Screen Play

by Chris Coppernoll

  Helen’s Audrey Bradford gave off the impression she’d never felt an emotion she hadn’t crushed, but the confidence exuding from the real Helen Payne said there was no battle she couldn’t win. She wasn’t going to allow the presence of the Pulitzer-winning playwright’s daughter to be anything more than a subplot to her performance, seldom-seen recluse from London or not.

  “Helen, you look fantastic,” Ben said. She leaned in, inviting him to offer a faux stage kiss near her cheek.

  “Oh, thank you, Ben. I just wanted to come in for a moment and say to all my fellow actors, this is the night we bring Mouldain’s masterpiece back to American theater where it belongs.”

  The circle of cast members cheered. I hadn’t seen this motivational side of Helen before.

  “New York has a well-deserved reputation for producing some of the finest theater in all the world. Broadway! Mark my words, you will remember this night for as long as you live. The night you were a part of the electricity that lit up the Great White Way. Now, all of you, break a leg, and make a great show.”

  Helen turned and left the room. I expected to see a royal cape flowing behind her. “That’s why you hire a ‘Helen Payne,’” I said to Harriet.

  “Worth every penny.”

  “To that,” Ben said, “let me only add it’s a full house tonight, a totally sold–out show. We were about one hundred tickets shy of that yesterday, but with walk-ups, there’s not an empty seat in the Carney.”

  More cheers.

  Tabby waited until she saw Ben had finished. The microphone of her headset curved against her right cheek, and she listened to the technical chatter coming from the front of the house.

  “Okay, I need everyone in their places for Scene one,” Tabby said. “Five minutes until showtime.”

  Avril gave me a hug and said, “Wish me luck,” then left for her entrance on stage right. I followed her, wandering behind the curtain, careful to stay out of everyone’s way. Three minutes before curtain. A moment later Avril suddenly rushed toward me, away from her spot designated for Scene 1, and I realized she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  “I can’t find my shoes!” she shout-whispered to me.

  I ran back into the dressing room.

  “Avril’s shoes,” I said to Phyllis. We scoured the room in a flurry of costume wrap, wire hangers, and paper cups. Phyllis, ever organized, got down on her hands and knees, digging through paper, shoe boxes, plastic from garment bags, and costume debris. She reached in and found the shoes for Scene 1 still in their box. Phyllis lifted the lid and dashed past me to the backstage area. She knelt before Avril, who lifted her foot and pointed her toe for a fitting. In a scene from the pages of Cinderella, the shoe was a perfect fit, and with less than sixty seconds before curtain, Avril dashed away to the wings.

  I gravitated to the other side, stage left, and peeked out at the audience, a sophisticated-looking lot dressed in New York City chic. Aisles of black against crimson. The lights from the grand chandelier above them reflected in eyeglasses like fiery sparks until Richard began to dim the houselights.

  “Ten seconds,” Tabby said, her hand cupping her microphone. I heard the powerful whirling hum of the thick, red velvet curtain being pulled open on its steel cable. This was it. The spotlights pointing from special platforms on the balcony shined so brightly that the light flooded underneath the black curtain backstage, lighting up Phyllis’s shoes.

  There was no music in the show, but we had the best sound effects. The opening scene was accompanied by the sounds of a busy, downtown Manhattan of yesteryear.

  Roxy Dupree opens the scene. She’s so thrilled to be in the Big Apple. She’s left her small-town pond where she was the big fish, and she’s set her sights on making a name for herself in Manhattan. She knows no one in town; she has just one connection—a distant relative everyone back home said she should call. Roxy wouldn’t dream of asking to live with her; she was too polite. She just knows, however distant the relative, that visiting was the right thing to do, and who knew, maybe Audrey Bradford knew a lonely older lady with a room for rent.

  I’d never worked with a star of Helen’s stature before, and wondered if the audience would applaud her entrance, the way they did on all those old TV sitcoms when a door unexpectedly opens and the star walks in.

  When the lights went down on Scene 1, the grips rolled everything off the stage, raising the first backdrop and revealing Audrey Bradford’s apartment in the dark. Once every prop and fixture was in place, the lights came up, bathing the luxurious but prim apartment in a yellowy wash. Helen stood in the middle of the set, her back to the audience, yellow cleaning gloves pulled over both hands. A lime-green feather duster whisked away in one as she attacked dust particles on the fireplace mantel.

  Audrey doesn’t speak right away. She doesn’t turn to acknowledge the audience. She cleans and whips the feather duster, snapping it between the silver candlesticks and the photo of her late husband, Charles.

  Then the doorbell rings. She knows who it is, of course. It’s her kin blood, distant, but family nonetheless. It rings a second time, and Audrey Bradford sets down the feather duster, giving it one good shake into the open fireplace.

  Helen hasn’t delivered one line in the scene yet. The audience is uncomfortable. She stops and turns to look out over the audience as if she’s heard them thinking, and gives them an unsavory, disapproving grimace. The look says she doesn’t see anyone out there, but if she did, she wouldn’t like it. Not one bit.

  Audrey Bradford pulls off the yellow gloves with a snap and, with her work apron draped over her arm, hoists a cheery smile up with one quick pull from somewhere in the dark cellar of the soul. It rises to the lower part of her face, but no higher. It hangs there fixed in position on hooks beneath eyes that are always Audrey, and she opens one of the tall doors, narrow as an ignorant mind, with a twist of the handle. They are beautiful, ornate, clean, and so attractive on the outside like many things are. Roxy Dupree enters Apartment 19.

  “Good afternoon. Mrs. Bradford, I presume?” the politely formal Roxy utters as she steps into Audrey’s living room.

  “Ms.,” she replies—a line Helen Payne had used once in rehearsals, only to be told the word wasn’t in the script and couldn’t be included onstage.

  “But why, Ben?” Helen whined. “It’s exactly what the moment demands.”

  “It’s not Mouldain’s word,” Ben told her. “No one even used that word when this play was written. It wasn’t in the syntax.”

  But here on opening night, Helen breaks the rules and tells Roxy, “It’s Ms.”

  “Oh,” Avril says, ad-libbing because Helen has thrown her a curve. Avril’s a talented, natural actress but totally lost in the world of improvisation. She knows what she’s supposed to say next only when Helen says exactly what she’s supposed to say first. The audience doesn’t notice, but from across the stage, I do and so does Ben Hughes. I hear him moan something into the curve of his hand resting against his lips. Avril is off for a second, but Helen isn’t finished. She adds the line she was supposed to speak in the first place.

  “You’ve called for an interview. Won’t you come in?”

  And Roxy Dupree steps into a world she cannot possibly imagine—a world that runs according to the whims, rules, timetables, and logic of the psychotic Audrey Bradford.

  Harriet fidgeted backstage during intermission. She’d already walked on during the first half of the show, but that first entrance was minor. Her most important scenes were in the second act.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll do great, Harriet,” I told her.

  “I can’t believe how nervous I get before going on. When Helen opened that door onstage and looked at me, I almost forgot my line. That woman scares the spit out of me.”

  “You’re just excited. You’ll calm down once you get out there.”


  “Easy for you to say. You don’t have to go onstage,” Harriet said, joking while she bordered on the edge of a panic attack. “Harper, would you pray for me?”

  Harriet’s request surprised me, but I nodded that I would and stepped closer, taking both of Harriet’s hands in mine, the way Bella used to pray for me. I pulled in closer, feeling the starch of her hair spray rough against my cheek, and prayed for a calm spirit, for protection and covering for her son, Darius, and that she’d use the gift God had given her to entertain the audience. I prayed that Harriet would feel God’s presence with her onstage and that she wouldn’t be afraid.

  I said “Amen” and saw Harriet wipe at her eye.

  “Thank you. I feel better,” Harriet said, giving me a hug before going off to wait for her cue.

  After that, the night began to gallop like a dark horse over covered bridges. All the actors hit their marks and delivered lines with the force of hoofbeats on wooden planks.

  Second act picks up quickly as the tension between Audrey and Roxy builds to a fever. The landlord and the neighbor become involved. Finally, the police are called in, and Audrey is brought before a New York City judge. She’s unrepentant, and he’s not impressed.

  When Audrey finally goes too far and threatens him, the case solves itself. She tells the judge it’s he who is wrong—the laws in the state of New York are wrong, and the whole world is wrong. Only Audrey Bradford is right.

  Audrey is cuffed by the bailiff and taken into custody. Struggling, she vows revenge as the judge bangs down his gavel and she’s dragged screaming from the courtroom.

  The judge asks if there’s anything he can do for Roxy, and she says, “Forgive her, your honor. She doesn’t know any better.”

  The next day Roxy and her friend Bill are moving her into a new apartment in the light of a new day.

  “It must be quite a relief for you, moving into a new place on your own,” Bill says.

  “What will happen to her, Bill?” Roxy asks, concerned for the woman who’s made her life a prison.

  “The judge said six months,” he tells her. “But I don’t know that you’ll ever see her again. Audrey’s not the type that mixes well with others.”

  He leaves, and a moment later there is a knock on her door. Roxy opens it to find a wild, crazy-eyed Audrey Bradford standing in the doorway, somehow freed from custody. It’s a reversal of how the two first met, only Audrey blames Roxy for everything. Audrey swipes a knife at Roxy, misses, and fatally stabs herself.

  Audrey struggles to speak, to condemn one last time, but collapses onto the ledge of the fire escape with only her legs hanging inside the window.

  The stage lights went dark, and the audience at the Carney abruptly seemed uncomfortably silent.

  The applause came like the opening of a shaken soda can, a sudden, instantaneous roar pent up until the spellbinding end. When the stage lights came back on, I watched from the wings as each cast member returned to the stage, taking their bows. The audience was on its feet, all 702 ticket holders unable to contain their enthusiasm. As each major cast member came out—Harriet, Melissa, Marshall—the expectation of the audience grew. When Helen stepped onto the Carney Theatre stage for her ovation, it was as if she owned all of Broadway. She had given them the performance of a lifetime. Now Helen fed on their appreciation. This was New York—Broadway, not St. Louis, Kansas City, or Seattle. A packed house filled with theater critics, guild members, wealthy patrons of the arts, and even Mouldain’s own daughter.

  Helen stood at center stage and absorbed their applause, their recoronation of her as the Queen of the Great White Way.

  Finally, Ben Hughes stepped onstage with another two dozen roses for Helen, who graciously accepted them. Ecstatic cast members disappeared through the wings while Helen stayed onstage until the very last scream, waving to the crowd, shaking a few hands of the standing fans fortunate enough to be in the front row. Then she blew them all a kiss and exited stage left.

  A festive party broke out in the greenroom. Someone had brought bottles of expensive French champagne and set it to chill on ice in stainless-steel buckets. Marshall wasted no time popping the first cork. I listened as reporters interviewed Avril, who sat in a chair, sparkle makeup still glittering underneath her eyes, about what it felt like to be her at that moment.

  Ben’s production partners joined the elated cast. One of the investment bankers held a half-filled glass in one hand, waving the other around with excitement as he brought Helen the news.

  “You should hear what they’re saying about you in the front lobby, Helen,” he said. “They’re saying it’s the role of a lifetime. You were magnificent! Everyone is going to be talking about this show tomorrow.”

  Helen smiled, always happy for a grateful public.

  The rumors proved true about Elisa Mouldain. I saw the demure woman backstage, shaking Ben’s hand and telling him how pleased she was. His gamble had paid off. Ben gave his speech of gratitude to the cast and crew, and in thirty minutes, all hangers-on were gone, or taking off to another venue.

  Theater life is surreal because everyone believes in the magic. Even adults, who know we’re just pretending, believe that somewhere, somehow the story must be true. They don’t accept that there’s no Apartment 19, no Audrey Bradford, and no Roxy Dupree.

  No attempted murder, no death by knife wound.

  It’s all just a show.

  ~ Twelve ~

  The New York Times Theater section featured one, and only one story—Apartment 19. A single, shocking headline stamped across the front page staggered Avril and me, zapping us like static electricity every time our eyes flashed on it:

  A HIT!

  We’d ventured out that cold morning to the neighborhood newsstand to buy all the city papers we could carry. Every superlative printed in black and white by the New York reviewers burned like fuel to warm us.

  The show was “mesmerizing” … “original” … “a triumph.” Helen’s portrayal of Audrey Bradford was “stunning,” they said. It marked her return to Broadway, and was “more than a little scary.”

  Reviewers raved about Avril, the skinny blonde girl from “that California TV show” who, they discovered, could actually act.

  In the bottom right corner, the Times ran a small black-and-white illustration of Mouldain. It showed the playwright looking out from beneath his trademark white Panama hat, wearing his Teddy Roosevelt glasses, smoke flowing into the frame from some unseen rolled cigar. Mouldain seemed to look back from beyond, ready to accept his much-deserved accolades from modern critics.

  The sidebar told of Mouldain’s work, its mysterious departure from American theater and decline in popularity, and Ben Hughes’s Herculean campaign to bring Apartment 19 back to Broadway.

  Avril and I sat on the carpeted living room floor, newspapers spread out around us as if we were training a new puppy. We lounged away the morning in our pajamas, giddy with the reviews and the prospect of having the day off. From then on, the cast and crew would come together only at night for performances and on Saturday for a matinee.

  A short electronic beep sounded in the kitchen, followed by a woman’s voice on the speakerphone. Avril had an eccentric habit of shutting off the phone’s ringer so the first thing you heard when people called was the sound of their voice.

  “Avril? Harper? It’s me, Sydney. Would you please pick up?”

  At 7 a.m. Pacific time, our beloved theatrical agent, Sydney Bloom, telephoned us from her offices in Los Angeles. I pictured Sydney sitting at her sunny California desk in the bungalow not a five-minute drive from Paramount Studios. I could see the potted palm trees in the reception area and the brown Spanish tiles that had always felt cool on my bare feet but warm in the sunbeams.

  “Avril, your stock is rising,” Sydney forecast. I perched on a bar stool at the black marbl
e island, watching Avril lean in on the other side.

  “Since the run for the play is an insanely short forty-two shows, we should pick out a day next week and conference on what you want to do next. Every production company in Hollywood starts the day reading the trades, and this morning they’ll be reading your reviews. You know who I’m talking about. I’ll tell you right now, I think you should come back to LA and do film because that’s where the money is. We’re going to double what we’ve been asking for you.”

  Avril smiled from across the island.

  “And as for you, Harper—even though you’re not onstage, the fact that you’re a part of this Mouldain revival paints a smiley face on your portfolio. Have you girls seen the trades posted online this morning?”

  “No, we’ve just been basking in the reviews.”

  “Well, allow me to share some good news. Variety is reporting that half the shows for Apartment 19 have already sold out, and ticket sales remain brisk. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole run sold out.”

  Sydney gave us the latest Hollywood news and speculated about what it might mean for our careers, but soon the conversation shifted exclusively to Avril. When she lifted the phone off the charger, disengaging the speakerphone, I wandered back to my bedroom.

  The apartment felt cozy, warmed by good news while a light snow fell on New York outside my bedroom window.

  I lay down on my bed to pray, thanking God for blessing the show with success. The contrast between my old life in Chicago and my new one in New York wasn’t going unnoticed either.

  A rare sense of peace made my spirit feel healthy, as if some phase of a program had been completed. I still couldn’t answer Katie’s question about what role I played in the show, but I was confident God was at work in my life, even if I didn’t know exactly what He was doing.

  Hearing Avril still on the phone, I slipped into the computer alcove, set my half-empty coffee mug on the coaster, and booted up Avril’s computer. Once the Mac was up and running, I clicked back onto LoveSetMatch.com.