. Niles with an exaggerated wave of his hand. “Cleopatra is one for theatrics. We are already upon the stage, but she needs to transcend it. She needs to be more than the audience is used to, bordering on melodrama. But she is also strong. Let her strength and seriousness show through the theatrics, but never let it outshine her performance. That is the essence of her.”

  Marion nodded.

  “Again,” said Mr. Niles.

  They went through the scene a second time. Miss Appleton repeated each of her lines until she got them perfect, as did the others. They seemed to utter every single word as if it were their last, and if they didn’t deliver the words with the utmost emotion and optimal projection, it was a word wasted.

  Except Marion Kozlowski.

  When she came onto the stage, every word from her mouth was perfect the moment it left her lips. It seemed almost unfair to Solomon. Marion was born for the stage—­whatever Mr. Niles might say—­as if she came into being knowing every part she would ever play by heart. She hardly glanced at the script, delivering each of her lines in the most natural way, and when onstage, she wasn’t Marion Kozlowski anymore. She was whatever character she needed to be, and at that moment, she was the queen of Egypt, the tragic Cleopatra.

  Seeing the troupe practice together, Solomon understood what Mr. Niles had meant when he told him he was not yet fit to act alongside the actors and actresses of Le Theatre Mecanique.

  The actors repeated the same scene a few times more before Mr. Niles called for a short break. Marion drifted down the stage stairs and strolled up the aisle between the rows of theater seats toward the foyer. Her dress sashayed around her perfect tightrope stride, and her mahogany curls bounced with each step. Solomon slipped his hat from his head as she passed, unable to stammer even the smallest bit of praise.

  “She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” someone said. He turned to see Miss Appleton, a smile on her flushed face.

  “You were good too,” he said, feeling the back of his neck grow hot.

  “No, I wasn’t,” she said, grinning. “But thank you. I still have a long way to go before I’m anywhere close to as good as Marion—­or Damien, the male lead.” She pointed out a young man with short hair speaking to Mr. Niles. “That’s him there, our Mark Antony.” She faced Solomon, hands on her hips. “Mr. Niles didn’t know what time to expect you. He’ll be glad to know you’re here.”

  Solomon glanced at the director, talking to the two actors. “I still don’t know what exactly he wants me to do. I’ve never done custodial work before.”

  “I imagine he wants you to sweep about or something, make sure everything is in order when we all leave, that sort of thing.” She nodded toward M
r. Niles. “You know, he could probably tell you better than I can. Come on.” She grabbed his arm with a wink and dragged him to the front of the hall. “Mr. Niles,” she said politely. “Mr. Wade is here now.”

  The director turned around and smiled. “Oh good. I’d hoped you’d be here tonight.” He faced the actors again. “I need to speak with Mr. Wade a moment. Once Marion returns, start working on the next scene. Have Peter read the lines for the messengers. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Marion isn’t even in this scene,” said Damien.

  “No.” Mr. Niles arched an eyebrow. “But she is part of this cast. Wait for her.”

  The theater director turned up the aisle toward the door, and once his back was turned, Damien rolled his eyes and nudged the person beside him with a chuckle, gesturing at Solomon. The both looked him over, making snide comments about his clothes and appearance.

  Miss Appleton frowned and strode forward, leaving Solomon’s side. “Stop it, the both of you,” she said, swatting the other boy’s arm. “You have no right to be so unkind.”

  Damien held out his hand and pulled her close, settling his arm comfortably around her shoulders, still sneering at Solomon. Miss Appleton frowned slightly and then mouthed a silent apology to him.

  Solomon just shook his head and left, following Mr. Niles up the aisle.

  “Now,” said Mr. Niles, when the two of them were in the foyer. “I want you working where you can pay attention to the actors. So, when they’re here, you should be tidying up the theater hall—­the balconies, the seats and aisles, the orchestra area—­anywhere within sight of the stage. If the cast happens to be backstage, you can clean the dressing rooms and prop storage. You have to observe them in action, Mr. Wade, if you want to learn anything. If you happen to be here and no one is practicing, then you can tidy up the foyer, the halls, the ticket box, and every other nook and cranny of the place. I am paying you to be caretaker, so even though I want you to study the actors, you still have to do your job, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He led Solomon to a closet near the ticket box and unlocked the door. “We keep the cleaning supplies here.”