The Fourth Wall

by Barbara Paul

“The casting will already be done—you’re going to have to leave that to Abby and me.” Ramsay looked at me. “You can handle that, can’t you, Abby?”

  “Of course,” I said womanfully.

  Ramsay turned back to John. “All you have to do is rehearse them. It’s not as if you’re working a brand-new play. The script is in final form, and so’s your direction. We’ll use the same set, so you won’t even have to change the blocking. All you have to do is rehearse the new actors.”

  John shook his head. “I don’t like working with a cast I had no hand in selecting.”

  Ramsay snorted. “Who does? But we’ve got a time squeeze here, and this is the only way out of it. Abby and I will cast, you’ll direct, and we’ll open in Cleveland on March fifteenth. We’ll have additional bookings by then. How about it?”

  John mulled it over a few minutes. “All right,” he said, “but on one condition. Griselda Gold sits in on the casting.”

  Ramsay and I laughed.

  “Griselda has good instincts,” John insisted. “Why not make use of them?”

  “We all have good instincts,” Ramsay said blandly. “What we need is experience.”

  “Come on, Gene, give her a chance. Since you don’t use a casting director, you can always ignore Griselda the same way you ignore Abby and me whenever you feel like it. Let her sit in on the casting.”

  That was the right thing to say; John had reminded Ramsay that he was the one who held the power. “Oh, very well,” Ramsay ceded graciously. “She can sit in. And she might as well start now.” He buzzed his secretary. “Get Griselda Gold on the phone. Tell her I want to see her—right now, if possible.”

  We worked out details. Rehearsals would be held on the Foxfire set on those days no matinees were scheduled, other times in a rehearsal hall Ramsay would rent. Exact dates were settled on, plans made for auditions and the like. At the end of half an hour, the door opened and Griselda Gold was ushered in. She hesitated a moment and then chinled her way down the aisle toward the throne.

  Ramsay pointed to a chair and then explained about the touring company. “The new cast begins rehearsing February twenty-second and we’ll be needing your services again,” he said. “In fact, we’ll need them even before that. Reddick will be tied up with Androcles in Church until then, so you’ll be helping us cast.” He beamed at her benevolently, like an Anglo-Saxon ruler bestowing a ring on one of his minor athelings. “Agreed?”

  Griselda’s face turned red as she made a totally unsuccessful attempt not to look outrageously, deliriously happy. Her jaw worked back and forth and she made a sound we all interpreted as yes.

  “Good,” said Ramsay. “Come in Friday—I’ll have a new contract ready for you. Now that’s settled, we might as well get on with it. I suppose we give the understudies first consideration.”

  “Phil Carter, by all means,” I said. “Marilyn Frazier—absolutely, unthinkably, irrevocably not. She shouldn’t even be understudying Vivian Frank.”

  John groaned. “Now, Abby. What have you got against her?”

  “For one thing, she can’t read liiiiiiiines.”

  “So she draws out her last words. I can get her to stop that.”

  “I don’t think so. You have only a little over two weeks, remember. That’s just not enough bullying time. It’s her trademark, John. She’s not going to stop doing it just because you tell her to.”

  John looked at his assistant director. “You’ve worked with her, Griselda. What do you think?”

  Griselda swallowed visibly: her first decision. “I think we could find an actress better suited to the role,” she said in a small voice.

  Good girl. Griselda’s primary function up to now had been to agree with John, and she must have guessed that the only reason she was here now was that John had gone to bat for her. So not agreeing with him this time was a rather big step for her to take.

  John still wasn’t convinced, though. “I think she can do it,” he said stubbornly.

  I took a deep breath. “John, I’ll admit you were right … in an earlier casting disagreement we had.” No need for Griselda to know I hadn’t wanted Ian Cavanaugh. “But this time you’re wrong, dead wrong. I hate like hell to have to do this, but let me remind you that all production rights to Foxfire revert to me after the original production. All production rights—that includes tour productions. All I have to do to stop a production is withdraw the rights. I don’t want to—I want this tour company even more than you do. But I swear I’ll stop production if Marilyn Frazier is given the role. I will not have that woman ruining my play.”

  John looked shocked. “Abby, I had no idea you felt so strongly about it.”

  I glared at him. “I don’t know why not. I certainly told you so loudly enough when you hired her.”

  He shook his head. “I guess I didn’t understand.”

  Ramsay, who’d kept out of it up to this point, took charge again. “That would seem to settle it. Frazier’s out. Now what about Phil Carter?”

  John bounced back fast from losing his last argument. “I know it’s up to you three, but I suggest you cast Phil as Alex.” Alex was the role Hugh Odell played; Phil Carter understudied both that part and the male lead, Ian’s role.

  Ramsay allowed himself to look surprised. “I thought Carter did a good job the one time he substituted for Cavanaugh.”

  “He did,” John agreed. “But he would do even better as Alex. Phil Carter has a certain air of innocence he can turn on and off at will. Alex is essentially an ‘innocent’ character—I think Phil would be even stronger in that role.”

  He would, come to think of it. “Sounds good to me,” I said. Griselda nodded vigorously.

  Ramsay made a tent of his fingers. “I don’t know.”

  “There’s an easy way to find out,” I said. “Have Phil do one performance of Alex now—give Hugh Odell a night off.”

  “Hugh won’t like that,” said John.

  “Hugh will hate it. But it’ll give us a chance to see what Phil can do.”

  Ramsay thought about it a minute and then agreed. “That should do it then. My secretary will notify you ladies when the first audition is set up—it’ll be soon, we don’t have much time. Is there anything else you can think of we need to decide now?”

  There wasn’t. We were dismissed.

  Outside, the day had stopped frowning and I could see something in the sky that vaguely reminded me of the sun. Griselda had regained her composure and was speaking in a calm, deliberate voice of available actresses who might be suitable to play the lead. John kept shooting me glances.

  Finally he said what was on his mind. “You kind of pulled rank on me in there, didn’t you, Abby?” He looked unhappy. “We’ve never needed to threaten each other before.”

  Then it hit me what I’d done. What a tacky way of handling the situation. I would have been boiling mad if John had pulled a stunt like that on me, and I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself.

  My feelings must have showed because John suddenly laughed and put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. Really, Abby—it’s all right. Forget I said anything. I was just being thin-skinned.” Griselda stood there big-eyed, taking it all in.

  “No, you’re absolutely right,” I said. “It was a shabby trick and I shouldn’t have done it. It won’t happen again, John, I promise you. I truly am sorry.”

  He grinned. “I’ve already forgotten it. Now you forget it too.”

  And I knew he would forget it. That’s one of the reasons I liked John: he never bore a grudge.

  “I think I’d better make a phone call,” John said. “Ramsay will undoubtedly want to pay me next to nothing on the grounds that I’m not doing the casting for the tour company. I’d better warn my agent to be ready for that.”

  Two blocks away we found a phone booth that hadn’t been vandalized.

  “Hell, I don’t have any change,” John said. He fidgeted while Griselda and I looked through our bags.

  “Just
pennies,” I said.

  “I’ve got a nickel,” Griselda announced.

  “Great,” said John. “Three moderately successful people and we don’t have the price of a phone call among us. Abby, get us another nickel.”

  I looked around.

  Coming along the sidewalk was a prosperous-appearing middle-aged man. He looked reasonably pleased with the world, so I decided he’d be a good prospect. I stepped directly in his path; he slowed down when he saw me waiting for him. I made my hand into a gun, pointed my finger at his chest, and said, “Stick ’em up?”

  First his eyebrows went up, then the corners of his mouth, and finally his hands. “Now what?” he wanted to know.

  “Uh, your nickel or your life.”

  “My what?”

  “Your nickel. Five cents. For the phone,” I explained. “We already have one nickel.”

  “Oh. May I take my hands down?” When I nodded he lowered his hands and fished out a handful of change. I picked out a nickel and wondered what to do next.

  John and Griselda were cheering from the phone booth, so I had to go on with it. I made a sweeping gesture with my arm. “Now walk away and don’t look back.”

  “But I’m going that way,” he objected, pointing in the other direction.

  I reversed my sweeping gesture. “Walk away thataway and don’t look back.”

  “Right,” he grinned and walked away thataway.

  “And thanks!” I called after him.

  “Oh, Abby!” groaned John. “You don’t thank a man you’ve just mugged. Here, give me the nickel.” He made his phone call. “I’ve got to get back to Androcles. We’re almost ready to start polishing, but there are a few things I’ve still got to fix first.”

  “You might as well wait until after lunch,” I said. “It’s after twelve.”

  He looked at his watch. “So ’tis. Okay, where we going?”

  We went to Mme. de Lyon’s for omelettes. Over the brioches, Griselda relaxed a little. She was like so many post-teen-agers—she wanted the world and she wanted it by next Tuesday. But she wasn’t abrasive about it, simply determined. Griselda was willing to work for what she wanted, and I wished her well.

  “Griselda, what’s your real name?” I asked abruptly.

  “Naomi Goldberg,” she said glumly.

  I nodded; a name like any other name. Nothing special to notice, nothing special to remember. But try forgetting a name like “Griselda Gold.” Go ahead. Try.

  “Abby,” said John, “it’s about time for you to be working on a new play. Are you?”

  “Yep,” I said smugly. “I’ve barely started, but I’ve started.”

  “What’s it called?” Griselda wanted to know.

  “Right now it’s called The New Play. Titles come late in the game for me.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s about the effect of false accusation on innocent people. How if the accusation is repeated often enough, even the victim comes to accept its validity.”

  “Oh,” said John, “a drawing-room comedy.”

  I made a face at him and said, “Beyond that I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’m still working out the plot.”

  “Do I get to direct?”

  “Who else?” I stretched my arm across the table and John and I solemnly shook hands.

  Griselda was amazed. “That’s it? That’s all there is to it? You two shake hands over lunch and it’s all settled?”

  “That’s the way we settle it,” John explained. “Agents and producers and schedule makers sometimes spoil the act, but generally we manage to work things out. We might have a little trouble this time though. I—” John stopped abruptly.

  Griselda and I looked at him curiously.

  “Oh hell,” he said. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone until the deal was final, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer. I’m negotiating with the New York City Opera to direct a new production of Tosca.”

  “Tosca!” I breathed.

  “I’ve wanted to direct that opera since the first time I saw it. When I was just a kid.”

  “Tosca!” I repeated.

  “You want to direct an opera?” Griselda was puzzled.

  “I’ve dreamed about it for years. I’ve got the whole thing worked out in my head—the death of Scarpia, the firing squad in the last act—”

  “Tosca!”

  “Abby, don’t just keep saying Tosca! like that, tell me I can do a good job.”

  “You can do a good job. Tosca! Oh, John, how exciting! And you can—you will do a good job!” I think envy is one of the most unattractive of human failings, but right then I envied John Reddick. “How marvelous for you,” I sighed. “And of all the operas—”

  “Yes, Tosca is special, isn’t it? Dramatic as hell, both musically and from the staging point of view. The play’s sheer melodrama, but the opera’s in a class by itself.”

  “What play?” That was Griselda.

  “The play the opera’s based on. Sardou wrote it.”

  “The opera?”

  “The play. Puccini wrote the opera.”

  “Why do you want to direct an opera?”

  John glanced at me and smiled. “How do you explain opera to a non-believer? True, you can find better music elsewhere and better drama almost anywhere, but that doesn’t make any difference at all. Unlike most religions, opera is its own excuse for being. Once it grabs you, you’re caught for life—right, Abby?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, smiling. The child in John was never more appealing than when he was on a starry-eyed opera kick. “What was your first opera?”

  “Carmen.”

  “Really? Mine too. Risë Stevens?”

  “No, Winifred Heidt. Remember her?”

  “Winifred who?” asked Griselda.

  “Heidt,” said John. “As in Horace.”

  Griselda looked blank.

  “Horace Heidt,” John said.

  “Is he an opera singer?”

  At that point John gave up. It’s kind of hard reminiscing with someone who’s never heard of the people you’re thinking about. We split the check and went our separate ways.

  13

  Gene Ramsay announced the formation of a Foxfire touring company and the rush was on. Somehow every actors’ agent in town got hold of my phone number, and my answering service started making threatening noises. Even Griselda was sought out and pestered nearly out of her mind. Ramsay was set up with an organization to deal with this sort of thing, but Griselda and I weren’t.

  Ramsay had told Phil Carter he was playing Hugh Odell’s role in the Saturday matinee, giving him two days to get ready. Hugh raised hell; in fact, he got kind of ugly about it. But there was nothing he could do; Ramsay’s will was law. Phil Carter understood that his performance Saturday was an audition for the touring company.

  But it was the female lead that caused the biggest furor. Every actress in New York seemed to want the part, and don’t you think that was food for the old ego! But the competition immediately narrowed itself down to four candidates—all were name actresses, good box-office draws, and fully capable of handling the part. I wished we had four touring companies so they could all play the role.

  But a decision had to be made. Ramsay chose one actress, I liked another, Griselda preferred a third. Ramsay solved the problem by giving the role to the fourth. I understand that’s the same way Eisenhower got the African Allied Command in World War II.

  Saturday afternoon came, and we were all going out of our way to say reassuring things to Phil Carter. He was understandably nervous, much more so than when he’d substituted for Ian Cavanaugh—he had more riding on the performance. Griselda Gold chinned her way around backstage, trying not to show her excitement. She’d spent most of the previous two days helping Phil rehearse and she wanted him to make a good showing. Tiny told me his mumph was on the biddle, and I said I hoped it would get better soon. He looked at me rather oddly.

  Carla Banner bumped into me an
d apologized and muttered something about never being able to find a broom when you needed one. From the disgusted look on her face I knew exactly what was wrong.

  Do you know about theater gremlins? They never come out during the day; they wait until dark to do their damage. Oh, I don’t mean like causing flats to fall over or fly ropes to fray—something else causes that sort of thing. Trolls, maybe. But the gremlins, what they do is, they hide in their secret hiding places until the night’s performance is over and everyone’s gone home except maybe a night watchman and he’s in some other part of the building. They wait until they’re sure no one’s around to see them. Then slowly, silently, they tiptoe out—and sprinkle nails on the stage floor. No one has ever seen them do this, you understand. They’re much too sneaky to let themselves be observed.

  When they’ve finished sprinkling nails, the gremlins go back to their hiding places congratulating themselves and giggling like crazy. And then the time comes for the next performance and somebody says where did all these goddam nails come from and the umpteenth assistant stage manager is put to work sweeping the stage and he’s grumbling about it and the gremlins are giggling harder than ever. Sometimes the man with the broom misses a couple of nails; then the gremlins laugh so hard they’re gasping for air. Because if even one nail, only one, is left on the stage—somebody is going to step on it. Nobody chooses tetanus as a hobby—but that’s not the main problem. What happens more often than not is that someone steps on a nail and skids and falls down boom. Invariably in the middle of a big dramatic scene. The audience roars with laughter and the gremlins are having hysterics. Then the performance ends and everybody goes home and the gremlins come out and the whole thing happens all over again.

  Right now the man with the broom was supposed to be Carla Banner, but she was nowhere in sight.

  “Where did that girl disappear to?” Leo Gunn complained. “I told her to sweep the stage ten minutes ago.”

  “I just saw her,” I said. “She was having trouble finding a broom.”

  Leo shook his head. “Carla’s a good kid, she really is. She’s co-operative and easy to work with. But slow—she’s slow as molasses.”