From the top of the stairs, Solomon saw a sliver of the mechanics beneath the stage—cams, pistons, gear trains, and a complicated pattern of twisting pipes. The platform was built of five sections: the foreground, middle ground, and background, each made of thousands of tiny square mechanical panels, and the two strips of solid floor between, where all the standing markers had been placed.
“Are you coming?” asked Dahlia.
Solomon glanced out toward the empty theater seats, dark in contrast to the brilliance of the stage. His audience was nothing more than silent shadows, but his imagination gave faces to them, the theater hall packed with quiet critics, their lidless eyes watching, waiting for him to make a mistake. He curled his hand into a fist to stop it from shaking. A pressure weighed on his chest, and his insides twisted sickeningly. Blood fled from his hands and feet, leaving his fingers and toes dead and cold. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his breath unsteady.
“Are you all right?” asked Dahlia quietly. Her heels clicked on the brass stage as she approached, and she gently laid a hand on his arm.
He glanced up at her and managed a slight shake of his head.
Without another word, she took his arm and led him down the stairs and into a seat. The shadows of the ghostly audience faded, and he was able to breathe again. He raised a shaking hand to his forehead. His fingers were like ice.
“Blimey.” She plopped down into the seat next to him. “I’ve never seen it so bad.”
Solomon swallowed. He still had the faint feeling he was going to be sick. “S-Seen what?” he croaked.
“Stage fright.” She frowned, and a fine line appeared between her brows. She glanced at the stage. “Usually it only happens to actors when there’s actually an audience watching, but you—” She bit her lip and turned her gaze back to Solomon, eyebrows arched high above her dark lashes. “You seem like you’re afraid of the stage itself.”
He only nodded in reply, his jaw clenched so tight he couldn’t speak without fear of being sick. Without invitation, Dahlia removed the script from his shaking fingers and closed her hands over his. Her steady fingers gave warmth back to his clammy skin, and after a moment his stomach settled and his hands stopped shaking.
“Better now?” she asked.
Hesitantly, he nodded.
She withdrew her comforting touch, resting her hands atop the scripts lying in her lap. “See? You’re all right.” She tucked a loose curl behind her ear and stared at the stage. “Obviously, we’ll have to start small with you, slowly work you toward being able to take the stage until it doesn’t bother you anymore.”
Solomon shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, don’t fret, Mr. Wade.” Dahlia smiled encouragingly. “It’ll get better. It always does; though it may take a little longer with you.” She patted his knee and stood. “It’s only a little fear. Nothing we can’t manage. If Mr. Niles thinks you can be an actor on that stage, then so do I.”
Solomon stared at the scripts in her hands. “He’s wrong. I’m not fit to be an actor. It was stupid of me to think I could—” He closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t even be here.”
“I won’t hear that,” she said smartly.
“But—”
“Mr. Wade, do you think you’re the only person who ever wanted to give up when something turned out more difficult than expected?” She leaned against the back of the seat behind her and crossed her arms, holding the scripts tight to her chest. “We all have doubts. We all fear failure. I know I do.”
Solomon glanced up at her. “But you don’t have a reason to. You’re a talented actress. Anyone can see that. But me . . . I can’t even stand on the stage without choking up.” He stared at the stairs to the left of the stage and sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Maybe not.” She uncrossed her arms and touched his shoulder. “But I do know if you’re determined enough, you won’t let it keep you from trying again.” She smiled warmly. “Don’t give up, Mr. Wade. Give up, and everyone who doubted you will win.”
“And if the person who doubts me the most is me?”
Dahlia drew back and placed one hand on her hip. “Then you ignore yourself and listen to me instead.” She offered her hand. “Help me prove you wrong.”
He glanced at her open palm. “You really think I can do it?”
“I do.” She reached forward and took him by the elbow. “Now get up.” She pulled him to his feet. “We need to find a place to practice.”
They ended up backstage in a room filled with the leftovers of previous productions. Between the dozens of costumes hanging on racks and the many props leaning against the walls, the remaining floor space was hardly larger than the supply closet in the foyer. But it was enough for Solomon and Dahlia to practice.
“Now,” she said. “Which scene would you like to practice first?”
Solomon stared at his script. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Well, you need to have enthusiasm for it. If you try to practice a scene you don’t care for, then you won’t put on your best performance. That’s a good way to get discouraged.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“From Antony and Cleopatra?” She pursed her lips and glanced over the racks of costumes. “Perhaps it is tragic of me, but the final scene, when Cleopatra takes her life.” She narrowed her eyes. “No. Rather, the scene before, the death of Antony.” She straightened, raised her chin high, and recited Cleopatra’s lament for Antony, giving the words such breath and life.
“Noblest of men, woo’t die?
Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty? O, see, my women,
The crown o’ the earth doth melt. My lord!
O, wither’d is the garland of the war,
The soldier’s pole is fall’n; young boys and girls
Are even now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.”
When she finished, Dahlia sighed with a smile, her eyes alight with the passion of the stage, and then bit her lip, the smile still showing through.
Solomon slipped his hat from his head and placed it on top of a treasure chest. “You know, you could be Cleopatra instead of Miss Kozlowski.”
Dahlia’s cheeks flushed deep red and she dropped her gaze to the floor. She shook her head, tossing her blonde curls around her face. “No, I couldn’t. Marion is—” She bit her lip. “Marion is so much more than I am. She is a queen upon the stage. And I—I am not.”
“You were a queen just then.”
She twisted a lock of hair around her finger, barely concealing a smile. “That’s kind of you to say, Mr. Wade, but Marion will always be a better actress than me. That is the fact of the matter.” She smiled meekly. “Perhaps someday I’ll lead a production, but that day is far away. I don’t have the talent to compete with Marion—or Damien, for that matter.”
“I’ve watched you,” said Solomon, “and I think you do. You’re much better than you give yourself credit for.”
She tucked a curl behind her ear, hiding a small smile, then lifted her script and flipped through the pages. She cleared her throat. “So, do you know which scene you would like to practice?”
Solomon didn’t look at his pages. “Will you be Cleopatra?”
Dahlia raised her eyes. “And you Antony?”
“I can be Antony,” he said quietly. “For you.”
A small smile crept onto her lips, and she raised her chin. “Then I can be your Queen of Egypt.” She flipped through the script. “What scene?”
“If it’s your favorite, then we’ll do Antony’s death.”
She nodded and flipped toward the end of the script. �
��Do you mind if we start in the previous scene, right after his failed suicide? I think doing them together will help you get into character.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“All right, then. It’s page thirty-two. Start right after line one-thirty, at Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides.”
Solomon skimmed through the script until he found the right line. He cleared his throat, feeling his nerves intensify, constricting his chest. He closed his eyes and exhaled a leveled breath. He wasn’t on the stage. Another deep breath. He was just practicing. He wasn’t even in front of an audience.
“Are you all right?” asked Dahlia. “Is it your nerves again?”
“No. I’m fine,” he said quietly.
He was with a friend.
Solomon cleared his throat again and read:
“B-Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;
’Tis the—the last service that I shall—that I shall command you.”
“Have a little more confidence,” said Dahlia. “It’s only you and me, remember? Be a little more dramatic with his lines, if you can, and your performance will be even better.”
He nodded, and she carried on with the next lines from the script before prompting him to continue.
Solomon cleared his throat. “Nay, good my fellows—” he said louder and with more gusto. He glanced at Dahlia, and she nodded enthusiastically. He continued, reading carefully over each line so that he did not stumble.
“—do not please sharp fate
To g-grace it with your sorrows. B-Bid that welcome
Which comes to punish us, and we punish it
Seeming to—”
“You’re reading,” said Dahlia sternly. “Remember, you are Mark Antony. You aren’t reading a play. You are giving Mark Antony another breath of life.” She raised her chin. “Like this . . .” She then recited the same lines with breathless passion, delivering Antony’s sorrow and regret with every syllable that she spoke, finishing with a pleased smile. “They’re more than words,” she added with an encouraging nod. “Remember that.”
Solomon sucked in a deep breath and nodded.
“Now try again.”
He said the lines again, trying to mimic the way she had spoken them.
“Much better!” she said, smiling brightly. “And now the next scene.” She and Solomon turned the pages of their scripts. “I’ll start at line eight, after the guard brings Antony to Cleopatra.” She cleared her throat and continued.
It went that way for a while—him stumbling over some of the words and Dahlia correcting him, and then he half stuttered the next lines, letting his courage falter until she encouraged him again. She was a good partner to practice with, never chiding or dispiriting him. Sometimes she repeated a few of Cleopatra’s lines, insisting that she’d missed emphasizing a word or had failed to convey the right expression. Solomon wondered if she did it to make him feel better about his own performance, or if she truly wished to be her best, even when practicing in an overstuffed supply closet.
An hour passed before they reached the last of Antony’s lines, and he tried to speak the words as if death waited for him at the end.
“Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o’ the world,
The noblest; and do now not basely die,
Not cowardly put off my helmet to
My countryman—”
“Good emotion,” said Dahlia, “but a little slower and clearer.”
Solomon picked up again, giving each word its weight.
“—a Roman by a Roman
Valiantly vanquish’d. Now my spirit is going;
I can no more.”
Dahlia nodded encouragingly and then recited again Cleopatra’s lament for her lover’s death, Solomon reading along with her. As she came upon the death of Antony, he made a choking sound in the back of his throat and stuck his tongue out, letting his shoulders and neck fall slack as he forced a dead expression on his face.
“What on earth was that?” she demanded, placing a hand on her hip.
“Antony dying, of course,” he explained, trying to keep the smile from his lips. He stepped forward and pointed to the line printed on the page. “It says it there: ANTONY dies.”
She swatted him away with the script. “I know what it says. No need to be so smart.” A smile broke through her stern face, a laugh on her lips. “Oh, Mr. Wade . . .” She brought her hand to her forehead and shook her head with a sigh, still laughing. “If ever there was a display of Antony’s death, I have not heard the best of it until now.”
He bowed with a flourish, and her smile faded.
“You’re better when you’re relaxed, you know,” she told him. “You don’t stutter so much.”
The back of his neck burned, and he bowed his head. “Er . . . thanks.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “You’ll get better with time and practice. Everyone does.”
A door creaked somewhere backstage.
“Mr. Wade, Miss Appleton, are you still here?” asked Mr. Niles.
Dahlia jumped. “Yes,” she called, her voice strained. She cleared her throat. “We’re in the storage room.”
Mr. Niles’s light footsteps strode across the wood floor, and then he appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing back here?”
“Practicing,” she said. She glanced at Solomon and smiled kindly. “Mr. Wade, it seems, has stage fright.” She clutched her script to her chest and faced the director. “We thought a different setting might help.”
“And did it?” asked Mr. Niles.
“Oh, yes,” she said brightly. “He’s much better when he’s relaxed. I told him so.”
“I am glad to hear it.” He nodded and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “Though I’m afraid you’ll have to reconvene your practice another time. It’s quite late. Paperwork took longer than expected.” He stifled a yawn. “Should I call you a cab, Miss Appleton? I don’t know if they run this late, but—”
“That’s all right, Mr. Niles,” she said. “I thought Mr. Wade could walk me, if he doesn’t mind of course.”
Solomon straightened. “Not at all.”
“Very well then,” said Mr. Niles. “I’ll follow you out.”
Solomon snatched his hat from atop the treasure chest and they left the storage room and crossed the theater hall to the foyer. There, he grabbed his coat from the supply closet and met Dahlia at the entrance. “Where is it you live?” he asked her.
She wrapped the scarf around her hair and tucked the ends into the collar of her coat. “Do you know where the old Tuesenberry building is?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s me.” She pulled her gloves onto her slender fingers. “Are you ready to go?”
He nodded, and they followed Mr. Niles out the door. The cold night air bit at Solomon’s cheeks, and he plunged his hands deeper into his coat pockets to keep his fingers warm.
Mr. Niles locked the door behind them and tipped his hat. “Tomorrow, then.” He turned and strode down the empty street.
Solomon and Dahlia followed him for a block and then turned down Brancaster toward the fourth quadrant. The narrow street was slick with creeping frost, and patches of snow hid in the nooks and crannies along the brick walls.
Dahlia breathed in the winter air, her cheeks pink from the icy wind. “I should thank you, you know.”
“What for?”
She stared up at the smokestacks leering over the eaves of the buildings. “For practicing with me. It’s nice having someone to talk to, someone to laugh with.” She bowed her head, and a stray curl fell free of her scarf. “You know, for being a friend.” She glanced at him through her dark lashes, her gray scarf fluttering in the wintry breeze.
“Yeah.” He smiled. “I guess it is.”
&nb
sp; They walked the rest of the way in silence. When they reached the street for the Tuesenberry, Dahlia pulled her jacket more tightly around her shoulders and sighed. “This is me.”
Solomon glanced at the faded green door to the old, run-down building. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
She stopped at the door and looked up at him. “Of course. I look forward to it,” she said with a smile. “To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell sweet playfellow . . .”
She bowed her head with a laugh, and Solomon opened the door.
“After you, dear Hermia,” he said, gesturing inside.
Dahlia hesitated at the door and arched her eyebrows at him. “You know A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
He nodded. “It’s my favorite, the first play I ever saw.”
“Is it really?” She grinned. “I always thought it was a little girl’s play—the fairies, you know.” She stepped through the door and walked into the atrium. He followed her inside. “I think Mr. Niles wants to do that play for our next production.” She pulled her scarf away from her hair and glanced back at him. “Do you think you’ll audition?”
“I don’t know,” he said, following her across the checkered floor. “I doubt I’ll be good enough by then.”
“It’ll be a few months. Antony and Cleopatra will likely run through March, longer if the play is a success.” She removed her gloves and looked up at the arrow over the closed lift gates, slowly spinning toward the ground floor. The lift rattled above them as they waited. “I’d like to try for Titania,” she continued. “What about you?”
Solomon stuck his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged. “Puck, maybe? But I doubt I’d get such a big part—if I got a part at all.”
Dahlia paused and touched his arm. “Don’t doubt yourself, Mr. Wade. You have months to improve.” She smiled. “You’ll get there.”
He felt his cheeks warm, and he bowed his head. “Er . . . thanks, Miss Appleton,” he said quietly, distractedly rubbing the back of his neck.
“Oh, please call me Dahlia.” She grinned more broadly, her rosewood lips framing the gap between her two front teeth. “You don’t have to be so formal now that we’re friends.”
The Mechanical Theater Page 4