The girl turned back to Noel. “That’s the way people get ulcers. People with vile natures always get ulcers. If I stay here much longer, I’ll get ulcers, too.”
“But is it true?”
“What?”
“That the whole season is set.”
“Of course it isn’t true. She only said it because she’s in a vile mood. What’s your name? I’m Jane Gardner.”
“I’m Noel Townshend.”
“Listen, I don’t mean to butt in,” Jane said, “but don’t be so nervous. You’re practically making the bench shake. After all, the world isn’t going to end if Price doesn’t give you a job. Nothing is that important.”
“But it is,” Noel said, “for me it is.”
The door to the office opened again and Kurt Canitz and the blond young woman came out. Mr. Canitz had his arm protectively about her. He ushered her gallantly to the door. Then he smiled at Sadie and looked around the room. His eyes rested on Jane, on Noel, on a little man in a bowler hat. Sadie picked up a stack of cards and called out, “Gardner.”
Jane rose: “That’s me—well, it’s only the fifteenth office I’ve been in today. What’ve I got to lose?”
Noel watched her as she walked swiftly into the office, shutting the door firmly behind her. Yes, Jane was obviously a person who knew her way around theatrical offices. She had a certain nervous excitement, like every actor waiting to hear about a job, but it was controlled, made into an asset; it gave a shine to her brown eyes, a spring to her step. Noel felt Jane was dressed correctly, too. She wore a pleated navy-blue skirt and a little red jacket. Her hair was very fair, a soft ash blond, and on it she wore a small red beret. Noel felt forlorn in the other girl’s absence, and suddenly foolish. She herself wore a simple blue denim skirt and a white blouse, and she felt that she belonged much more on a college campus than she did in a theatrical office on Forty-Second Street in New York. If someone as desirable as Jane had been in fifteen offices that morning and still did not have a job, then what was Noel thinking of when she was letting everything in the world depend on whether or not Mr. J. P. Price took her into his summer theatre company?
But Mr. Price was the only one who had sent her a possible answer to Noel’s letters of inquiry about summer stock companies. Many of the managers had offered her opportunities to apprentice but at two or three hundred dollars’ tuition fee. Mr. Price had simply sent her a card telling her to be at his office at two o’clock, April 14th, and he would see her then.
She looked around the office and thought, with an odd combination of defiance and forlornness, Well, even if nothing comes of this, I’ve seen something of how the professional theatre works, anyway.
She looked around her at the dingy ante-room; the buff-colored walls were cracked and some of the cracks were partially covered with signed photographs of actors and actresses of whom she had never heard. There were no familiar names like Judith Anderson, Katharine Cornell, Eva Le Gallienne, Ethel Barrymore. The air was thick with smoke, cigarette smoke overpowered by cigar smoke from the little man in the bowler hat who sat stolidly on a folding chair, surrounding himself with a cloud of heavy fumes. The small room was full of hot and heavy smells: smoke, perspiration, Sadie’s perfume, the humidity of the day.
She noticed Kurt Canitz sitting across the room from her writing busily in a small notebook. He looked up and stared directly at her for several seconds, then scribbled something else in the notebook, tore off the page, and gave it to Sadie with a radiant smile, and left. Noel wondered what his connection was with the theatre—was he an actor, a director, perhaps a producer?
Again the door of the office opened, and Jane came out. She grinned at Noel.
“Did you get the job?” Noel asked eagerly.
“Well, not exactly the job I went for, but at this point it’ll do. I’m going as an apprentice, which I swore last summer I’d never do again, but this time at least I got a scholarship.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” Noel exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”
“Thanks,” Jane said. “Good luck to you, too.”
Sadie was looking at her cards again. “Townshend,” she called.
Noel stood up.
Jane took her hand. “Good luck, really. I hope I see you there.”
“Thanks,” Noel answered, and went into the office.
“Well, what do you want?” Mr. Price asked her, looking her up and down until Noel flinched. “What can I do for you?”
“You can give me a job,” Noel said, and was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.
“And what kind of a job are you looking for, my dear?”
“A job in your summer theatre. As an actress.” Noel felt that her voice sounded flat and colorless; anxiety had wiped out its usual resonance.
“And what experience have you had? What parts have you played?”
Noel ignored the first part of his question. “I’ve played Lady Macbeth and Ophelia, and I’ve played Hilda Wangel in The Master Builder and Sudermann’s Magda, and the Sphinx in Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine.”
“A bit on the heavy side, wouldn’t you say?” Mr. Price asked her. “And aren’t you a little bit young for Lady Macbeth or Magda? How about something more recent—perhaps a little gayer?”
“Well, I’ve played Blanche in Streetcar—Oh, I know that’s not very gay, but it’s recent—and—I’ve done some Chekhov. One-acters, they’re not very recent, but they’re gay.”
“And where did you get all this magnificent experience?” Mr. Price asked her. “Why, after all this, have I never heard of you?”
“At college,” Noel said, looking down at her feet.
“My dear young lady.” Mr. Price sounded half-bored, half-amused. “Perhaps you do not realize, but I am running a professional theatre. I am sure you were very charming and very highly acclaimed at college, but I am really not contemplating producing Macbeth or Magda, or even The Infernal Machine. So what have I to offer you?”
“All I want is,” Noel said desperately, “anything.”
“Anything what?”
“Maids, walk-ons, working in the box office. Anything.”
“I take a certain number of apprentices,” Mr. Price said. “The fee is five hundred dollars.”
Noel shook her head. “I borrowed the money to come to New York to see you today. I—I—”
“And I suppose if I don’t give you a job you’ll jump off the Empire State Building? Or into the Hudson River? Or perhaps the East River would suit you better?”
“That’s not funny!” Noel said with a sudden flare of anger. “Would you really laugh if you were responsible for someone’s death?”
“If you did anything so foolish as to kill yourself, I wouldn’t be responsible, you would.” Mr. Price’s voice was calm and reasonable.
“As it happens,” Noel said, anger still directing her words, “I agree with you. And I do not approve of suicide under any conditions. However, a weaker character in my circumstances might.”
Now Mr. Price smiled. “Are your circumstances so very particular?”
“To me they are. You never know what people’s circumstances are.”
“Perhaps I can guess some of yours. You go to a good college and major in drama. Your family has a thoroughly adequate income.”
“Wrong,” Noel said. “I go to a good college but I major in chemistry and I am on a scholarship and I have no parents.”
“I stand corrected.”
Noel looked at him, tried to smile, and said, “And now, since you haven’t a job to offer me, I’ll say goodbye and go and throw myself under a Fifth Avenue bus.”
The door to the office opened and Sadie thrust her head in. “Say, Mr. Price, I almost forgot, Mr. Canitz left me another note to give to you.”
“Kurt is far too fond of putting his opinions down on paper. Someday it’s going to get him into a lot of trouble,” Mr. Price said. He read the note and handed it to Noel.
Kurt Canitz’s writing was s
trong and European-looking. He had written, “Give the tall girl with glasses a scholarship. I have a hunch about her.”
Mr. Price looked at Noel. “You’re tall—rather tall for an actress, incidentally—and you wear glasses, so I assume Kurt means you. By the way, how does it happen that you don’t take off your glasses for an interview?”
“I can’t see without them,” Noel said. “I meant to take them off, but I forgot. I don’t wear them on stage, of course.”
“I suppose I’ll have to answer to Kurt if I don’t at least have you read for me. All right, read for me.”
“If you like me, will you give me a scholarship?” Noel asked.
Mr. Price looked at her as Kurt Canitz looked at her, as though she were a horse he was appraising. “I’m known for being—shall we kindly call it being shrewd—about money, but as far as the theatre is concerned I also have a conscience. I collect as many hundred dollars’ tuition as I can. If a girl can offer it, why shouldn’t I take it? However, if I think a kid has possibilities I take her for the summer and I work her like a dog and I give her at least a couple of walk-ons and maybe a part if I think she can do it—or he, as the case may be—and for the benefit of these budding young workers in the theatre, I create scholarships. Usually two for young men and two for girls. I have both my men set and one of my women. You might possibly fit the other scholarship. Of course there’s room and board, but perhaps you could manage that? The apprentices and most of the resident company live at a cottage a few blocks from the theatre. The scholarship apprentices pay the minimum of twenty dollars a week. Could you manage that?”
“I’ll have to,” Noel said.
“I have the feeling that you’re a hard worker,” Mr. Price told her. “Also, believe it or not, I have a healthy regard for Kurt Canitz’s hunches—and also for his dollars, which help finance the theatre. More of a respect for his dollars and his hunches than I have for his acting, I might add, though I could pick a worse director. Okay, now read something for me.” He picked up a dog-eared copy of The Voice of the Turtle. “This is pretty much of a classic in its own way,” he said. “Maybe you won’t feel too much above it.”
Noel stood up. “Mr. Price, I know you’re laughing at me, and I know you have a perfect right to. Maybe the parts I’ve played are silly. I didn’t do them because I expected to replay my college triumphs on Broadway, but because they’re parts anyone who really cares about becoming an actress ought to study, and because it was my one real opportunity to work on them—until I’m an established actress and can really do them if I want to. Perhaps I won’t want to then. But I’ll have learned a lot from them that I can apply to anything I do.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Mr. Price asked her.
“No, but I have to talk as though I were.”
Mr. Price sighed: “Darling Miss Townshend—it is Townshend, isn’t it?—there are so many like you. So many who believe in themselves as potential great ones—and many who don’t have the handicaps of being tall and wearing glasses—so many who have real talent. Do you know that with ten young women of equal talent only one of them can possibly succeed? And of those who succeed only one out of ten is honorable, only one out of ten puts theatre above herself?”
“I’m willing to risk it,” Noel said.
Mr. Price sighed again. “All right—read for me.”
“What shall I read?” Noel took the book from him.
“Just hunt for a couple of longish passages. One of Sally’s, one of Olive’s. Are you familiar with the play?”
“We did it in college. I directed it, though; I didn’t play in it.”
“Good. That means you ought to know it pretty well, but you won’t be giving me a rehash of an old performance. Found something?”
“Yes. Here’s a speech of Sally’s.” Noel read the speech slowly, not trying to force a quick characterization. She made her voice low and pleasant, her words quick and clear and well defined, but she felt that she was failing thoroughly, that Mr. Price expected a performance. When she had finished the speech she said, “I’m sorry it was so bad. I don’t work very quickly. I mean, I can’t plunge into a character right away.”
“No, and you had sense enough not to try,” Mr. Price told her, and for the first time his smile was for her, not at her. “One of the great banes of my existence is the radio actor who gives a magnificent first reading and then deteriorates until his performance is thoroughly mediocre, if, indeed, it is possible at all. Many of my headaches have come from replacing a radio actor with a legit actor who gave a mediocre initial reading but ended up with a magnificent performance. Each time I cast a show I say that I won’t be fooled, and each time I am fooled. Okay, Miss Townshend, don’t bother to read any more. If you want to come under the terms I’ve outlined—as a scholarship apprentice—you may.”
Noel sat down abruptly. “Yes, I want to,” she said, and her voice sounded as though Mr. Price had punched her in the stomach.
“Good. Give Sadie your address and she will drop you a line as to trains and when to arrive and so forth. Also I will have her send you a note confirming all this so that once you get back to that good college of yours you won’t worry about my forgetting you. Goodbye, Miss Townshend. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the end of June, and you, in the meanwhile, may look forward to a summer of hard work.”
“Yes, thank you,” Noel said, still sounding winded.
Mr. Price smiled at her again. “And one more thing: I hope you realize that I’m offering you this opportunity not because of your reading but because of Mr. Canitz’s hunch and my own whim. The theatre is not a reasonable place. You may as well learn that now.” He held out his hand to her.
Noel shook it and left the office. She almost missed Jane Gardner, who was standing in the dim corridor leaning against a fire extinguisher.
“Hello. How did you make out?” Jane asked her. “I thought I’d wait and see.”
“I’ve got a scholarship,” Noel told her, beaming and very pleased at Jane’s friendly interest.
“Oh, good. I’m awfully glad. Look, let’s go have a cup of coffee at the Automat to celebrate.”
Noel hesitated and then said, “I don’t think I want any coffee, but I’d love to come while you have yours.”
“Fine.”
They went in the elevator, both smiling with a vague and dreamy happiness at the prospect of the summer ahead of them. And to Noel, New York was no longer frightening, but suddenly full of excitement and glamor, and the starkness of the Automat was vested in glory because Noel Townshend and Jane Gardner were going there and perhaps one day other struggling young actresses would say, “Do you know, Noel Townshend and Jane Gardner used to come here!” The great and famous Noel Townshend and Jane Gardner.
Noel sat at one of the tables and waited until Jane came back with two cups of coffee. “Just thought you might have changed your mind,” she said casually. “If you don’t want it, I’ll drink it—or, look, if you’re broke or something at the moment—and heavens knows almost everybody in the theatre is—you can pay me back sometime.”
“But that’s just the trouble. I probably can’t,” Noel said. Her voice sounded rather desperate.
Jane looked at her with friendly curiosity for a moment, then said lightly, “What’s a cup of coffee between friends? Anyhow, I was referring to the golden future when we’re both rich and famous and have our names in lights. Look, let’s get to know each other. I’ll give you my autobiography and you can give me yours. Though as for me, I’m a lot more exciting than my autobiography.”
Noel laughed. “Me, too.”
“I’m just a damned good actress,” Jane said. “How about you?”
“I’m a damn good actress, too.”
“Good. Now we know the most important things about each other. As for the unimportant details, I was born in New York and have lived here most of my life. My father teaches higher mathematics at Columbia, and I can’t count up to ten. Neither
can my mother, who is highly beautiful, but has never made me feel like an ugly duckling. I’ve graduated from Columbia, against my will, and on my parents’ insistence, though they’re both very nice about my wanting to be an actress, and last winter I went to the American Academy and fell madly in love with a great young actor named John Peter Toller, who also—and for this I get down on my knees and it’s why I took this scholarship because I’d rather have a scholarship with John Peter than a job anywhere else, though I honestly did try to get a job; I told you I’d been to dozens of other offices this morning—anyhow, where was I? Oh, yes, John Peter has a scholarship with Price this summer, too. He’s been away for two weeks visiting his parents and during these past fourteen days my life has been blighted. I feel as though I weren’t breathing when I’m out of his presence. He’s the oxygen in my air, the sun in my universe, the staff of my life. From this you may gather that he means a great deal to me, but please don’t tell him because he knows it far too well already. Now, tell me about you.”
A sober, rather sad look crossed Noel’s face. Then she said lightly, “There isn’t much to tell. My parents are dead and I live with my aunt in Virginia. She doesn’t approve of the theatre. I’ve graduated from college this spring, I’m foot-loose and fancy free.”
“Well, let me warn you of one thing, my dear young woman,” Jane said, finishing her coffee and leaning back in the chair. “Don’t let your fancies fall on Kurt Canitz.”
“I don’t think I’m going to let my fancies fall on anyone, but why not on Kurt Canitz?” Noel asked.
“Too many fancies have fallen on him and his have fallen on too many.”
“I think I’m safe,” Noel said. “Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses, and anyhow, right now, I’ve no idea of letting an emotional entanglement hamper my career.”
Jane laughed. “Now, if that doesn’t sound like a college graduate. My emotional entanglement, if you want to call it that, hasn’t hampered my career one bit. It’s helped it. I know more about life and humanity and understanding and compassion and knowledge—and therefore about acting, too—since I’ve known my darling John Peter than I’ve ever dreamed of knowing before. Just you wait, my girl, you’ll see.”
The Moment of Tenderness Page 9