Sherlock Holmes: The American Years

by Michael Kurland

  Believe it or not, they were there willingly. And what’s more, they were hosting a reception for Sasanoff and his actors at their home . . . and they were asking us to come!

  “We would’ve sent an invitation,” Mr. Turnbull said to Father, “but frankly . . .”

  Frank he was not ready to be, though—he stopped himself with an awkward cough. But it was easy enough to follow his train of thought.

  We assumed you were at death’s door, Senator . . . and your disreputable son may as well have passed through it long ago, as far as we’re concerned.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, employing all my acting skill to conceal the gritting of my teeth. “But the hour is so late, and my father—”

  “Accepts the invitation,” the Old Senator rumbled. “I would very much like to meet this Sasanoff, and I’m sure my son would as well.”

  “Splendid!” Mrs. Turnbull brayed. “Why, having you there will make the affair seem almost respectable!”

  The Turnbulls laughed—Mr. Turnbull rather sheepishly, I thought—then said hurried farewells and scurried off to see that all was in readiness for the reception.

  “There was a time,” Father mused, “when people like Horace and Eleanor Turnbull wouldn’t set foot in a theater, let alone invite theater folk into their home.”

  I nodded, silent, not stating the obvious: There was a time—not so long ago—when our family had been like that as well.

  The Old Senator gave his head a weary shake.

  “Things change, I suppose,” he said. “People change.”

  “Father . . . ,” I began, not sure what words were about to follow.

  I don’t think he heard me.

  “Well, we mustn’t dawdle,” he said, and he pushed himself to his feet with a tremulous grunt. “The Turnbulls are depending on us to provide the illusion of decorum.”

  “Counting on you,” I said.

  This he surely heard—and merely chose to ignore.

  Not half an hour later, we were in that overstuffed museum of porcelain and crystal and Quality, the Turnbulls’ manor. As you might imagine, it was bittersweet being there: The last time I’d been allowed inside, it was to see Miss Mary Turnbull (now Mrs. David Crowell of Boston, I understand).

  Yet I didn’t linger over old slights. There was Father to think of, of course, with his shuffling gait and watery eyes ever searching for the next available chair. And what’s more, wherever in the house we went, whoever might be stopping the Old Senator to pay homage, nearby I could pick out that most intoxicating of sounds: the vainglorious yet endearing chatter of actors talking about acting.

  There were perhaps fifty guests milling about the foyer and dining and sitting rooms, and the ten members of Sasanoff’s company were spread evenly among them. I’m sure you can imagine my acid amusement upon seeing the young scions of the Adams and Asbury families crowding around the ingénue who’d played Viola or the Fosters and Miltons chuckling at some bon mot tossed off by the portly player who’d embodied “Belch” not long before.

  Actors, it seemed, were no longer the lepers they once were . . . provided they have English accents and patrons like the Turnbulls. Or perhaps, I thought to myself, it wasn’t so much a matter of certain low-borns rising as the high-born falling. How many of the families represented at the reception had seen their fortunes go up in smoke, along with that of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, which had supplied their once-massive wealth, in the great Chicago inferno eight years ago? How many were simply keeping up appearances after being wiped out in the latest financial panic, now only a few months behind us?

  For all I knew, even the Turnbulls themselves might be but a step away from the poorhouse. Certainly, the reception lacked the panache of social events of old. There were no ice sculptures, no imported caviars or live lobsters, no musicians playing tasteful, sedate chamber pieces.

  Still, second-hand or not, the red carpet had been rolled out for Sasanoff and his troupe, and I couldn’t begrudge them their social acceptance. Being “theater folk,” they were, in a way, my folk, and no matter how poor I’d found their production, I was pleased for them as comrades now.

  Which exponentially compounds the irony of the fact that it was I, of all those present, who managed to grievously insult them.

  It began when Mr. Turnbull lumbered up with Sasanoff to make introductions. In marked contrast to his doughy host, the actor was a small, slender man—no more than five and a quarter feet tall and whippet-lean. Perhaps to make up for his diminutive stature, however, Sasanoff was oversized in every other regard. He crossed one foot before the other, fluttered a hand over his head, and bowed so low he practically doubled himself up like a folded straight razor.

  “At your service, Senator,” Sasanoff intoned into the carpet. “I trust you enjoyed our humble fumblings upon the stage this evening?”

  The Old Senator cocked a bushy gray eyebrow at me, probably wondering if such obsequiousness was the norm among the theater crowd. I had to wonder if this was the real reason Father had accepted the Turnbulls’ invitation in the first place—so he could see for himself the sort of people I’d chosen to associate myself with. If so, he couldn’t but be disappointed.

  “It was a welcome diversion,” he said dryly. He was wearing his best taciturn Yankee look, an expression that gives off all the warmth and cheer of a marble slab.

  “And you?” Sasanoff said, as always with actors searching for a more receptive audience—in this case, in me. “What did you think of our little production?”

  “Well . . .”

  I smiled, taking a moment to chose my words carefully. The Old Senator, of course, has no use for “blarney” and no respect for those who employ it. For his sake, I would have to be honest . . . so far as I could.

  “It was most spirited. I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage.”

  It was, in retrospect, too transparent, as backhanded compliments go. Sasanoff squinted at me with slightly befuddled irritation, as if I were some mysterious, malfunctioning machine: a clock that sneezes when it should chime.

  “The senator’s son dabbles in acting himself,” Mr. Turnbull said. “I’m sure he found your performance most educational.”

  “Yes. Quite,” I said, hoping my seething wasn’t as obvious as it felt. Four years as a utility player in companies across the country might not make me a star, but it’s hardly the work of a “dabbler”!

  “Ahhhhh,” Sasanoff said in a way that implied this new bit of intelligence explained everything. “So tell me . . . what did you learn from us tonight?”

  “It was instructive to see a work of this type brought to life with such remarkable vigor.”

  Sasanoff was ready for just such a feint.

  “Oh? Do go on,” he said with a hostile sort of chuckle, and I now recognized in him that most ubiquitous—and dangerous—of theater creatures: the thin-skinned Narcissus. If he sensed praise or scorn withheld, either one, he felt compelled to dig it out like a pig after truffles. “What made our ‘vigor’ so ‘instructive,’ in your opinion?”

  “Well . . . the acting was so forceful throughout. In the time-honored tradition of the melodrama. Yet Twelfth Night is so light a confection.”

  “You’re saying we overplayed it?” Sasanoff snarled, and around the room heads began to turn our way.

  “I’m saying that a less . . . potent approach might have suited the material better.”

  “And if not potent,” Sasanoff boomed, suddenly playing the scene like something out of Richard III, “then what else should a proper performance be?”

  “Natural,” I said quietly.

  “Natural?”

  Sasanoff threw his arms wide and swung back and forth on his hips, now addressing not just me but everyone within earshot—which must have included the entire population of Hartford, he bellowed so.

  “Acting has nothing to do with appearing ‘natural,’ boy! Acting is about dynamism, vitality, dash, gusto. If you wanted to watch people being ‘
natural,’ you wouldn’t go to the theater. You could stand on any street corner and soon be bored to death by the ‘naturalism’ all around you! Audiences crave the magic of the stage. The grand gesture. The majestic pose. Heroes and villains, gods and goddesses. The supranatural. Or have they not taught you that in the great theaters of the American backwoods?”

  “Hear, hear!” someone called out, and I turned to see that most of my “comrades” in our impromptu audience—my fellow thespians—were glaring at me with naked contempt.

  “I disagree that acting is about so simple and easily shammed a thing as dash,” I said to Sasanoff, and my training paid off this much, at least: I think I actually managed to sound calm and thoughtful rather than angry and humiliated. “I prefer to think it is about truth . . . something bombast quickly destroys.”

  Sasanoff leaned in so close I thought his forehead might bump my chest.

  “I will not stand here and be called a hamfatter by some know-nothing pup,” he stage-whispered, and he stepped back, bowed again to Father, and then whirled on his heel and swept away.

  As much as I hated his acting, I had to give the man this much: He truly did have a knack for the “grand gesture.” In the silent moment that followed, my biggest fear was that someone might actually applaud.

  I was spared that indignity, at least. Eventually, the low buzz of conversation rose up again, followed by the clinking of glasses and the squeaking of chairs and the thousand other sounds one usually ignores at a soiree, but which I welcomed now with all my heart because it meant my scene with Sasanoff was truly over.

  “So glad you could come,” Mr. Turnbull said stiffly, and he stalked off toward Mrs. Turnbull, who’d been keeping watch over the party from a safehold by the punch bowl. The scowl she gave her husband—and then swung on me—would have had a charging tiger turning tail in terror.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Father. “Perhaps we should go.”

  “Don’t apologize,” the Old Senator growled. But the glower upon his face was reserved—I was relieved to see—for Sasanoff alone. “You stood your ground before a fool. That’s something to be proud of, not ashamed.” He squirmed in his seat, as if suddenly finding himself atop a tack, then looked up at me. “Do you really believe what you told that gasbag about acting?”

  “Every word.”

  Father nodded thoughtfully, and I was still waiting for whatever he might say next when someone came striding up and stopped beside me.

  “Sir,” I heard a man say—a man with an English accent. A member of Sasanoff’s troupe, no doubt, eager to act as his master’s second. I turned half-expecting the slap of a glove across my face.

  Instead, I found our young Malvolio, William Escott . . . with his right arm stretched out toward me.

  “May I shake your hand?”

  “I should very much like to shake yours, if you’re truly willing,” I said as I clasped his hand warily. “You’re the best actor in Sasanoff’s company, Mr. Escott.”

  “Oh, no. Not the best.” Escott flashed a wry smile. “Merely the most resistant to direction.”

  As our handshake ended—it had been firm yet decidedly friendly—Escott turned and offered his hand to Father.

  “Senator,” he said as they shook, “your son would make a fine critic.”

  “Perhaps he would,” Father replied. “Only he believes he belongs onstage himself.”

  “I’ll wager he belongs there a great deal more than certain others we could name.”

  “Mr. Escott,” I said, shaking my head with amazement, “you’re being incredibly polite to a man who just insulted your manager . . . perhaps your entire troupe. You’re not in the least bit offended?”

  Escott smiled again. “By no means! Intrigued is what I am.”

  Beyond him, on the other side of the sitting room, I could see Sasanoff huddling with his Viola and a few other cast mates, all of them scowling murderously at me—and at Escott.

  I nodded ever so slightly toward Escott’s colleagues. “You probably shouldn’t be seen conversing with me so amiably.”

  Escott waved a dismissive hand at the other actors, his expression turning cold, almost scornful, with chilling speed.

  “I’ve learned what I can from the likes of them. Of late, my thoughts have come more into alignment with yours, if what you said a moment ago is any indication. The classical style of acting does not offer a true reflection of humanity. It is a warped mirror, broadening that which is small, twisting and distorting that which is idiosyncratic. Unlike Sasanoff, I could stand on any street corner and find infinite cause for fascination, innumerable insights into the workings of man. Our company’s grotesque caperings, on the other hand, are mere pantomime. Were anyone to emote and gesticulate and pop their eyes in public as we do on stage, they’d soon be sent to the madhouse!”

  By the end of this soliloquy, Escott was emoting quite a bit himself, and his drawn cheeks and high forehead flushed pink with excitement. I was surprised by the passion with which he spoke—as was the Old Senator.

  “Young man,” Father said, “it sounds to me as if you’re more interested in people than acting.”

  Escott nodded with what seemed to be rueful amusement.

  “The proper study of man is man,” he sighed. “Actually, that’s what drew me to the stage in the first place. I’ve been working on the assumption that the study of acting is the study of man. But now I have my doubts.”

  “You were close,” I said. “It’s just that it’s the other way around. The study of man is the study of acting.”

  Escott squinted and tilted his head slightly to one side, as if searching for a new angle to gaze upon something he couldn’t quite pull into focus.

  “Would you mind elaborating on that?”

  “Not at all. Only . . .” I looked down at Father. I had so much to say, but was this the time to say it? “ . . . I fear I’d put you both to sleep.”

  “I haven’t felt so awake in weeks,” the Old Senator said firmly, sitting up straighter in his chair.

  “All right, then,” I said, and it was my turn to soliloquize.

  I spoke of things I’d never dared share with Father before, fearing he’d find it silly, devoting deep thought to such a trivial thing as playacting. I’d never even told him it was he who’d sparked my interest in acting in the first place, with his habit of inserting long, thoughtful, dramatic pauses into speeches I knew he knew by heart. I’d always assumed he wouldn’t take it as a compliment.

  Yet as I spooled out that and more—my ideas on verisimilitude of emotion and character and the importance of making each line not a pronouncement but a new, naturally occurring revelation—our father was just as engaged an audience as Escott. So freed did I feel by the Old Senator’s attention, his actual interest in my thoughts, I even found myself revealing the researches I’ve done in disguise, something I’d long assumed would scandalize our parents to the point of disinheritance.

  “You set up practice as a doctor?” Escott marveled, looking both dismayed and deeply impressed.

  “Only for a few days. While with a company in Cleveland. To see if I could pass as a medical man.”

  I turned to Father, who was finally wearing the frown I’d been expecting all along. Though only a small one, tinged with curiosity.

  “Don’t worry—I referred all my ‘patients’ to real physicians,” I told him. “And after that, I kept to impersonations of a more harmless stripe. I’ve been a Hoosier blacksmith, an Irish railroad worker, a blind beggar—”

  “And what did you learn from these little adventures?” Father asked gravely . . . though not necessarily disapprovingly.

  “That successful acting—acting that creates belief—isn’t about spectacle. It’s about plausibility and honesty. Once an actor learns to focus, in his performance, on what is real and eliminate that which is not, what remains will be Truth.”

  “I see,” Father said. Whether my words could make sense to anyone but another actor, though
, I didn’t know.

  For his part, Escott had lapsed into silent reverie, nodding in such a distracted way it suggested not so much agreement with me as with some private notion of his own. If such was the case, private it was to remain, as Escott never got the chance to give it voice.

  The curtain was rising on the evening’s real drama.

  “What?” someone roared from across the room. “Are you saying we’ve been robbed?”

  We all turned—and by “all,” I mean everyone in the house—toward the sound. Out in the foyer, I could see through the sitting room door, a red-faced, spittle-spewing Horace Turnbull was raving at the top of his lungs as his wife looked on in horror.

  “A thief! A thief in my own home! I should’ve known this was how our hospitality would be repaid!”

  And with that, Mr. Turnbull stomped off toward the master staircase, leaving Mrs. Turnbull behind. His wife stared after him a moment, then slowly turned a wide-eyed, open-mouthed gape on the guests all around her.

  “Ummm,” she said, attempting a smile that never quite took hold. Then she hurried off after her husband.

  One might’ve thought her audience was a mere assemblage of particularly well-wrought topiary, for no one moved or spoke for a full half minute. When someone finally did spring into action, it was the person in the room least suited for springing . . . or standing, for that matter.

  “Help me up,” the Old Senator said.

  I took one arm, Escott stepped in and took the other. When we had Father on his feet, he began shuffling toward the door. Escott and I exchanged a puzzled glance, then dutifully followed after him.

  As we moved out into the foyer, headed for the stairs, the Old Senator—as was so often the case in years past—began to collect followers. Several noble men of Hartford fell in behind us as if we were marching off to take Jerusalem.