Hartog was brilliant in his handling of the disspirited team.
“I believe in Violencia,” he said, “and I am not, at this stage of my career, about to let a handful of local yokels—local putzes, to put it in plain English, to influence me in the slightest.”
Oh sure, Hartog conceded, the show had a way to go before it went over the top. But as far as he was concerned they all had another Fiddler on their hands. He may have been whistling in the dark, but Gurney could sense a lift in the spirits of the cast; he found himself cheering up as well. While Violencia finished up its Winslow run, Gurney and Hartog went at the show with a vengeance. Though it was no easy matter for him, Gurney sent Angela back to the East Coast. He felt awful as he waved good-bye to the slender, lovely, unselfish young woman, but he felt it was necessary; he wanted to be as unencumbered as possible for the big push. Some might have felt it would be a strength to have a perfect person around for support … but not Gurney.
Hartog and the ex-dick then tore into the libretto, often making decisions that might have seemed cruel to an outsider; it was apparent, for example, that Betty Pound, that double-barreled little bundle of dynamite and talent, just wasn’t scoring in the show and had to be released. The feeling was that her role should go, too, along with her “I Can’t Get His Gun Off” number, and this made the unpleasant task of releasing Betty Pound a little smoother. She fought hard, though, and did not make it easy on the director.
“Where do I go from here?” she asked. “How many parts come up in a season for a girl with one wing? Keep me in the show, Mr. Hartog, and I’ll do anything from lowly chorus kid to wardrobe mistress. Only don’t send me back east where I’m sure to have rough sledding.”
Hartog wavered for a moment, but then decided that a clean break was best.
“It’s for your own good, kid,” he said softly, and then canned her.
Hartog then suggested that it was time to come down hard on Norman Welles and finally get him to alter some of his light love lyrics. The audience was obviously confused by numbers such as “Broadway Ragtime,” which irritatingly accompanied a brutal grilling scene of an embittered assault and battery suspect. Welles, to everyone’s frustration, put up a battle, but eventually gave in and made a few minor changes.
Hartog and Gurney then began to throw out numbers such as “Don’t Blow Smoke Up My Ass” which just weren’t paying off, and to substitute ones such as the upbeat “Bi Guys Can Be Nice Guys,” to be sung by the Chief of the Vice Squad. Gurney did not fail to note that most of the changes were on the uplifting side and that, in some subtle way, there came about a certain incorporation of Undertag’s ideas. In any event, by the time Violencia hit Holliman, it was an entirely different show, one that would have been only barely recognizable to anyone who’d remained to see the version that crashed and burned in Winslow.
If Winslow was lonely and windswept, Holliman, contrarily, was big and brimming with activity. Gurney’s hotel was in the downtown area, close to the theatre, which protruded like a big toe from a boot-shaped area that was home to what appeared to be all of the underprivileged people in the city.
Gurney’s hotel was dramatically different from the one he’d stayed at in Winslow, and he was glad of that, since Violencia was scheduled for a much longer run in Holliman. The service was of the highest order. So eager were the room service people to oblige that Gurney had to almost virtually beat them off with sticks. He was given a large suite once again, but this time around, it was a warmly furnished one with a terrace that looked out on the most attractive part of Holliman—a small port, lovely city lights, a view comparable to one that might have been visible from a flat overlooking New York City’s East River. Gurney was so thrilled by the wonderful room service that soon after checking in, he began to order items that he didn’t particularly want—just for the fun of it, and to get the taste of Winslow out of his mouth. The service people all seemed interested in the show, several of the bellhops whipping out manuscripts of plays they had written and asking for Gurney’s professional opinion.
“You’d never believe it, fella,” was his standard reply, “but I don’t know much more about this field than you do.”
The cast seemed to perk up noticeably as soon as they hit Holliman. They had turned a corner; the Winslow debacle was far behind them. As far as they were concerned they were in a brand-new show. Indeed, Philip Undertag sent a special letter to the Holliman drama critics telling them to pay no attention to the fact that Violencia had been called one of the great stinkers of all time in its previous incarnation. The show coming into Holliman was fresh off the assembly line.
“I have canned a great many of the people involved in the Winslow bomb,” he said in his letter.
Gurney agreed with Hartog that this was defensive thinking and that it might have been more prudent not to have called attention to the show’s early failings. But the letter did demonstrate a new outlook on the producers’ part and a sign that they were willing to battle all the way down the line for Violencia.
The Holliman Theatre was strikingly modernistic; at the same time it had the look of a complicated chocolate cake that one might purchase in Switzerland. It was larger, if anything, than its Winslow counterpart. But in their efforts to make the interior interesting, the architects had placed at least a thousand of the seats either behind giant brown pillars or situated so that people assigned to them would have to twist themselves into tortured and gymnastic postures in order to see the stage.
Another negative feature was the acoustical arrangement. Norman Welles immediately pronounced it the worst he had ever encountered. Essie Hartog’s bold and raucous voice, one of the genuine assets of the show, came across the footlights as a dying, faded crackle on a cheap transistor radio. The twenty-seven orchestra pieces, blaring away at their loudest, gave off a tiny humming sound that might have been produced by a child playing a comb. When the head sound man made an adjustment in his equipment, the theatre was filled with a thunderous whining sound that sent blood pouring from Ty Sabatini’s nostrils.
“You can have one or the other,” said the sound man, who along with the other Holliman backstage technicians was surly in his manner. “What’ll it be?”
To his credit, Norman Welles, though still weakened from shashlik poisoning, spoke up boldly to the heavily muscled technician.
“Don’t tell me I’m full of shit,” he said. “That sound is awful. I’ve been in theatres ten times this size where my music has been heard by each person in the audience, with all of its charm and grace left fully intact.”
Gurney stood ready to jump in and protect Welles if the sound man advanced toward him, but as it happened his help wasn’t needed. Surprised by the onslaught from the thin-chested composer, the technician, who looked as though he could wipe out Welles by breathing on him, backed away.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said meekly.
The one slightly ominous note on the horizon in Holliman was the posting of signs about the city announcing the arrival, for a speaking engagement, of an angry white supremacist, whose first “Hate Concert,” as it was called, was scheduled for the very night that Violencia was to open. The demagogue, a man named Taylor Beedle, had never before visited Holliman, although it was known he had a large following in the city. Beedle, who held public office in a small Southern town, was out to widen his reputation; thus, the current concert. He had won each of his elections to the state assembly by razor-thin margins, a testament to the always fierce contention between those who hated him and those who thought his ideas had merit. Since Holliman had a considerable black population, the city began to divide into factions. There was a restlessness in the street that slowly turned to anger. Heavily armed police in fortified plastic masks, and holding back infuriated German shepherds, began to show up in great numbers to keep the peace. The Holliman police chief drove through the streets announcing, through a megaphone, that Holliman had always been the most crime-free little community in the S
outhern border area.
“We aim to keep it that way. Anyone who says no will find one of our little old puppies playing fast and loose with his throat.”
During one rehearsal, the chief had paid a surprise visit to the theatre, arriving just as Han Nihsu was restaging the “Mad Dog Shooting” ballet number. Chorus kids, playing the parts of dicks, had dropped to their knees, and with whelping, animal cries were pumping out ammo at human-type targets. Confused by what he saw, the chief ducked behind a pillar.
“What the fuck?” he said as he whipped out his Colt .45 and blasted off a couple of rounds at the surprised chorus dicks.
Fortunately, the bullets were wide of the mark. Quickly realizing his mistake, the law officer got to his feet and sheepishly apologized to Han Nihsu for his quick trigger. He then explained the local situation and advised the members of the cast to stay huddled in their hotel rooms at night and not venture out into the street.
“That’s when the trouble-mongers will make their move. We’ll be there to give them a warm welcome.”
Han Nihsu, with courage enough for the whole company, had not quite forgiven the chief for interrupting her dance rehearsal, and lashed out at him.
“I’d heard that Holliman was a wonderful place and told these kids they’d love it—and then you had to come in here and fart up the works.”
The chief said he was sorry once again, and really seemed ashamed of himself. Half an hour after he’d left, a Holliman police sergeant arrived on the set with a small van carrying cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes for the entire cast. A note accompanied the food.
“To a dear little lady who sure is full of beans and who I hope will be my guest one of these days for a little private soiree when the heat around here dies down.”
Bill Moaney
Chief of Police, Holliman
“Horny bastard,” said Han Nihsu, digging into a burger. “That’ll be the day.”
Gurney ate one of the free cheeseburgers, too, even though they were designated for the cast only. He wondered how all the strife and turmoil in the streets, and the presence of the hate-mongering Taylor Beedle, would affect the opening of Violencia.
My God, he thought, hasn’t this production had trouble enough already?
All night long, Gurney listened to the unrelenting whine of police sirens as squad cars crammed with dicks and dogs roamed the streets, breaking up fights between hate-spewing Beedle followers (Beedleettes, they were called) and blacks, who were joined by a surprise contingent of rugged Lubavitchers bused in for the occasion. At one point, a Violencia dog broke loose and fought one of the Holliman shepherds to a bloody draw before the fight could be stopped. Several cops, who had observed the brawl, conceded that the showbiz hound had more than held his own and might have come out on top had the fight been permitted to go the distance.
As for Gurney, he felt that he could certainly take care of himself in the streets, but there was no point in looking for trouble, particularly with Violencia about to open. So he stationed himself on his lovely terrace; from there, he could see not only the Holliman Theatre, all gaily bedecked with signs announcing the premiere of what he thought of as “my show,” but also the auditorium where Taylor Beedle’s “Hate Concert” was to get under way that very same night.
Immediately before the opening, Philip Undertag appeared at the theatre with Beedle himself, plus a cortege of security guards. He had evidently brought the demagogue over in a spirit of good public relations.
After the producer had introduced various members of the staff, he gestured toward Gurney and said: “This is our writer.”
“My aim,” said Beedle, ignoring this information and directing his remarks to Undertag, “is to have the colored and the Jew—since that is what you appear to be, sir—live in peace and harmony, and the rest of us live in peace and harmony, too, only somewhere else. I am often misunderstood on this point.”
Gurney was somewhat flustered by the appearance of the demagogue, perhaps because he knew he was supposed to hate him and didn’t quite know how to express this sentiment.
“You’re not as tall as I thought you’d be,” he said to Beedle. “Then again, you’re not so small, either. Additionally, you’re not as fat or as thin as I thought you’d be.”
“What do you mean?” said Beedle.
“Just what I said,” Gurney said, bluffing his way along and pretending to be more enigmatic than he really was.
Undertag put his arm around the up-and-coming hate-monger.
“Tayler here is putting on a little show down the road. I hope it doesn’t turn out to be a turkey like one of mine.”
“He’s had turkeys galore,” said Gurney, joining in on the fun. “You might say he’s been running a little turkey farm for himself.”
Undertag threw Gurney a fierce look, indicating that he did not like to be teased about his flops—unless he was the one who did the teasing. Still, Gurney enjoyed Undertag’s sly and waspish way of handling the demagogue.
One of Beedle’s guards stepped forward smartly and presented Undertag with a placard:
“Happiness is having Violencia one street down from our Hate Concert, both shows competing in law and harmony for the ticket buyer’s dollar and the two shows doing a whale of a business, since there is probably room for both.”
Undertag was caught off guard by what appeared to be a gift of some kind and reacted by signaling to his PR person, Nettie Hersel. Thinking quickly this time, Nettie excused herself and rounded up a pair of Hobie Hancock’s old ballet tights. After putting a decorative ribbon around them, she presented the garment to Tayler Beedle.
“These belong to our costar.”
It was her idea, or so it appeared to Gurney, that one of Beedle’s higher-ups, or even the demagogue himself, might be secretly turned on by the flimsy garment.
Beedle didn’t seem to know what to make of the offering. But with a typical politician’s reluctance to offend, he slipped Hancock’s tights into his pocket and thanked both Nettie and Undertag for the thought.
Four days of getting accustomed to the new theatre flashed by. Violencia opened once again to a packed house, this time made up almost exclusively of Holliman people who were on a subscription list and were known to be interested, if not avid, theatregoers. As a result of the commotion caused by Taylor Beedle’s nearby Hate Concert, an armed cortege of Holliman police formed a human funnel through which the opening-night playgoers were squired safely into the theatre. Gurney felt a little funny about not having Angela there for the opening, but she had been thoughtful enough to send a telegram, which made him feel a lot better. Surprisingly, his ex-wife sent one along, too. He was happy to have it, but it also made him feel slightly uncomfortable, since he had such mixed feelings about her.
Just before the overture, Gurney was handed yet another congratulatory telegram, from, of all people, his mother. This astonished him, since Babs Gurney had been dead for six years and could not possibly have gotten off the message to him. As he read it through, the literary style tipped him off that his ex-wife had sent this one, too, signing it with his mother’s name. There was no question in Gurney’s mind that she had guessed the message would lift his spirits, but it struck him as being a curious and somewhat tasteless thing to do, however well-motivated. As the curtain went up, he thought of his beloved mother, and it was all he could do to keep from crying. After pulling himself together, he promised to let Gilda Gurney know that she was never to do this again, since her gesture obviously had the reverse effect from its intended one.
It was clear from the start that Violencia would come off a lot more appealingly in Holliman than it had in Winslow. The cast, rested and chipper, performed with verve and confidence. And the stage crew, comfortable now with Bess Filimino’s delicate sets, swung them in and out of the wings with the required casualness. The scenes themselves moved briskly along, one blending seamlessly into another. Norman Welles’ upbeat new tunes were greeted with some enthusiasm. It helped
, too, that cocker spaniel puppies were being used on stage in place of the snarling, chained-up rottweilers that had so unsettled the opening-night audience in Winslow, particularly the first dozen or so rows. All of the growl and sourness and abrasion had gone out of the show, but the Holliman theatregoers seemed held by it all the same. By the time the curtain came down on Act One, only half a dozen people at most had left their seats, several of them to use the rest rooms.
At the intermission, many of the playgoers passed up the chance to refresh themselves with lemonades and rushed over to get a look at the goings-on outside the Hate Concert auditorium. Most of the cast dashed over, too, several of them narrowly averting being smashed over the head with truncheons by police who mistakenly took them to be street rowdies. The two opposing factions faced off across the tense police lines, Beedle-ettes and their supporters on one side, the black citizens and Lubavitchers on the other, snarling and spitting at each other. Safe inside the auditorium, heavily protected by security guards, Taylor Beedle, using a bullhorn, egged on the crowd with his smoothly incendiary message; the sense of it was that although it was primarily blacks and Jews who were behaving poorly, there were others, such as Italians, who were causing trouble as well.
“You know who you are,” he said menacingly, “and if you don’t, we will come to your hallowed house and remind you.”
Gurney was annoyed with the cast for standing around and watching the grim spectacle. Surely they were not there to pick up acting tips. And he certainly hoped they would be able to get back to the theatre in time for the start of Act Two. With all its potential for mass citywide slaughter, the Hate Concert scene had a kind of malevolent sweep to it that made Gurney long for the original version of Violencia. Whatever its flaws, he had a feeling it would have been proudly able to match Taylor Beedle’s Hate Concert, moment for murderous moment. As it was, you could hardly blame the audience for leaving the new folksy, only mildly violent musical for a taste of the real thing.
Violencia! Page 17
