by Bruce Barber
embarrassing behaviour – it isn’t as if she hasn’t seen me make an ass of myself before. And good to know we are still able to act like friends, in spite of the years, and her new lover.
Judging by my first few gin-soaked days, it seems that my friends and acquaintances remain loyal alumni of the Old School of alcohol consumption – the school run by the Marquis de Sade. It would probably be to my benefit to swear a mighty vow to earth and sky and ancestors to avoid those places and people that tempt me to strong drink: The Balls, O’Reilly, Sandra, Betty...
Fat chance.
ACT TWO
The SCOTTISH PLAY
... look down into this den,
And see a fearful sight of blood and death...
Titus Andronicus, Act II, Scene 3
(2:1) The Festival Theatre Marquee
The Festival Theatre is a sprawling building situated only a few blocks from downtown Stratford. The theatre’s design echoes on a grander scale the tent in which the first season’s plays were performed.
Extending along the rear of the Festival for some two hundred feet is the Marquee, an open-air deck on which receptions and other functions are held. The Marquee overlooks a hill that slopes gently down to a grass playing-field, the site of the annual cricket match between the Festival company and Niagara’s Shaw Festival. Looking up from the field, the tourist can see that directly under the Marquee is a stretch of plate-glass windows, running almost the entire length of the building. Behind these windows toil some of the theatre’s invisible wizards, the prop-builders, the costume-makers. Where the windows end to the east the wall sheers off at an angle, creating a small, sheltered alcove, overhung by a thin strip of the Marquee flooring.
On this overhang, Hobart Porliss, the director of The Scottish Play, and George Brocken, its designer, stood talking together, beside a circular hole in the deck, a well twelve or fifteen feet across, with, appropriately, a circular railing around it. The hole looked down approximately fifteen feet into the alcove. The well-hole above and the alcove below were rigged to allow actors to practice climbing rope-ladders from the ground level up to the Marquee. A lot of climbing went on in The Tempest. The well-end of the deck was empty except for several tables and a few chairs. As they talked, the two men leaned against the railing, one leaning more heavily than the other.
“When did you get back?” Porliss asked, politely but without much interest.
“Last night. I’ve only got a few days before I have to be in Santa Fe. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look in on you. Is everything holding up all right?”
Brocken was referring to the costumes. He was always a little anxious about costumes once the actors got into them. He did not like actors much. In his view they were destructive, often barbarous – a necessary evil at best.
“No jet lag?”
Brocken shrugged. “No more than usual. It’s a habit with me.”
“You look awful. Exhausted, I mean.”
“Thanks, Hobie. You certainly know how to make a bloke feel good.”
“Sorry, but you should take care of yourself,” Porliss insisted.
“A vacation maybe? A couple of weeks in the Caribbean? People say St. Barts is lovely. I’d love to, but I can’t on the money you people pay designers, can I?”
Porliss made a sour face. “That’s not my fault.”
“I know it isn’t. Sorry.” Brocken changed the subject.
“How much time do we have?”
Porliss consulted his timepiece, a great golden turnip he wore on an antique chain and carried in a vest pocket on the right side of his paunch.
“In precisely... eleven minutes the trumpets will sound,” he announced. He had a way of making most of his statements into proclamations, and delivered these with a mild southern accent, although he had, in fact, been born in Michigan. The accent resulted from his being told as a young man that he resembled Truman Capote. Porliss was also given to wearing the sort of hat that had been popular in the forties. He had directed first in Chicago, and later in other American cities, none of which was New York. Nevertheless, he gained a reputation for success with what is sometimes called the “American Repertoire,” which is to say, several plays by Tennessee Williams, a couple by Arthur Miller, and, on rare occasion, something by Eugene O’Neill. Porliss was first brought to Stratford to direct Camino Real, and had made a success of it. He returned a few years later with A Moon for the Misbegotten, which most people hated but for some reason the critics liked. Eventually, he became a more or less regular visiting director and sometime actor. Finally he drifted, as Tennessee might have said, into Shakespeare.
“You mean the trumpets will sound if all goes well,” Brocken observed. He was nothing if not a pessimist, as are many of those who work backstage in the great theatres of the world. He even looked pessimistic, dark and dry and worn.
“’What could go wrong?” Porliss said. “This isn’t opening night after all. The play is running smoothly...”
“Smoothly? Even in Europe I heard that you were having trouble with Sandra.”
Porliss shook his head emphatically. “Not serious trouble. She has bad nights but they don’t show onstage.”
“Bad nights? Don’t tell me she’s in love again.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Another gay actor?” Brocken guessed. “’Will she never learn?”
“I almost wish it were that. She’d be treated more kindly... No, it’s Alan Wales, I’m afraid.”
“That ass-kissing Ken doll? I don’t believe it. She has better taste.”
Porliss nodded solemnly. “I’ve talked with her about it, but she won’t listen to reason.”
“Lovers don’t. It’s not their métier. I hate that kid. Even by dress rehearsal he still hadn’t learned to get into his baldric properly. He makes his costume look like it ought to be in a gangster movie.”
“As often as not he wears his tunic backwards, so the heraldry on his chest doesn’t show.”
“Is he still carrying around that pig-sticker of a knife? Dangerous damn thing to have onstage... or anywhere else for that matter.”
“I tried to get him to give it up,” Porliss said, “but he is so attached to it...”
“Oh, Hobie...” Brocken growled, like a bull mastiff about to bite. “I should have put him in something long and flowing – like the Avon River.”
“It’s his entrances that I can’t stand,” Porliss said. “He comes onstage as if the play were some bad film version of A Chorus Line. That’s what he wants, of course. That’s why he’s here. He sees Stratford as a stepping stone to Hollywood.”
“’Well, if you feel like that, why did you cast him?”
Porliss shrugged. “Unfortunately I haven’t always felt about Alan the way I feel now.”
“Not you, too!”
“I’m afraid so, dear boy. He would never have been in the company if I hadn’t persuaded Ziemski-Trapp that he had potential.”
Brocken snorted. “Potential! That’s an odd word for it.”
“Actually it’s a very precise term for it. Lots and lots of potential. But that was two seasons ago. He’s gone on to others now...”
“Sandra…”
“Sandra at the very least. I don’t know who else he’s screwing but one was never enough. I’ve heard he has a girl from town.”
“How can you be sure it’s a girl?”
“l can’t,” Porliss said with a sigh. “I have reason enough, however, to believe that he prefers girls. He only does men when he’s trying to get on with his profession.”
“His profession! Surely you don’t mean acting?”
“I did, but now that you mention it...”
Brocken thought for a moment. “Two seasons ago you say. If all that happened two seasons ago, why the hell is he in Mac – ”
Porliss broke into Brocken’s question abruptly. “Don’t say it! We’ve problems enough as it is.”
“In the Scottish Play, then. I don’t understand why you’
re still using him.”
Porliss laughed slightly, sadly. “I’m not using him, dear boy. He’s using me.”
“The little pig is blackmailing you?”
“Not for money, but...”
“...but he makes you cast him.”
“Voilà!” Porliss said simply.
“Hobie, why do you let him get away with it? Everyone knows about you anyway.”
Porliss drew himself up and for a moment looked almost tall, almost impressive.
“What,” he demanded, “does everyone know?”
“Listen, Hobie. This is George... your old friend. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but everyone knows you’re an old queen... an old queen with a great flair for theatre. As you say: voilà!”
Briefly, Porliss glared, then the glare passed and he slumped into his familiar pudgy form. He looked as if he were about to cry.
“l don’t like being gossiped about,” he said weakly.
“Well, you’re sure as hell in the wrong trade, then.” Brocken squinted at his friend. “The heart of the matter is, you’re still hooked on the little whore.”
Porliss put his plump right hand to his eyes and held it there a moment or so. When he looked again at Brocken, there was no hint of a tear.
“Yes, George,” he said, “that is the heart of the matter. But you know, it’s funny, I’d be just as happy if he were somehow out of my sight and life altogether.”
Brocken shook his head, then gazed out across the cricket field toward the river and Lake Victoria. The water was dark, brightened only by the passage of a single cruising swan. The
willows lining the shores trembled in an uncertain breeze. The few leaves that remained